Westin Maui Resort Spa - Hotels On Maui Lahaina, Hawaii

The Westin Maui Resort & Spa is located along Ka'anapali Beach in Lahaina on the island of Maui and easily falls into the mega-resort category.

Overview

The Westin Maui Resort & Spa is not to be confused with the The Westin Ka'anapali Ocean Resort Villas which is a hotel and timeshare property and is further north on Kahekili Beach Park.

The property here is really nice and quite large so it feels like the high end resort that it claims to be versus a hotel. It's located right on the excellent and popular Ka'anapali Beach and next to Whalers Village.

Arrival

Getting here is pretty easy and once you pull up you'll just valet your car at the main entrance area. You'll get an option to use the free self-park area after check or you can continue to use the free valet (not including tip, see Tipping). To be clear, the free parking isn't really free because you're paying for it as part of the usual $30 per night resort, see Hotel & Resort Fees & Taxes.

The self parking area is right by the main entrance so if you want to save some tipping money it's the way to go. The problem is that the self-park is small and fills up pretty quick (even during the off season) and once full you'll have to valet.

Once the valet lot is full the valet guys will go and park in the self park area and will double park and block other self park drivers in. This happened to us as we left early in the morning and the valet guys parked a car behind ours (we were in a self park space) so we had to wait while they moved it which is pretty annoying. Clearly, the parking situation here needs to be addressed.

Check In

We didn't have any problems checking in and it was a super fast process. You do get issued way too many plastic cards though. We got two room keys, two pool cards, and one card so we could get into the self-parking area. Why can't this all be on one card like any other hotel?

Let me cover the pool cards first. The pool cards are ridiculous and reminded of getting a bathroom pass back in grade school. Each guest will get one card and you can turn that one card in for one towel. That's right, one towel per card is all you get. What a goofy system. Surely towel theft can't be so bad that you need to do this to paying guests? In our case, we wanted towels after the towel hut closed in the evening so we had to walk all the way back out to the bell services desk (outside by the valet) just to get pool towels.

Room

Our room was very newly renovated, in fact it felt and smelled like it was literally completed about 5 minutes before we walked in. The upside is that it felt clean, like a new home, rather than a hotel that's had thousands of dirty feet all over it.

The paint was perfect, the bathroom was spotless and the white tile grout was still white. There wasn't a spot of mold to be found in the bathroom, not a scratch on any furniture, and no dirty spots on the carpet.

The downside is that it smelled of volatile organic compounds (VOC's) from the paint and carpet and if you are the type that is sensitive to smells then you'd likely have had a raging headache in minutes. I wanted to ask for a different room but figured that all of the new rooms would be like this and we didn't have the time to deal with it and wouldn't be spending any time in the room except to sleep anyhow. Zero VOC paints are an option these days but the Westin folks didn't spring for that I guess. To be fair, I would guess that just a few days later this wouldn't be an issue ever again.

My other complaint with this standard room was the size. It's listed as 340 sq ft which is pretty small but it felt much smaller. The bathroom area was so tiny with a toilet and shower crammed into it and a sliding door (because it's too small for a traditional hinged door). The shower itself was very nice and modern and had excellent drainage.

The single sink is right outside the bathroom and it had an equally tiny counter area. A family of four would be seriously cramped in here.

The lanai size was par for this miniature course but had a nice view, in our case, of the west Maui mountains. Other than size, the room was good overall.

Pool

Hope you have kids, because you'll want to play with them in this pool and a single grown adult might look goofy in the slide line all by themselves (do it anyhow though). It's a nice little mini water park that they have here with several pool areas to swim around in and a cool water slide.

Expect there to be kids all over this pool area and when they start to drive you nuts just head over to the adults only pool for some peace and quiet.

We only found one hot tub which isn't nearly enough because it wasn't very big, wasn't even hot (barely warm), and the bubbles / jets took about 5 minutes to kick in.

Interesting note on the staff here. I wanted to hit the hot tub one evening but didn't know how late it stayed open so I saw a lady walking by who looked like she worked at the Westin and asked about the pool hours. She didn't know but asked my room number and said she would find out and call me. Two seconds later she saw a sign that I missed and told me the hours. I thought it was odd that an employee wouldn't know such basic info but later saw that she was a hostess at the outdoor burger restaurant on property. She didn't work at the actual hotel, just at an on property restaurant, but was going to get me an answer and call my room. That's just one noteworthy example of the overall very good staff of people who work here.

Prices

Considering the excellent location right on Ka'anapali Beach and how you are also right next Whalers Village where you can shop and eat, the prices here seem pretty reasonable for this caliber of hotel. The $30 per night resort fee is a huge pet peeve of mine and I really wish they'd either stop it or simply wrap it up in the hotel room rate. So plan on another $60 per night in resort charges and taxes on top of whatever room rate you get.

Conclusion

I really like this hotel overall. I think it's good for couples but better for families with kids because of the great pool area. I would suggest looking at a larger-than-standard room if you plan to spend any time in the room beyond sleeping.

Although I had some complaints with the smell of our room because of a recent renovation, that's likely a minor and very temporary issue that won't be such a problem in a few months.

• Building: High Rise	• Building: Lanai / Balcony	• Building: Resort	• Property: Business Center	• Property: Dining On Site
• Property: Fitness Room	• Property: Stores On Site	• Room: Coffee Maker	• Room: Hair Dryer	• Room: Mini Fridge
• Room: Safe	• Recreation: Beach	• Recreation: Hot Tub	• Recreation: Pool	• Recreation: Water Park
• Recreation: Water Slides	• Internet: Free In Room	• Parking: Free Self Park	• Parking: Free Valet