Hilton Hawaiian Village Termite Infestation

alwysonvac · Sep 21, 2014

Well, it’s been a week since we got back from Hawaii and I’ve had some time to reflect on everything.

I’m thankful that my 1st week was great (3 nights at Disney Aulani three bedroom grand villa (Room 501) followed by 4 night splurge in the Grand Waikikian three bedroom Penthouse villa (Room 3902)).

Part of my 2nd week was saved by our 2 days/1 night trip to the Four Seasons Resort in Maui. It was my planned surprise for my extended family (3 couples). They didn’t know where we were going until we got to the airport and pulled up in the driveway resort. In hindsight, I wished I booked our entire 2nd week at the Starwood’s timeshare resort in Maui.

I'm also thankful that half of our large party (the 1st timers to Hawaii) left after the first week and only 6 of us who have been to Hawaii before stayed for the 2nd week. It was a bad situation because I had no other options unless I wanted to pay for three hotel rooms somewhere else for the remainder of our trip.

My vacation time is very valuable to me. I want to getaway to relax and unwind from the daily work grind. I don’t want to spend over $800pp on airfare followed by 8+ hours on a flight to stay in a bug infested room and/or have to allocate time to address housekeeping/maintenance issues.

In the past, I’ve only shared photos of the best parts of the Hilton Hawaii Village while we continued to address housekeeping/maintenance issues onsite with the resort. But I see now, that I should have followed up with HGVC Corporate office as well after each visit since the underlying management problem doesn’t appear to be getting addressed. So going forward, I will be following up with the HGVC Corporate office as well as posting reviews of my stay along with photos of the issues we encountered on the various websites.

Fern Modena · Sep 21, 2014

Almost every house gets tented in CA when you sell? Isn't that a bit of an exaggeration? I lived in CA for over 50 years, in at least seven houses. Only one had termite problems, and it was from an addition the previous owners had added.

Fern

1Kflyerguy said:
wow, that's not what i wanted to read after finally booking my first trip there...

But i believe i have heard that is very hard to control termites in tropical regions.. While California is not tropical, almost every house gets tented when you sell...

alwysonvac · Sep 21, 2014

1Kflyerguy said:
Seems like they tried to compensate you for the poor experience, though as mentioned you can't ever get the time back...

Still excited about our first trip to HHV next year, but reading your story, and Trip Advisor comment by guests and Management's response does give me pause about my trip to HHV next year..

I don't want to take away from anyone's excitement regarding their upcoming trip to Hawaii. However I want folks to be aware of the situation and maybe even lower expectations regarding overall HGVC room quality to avoid disappointment.

The old "Roughing it" thread proves we all have different criteria in regards to what we prefer from our timeshare accommodations - http://www.tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93531.

The Lagoon Tower rooms are definitely not high end.
PROS: The Lagoon tower is the closest to the ocean (compared to the two other towers at HHV), providing great views and offering the largest rooms.
CONS: The Lagoon tower is a converted apartment building. There are no ceiling fans in the living room or bedrooms. It has the old standard hotel style bathroom with one sink and a combined tub/shower. There are no bathroom fans. There isn’t a washer dryer in the room but there are washers & dryers in the building. The elevators are shared by everyone (guests, housekeeping, bell services, etc) which means longer elevator wait times during peak times of the day.

ONGOING CONCERN: I expect a clean and well maintained room from HGVC. I’ve been staying at the Lagoon Tower since 2003. Based on the Lagoon Tower maintenance issues we’ve experienced over the years, HGVC doesn’t do a great job in maintaining the Lagoon Tower rooms (see photos below).

In addition, there are three main pests that HGVC Management has to deal with – bed bugs, termites and cockroaches. The likelihood of running into these pest issues really depends on how well HGVC Management is on top of these issues.
- Is there a dedicated supervisor/manager assigned to pest control?
- Is the housekeeping staff trained to detect the signs?
- Are all of the appropriate folks alerted when the first signs are detected?
- Is someone assigned to ensure that immediate action is taken and to track these incidents to determine if any additional preventive measures need to be taken (like calling in the professionals outside the normal maintenance windows).

From what I've experienced, HGVC clearly doesn’t have an actionable plan in place to resolve normal housekeeping/maintenance issues or bug infestation issues from both a guest satisfaction perspective and room maintenance perspective to ensure problems are resolved immediately or better yet avoided all together. Sadly, I suspect that we will see more bug reports until these ~~are~~ issues are dealt with at a HGVC Corporate Level.

Last year, I was told by the resort manager that the Lagoon Tower has 98% occupancy rate year round. I can certainly see this by just looking at online availability within a 9 month period. With the extremely high occupancy rate at HHV, HGVC has limited options when a room change is required. As a result, any reported infestation needs to be addressed immediately.

NOTE: Grand Waikikian might have less housekeeping/maintenance issues for now since it’s still relatively new compared to the two older HHV towers (Lagoon and Kalia). However bugs (termites, bed bugs and cockroaches) will most certainly impact guests in all three towers. We’ve already had a 2013 cockroach infestation reported at the Grand Waikikian - http://tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=194972

2014 PHOTOS

Three Bedroom Penthouse (Room 2472/2473)

Two Bedroom Premier Oceanfront (Room 2366)

2013 PHOTOS

One Bedroom Plus (Room 1063)

2010 PHOTOS

Three Bedroom Penthouse Room 2467

Here's a link to the rest of my photos along with a description
https://www.flickr.com/photos/40089311@N05/sets/72157647310873567/ (I'm still searching through my old photos).

ThierryJapan · Sep 22, 2014

Awfull

I just read your report and saw all the pictures. It seems that those units were never maintained.

You should send all those pictures to HGVC president telling him what a poor job he is doing, maybe he should play less golf and go more often on random basis to check the rooms....

Any reactions from them except the usual bullxxxt "thank you for your comments" we will do our best to correct it.

My guess is no, they are too busy giving it to the next occupant

Let us know

1Kflyerguy · Sep 22, 2014

Fern Modena said:
Almost every house gets tented in CA when you sell? Isn't that a bit of an exaggeration? I lived in CA for over 50 years, in at least seven houses. Only one had termite problems, and it was from an addition the previous owners had added.

Fern

Well, everyone's mileage may vary, and sounds like you have had better luck than me. Maybe its not every house, but i believe majority. 4 out five houses i have purchased have required some form of mitigation.. and tenting is very common in the SF bay area.

1Kflyerguy · Sep 22, 2014

alwysonvac said:
I don't want to take away from anyone's excitement regarding their upcoming trip to Hawaii. However I want folks to be aware of the situation and maybe even lower expectations regarding overall HGVC room quality to avoid disappointment.

Thanks for sharing everything, definitely still looking forward to my trip, but will lower my expectations a bit.

We are still relatively new to HGVC, and trying the various resorts.. So far i have been pretty happy with the club, but there have been a few misses. During our recent stay at MarBrisa in Carlsbad, my wife was commenting that resort was nice, but no real 'Wow factor".. sounds like I should hope she likes the resort, as the actual in room amenities may not impress..

sjuhawk_jd · Sep 23, 2014

alwysonvac said:
...So going forward, I will be following up with the HGVC Corporate office as well as posting reviews of my stay along with photos of the issues we encountered on the various websites.

Well, writing to Corporate office is worthwhile. Since Lagoon tower is all sold out and is really never rented out through Hilton website due to high occupancy from owners and club owners, HGVC will probably not care much for the online reviews. Bad online reviews will only hurt the owners who rent out their weeks. I do rent out few weeks each year and none of my guests have ever reported any issues. Most folks are just thrilled to get a 2 bedroom for around the same cost as a per night rate for the hilton hotel (and the hotel might be sold out for those dates). Since most guests are not used to "Four Seasons" and "Conrad Hilton" quality, they are just happy to be in Hawaii. I am sorry to say, but HGVC is counting on these guests to keep coming back.

Last month, I stayed in Lagoon tower after spending nights in St. Regis and Conrad in Japan for two weeks. I was not thrilled based on what I saw, but I was not in much complaining mood in hawaii. I did not get the penthouse till 5 PM, although I came to the resort around noon time. Folks were still working on the bathtub when I got to the room at 5 PM. It seems the family before me was messy and clogged the bathtub with Sand. Without asking, resort manager gave me a $50 resort credit.

Keep the good work alwaysonvac, it will help to make Lagoon tower a better place.

alwysonvac · Sep 24, 2014

sjuhawk_jd said:
Well, writing to Corporate office is worthwhile. Since Lagoon tower is all sold out and is really never rented out through Hilton website due to high occupancy from owners and club owners, HGVC will probably not care much for the online reviews. Bad online reviews will only hurt the owners who rent out their weeks. I do rent out few weeks each year and none of my guests have ever reported any issues. Most folks are just thrilled to get a 2 bedroom for around the same cost as a per night rate for the hilton hotel (and the hotel might be sold out for those dates). Since most guests are not used to "Four Seasons" and "Conrad Hilton" quality, they are just happy to be in Hawaii. I am sorry to say, but HGVC is counting on these guests to keep coming back.

Last month, I stayed in Lagoon tower after spending nights in St. Regis and Conrad in Japan for two weeks. I was not thrilled based on what I saw, but I was not in much complaining mood in hawaii. I did not get the penthouse till 5 PM, although I came to the resort around noon time. Folks were still working on the bathtub when I got to the room at 5 PM. It seems the family before me was messy and clogged the bathtub with Sand. Without asking, resort manager gave me a $50 resort credit.

Keep the good work alwaysonvac, it will help to make Lagoon tower a better place.

Lagoon Tower is rented all of the time by Hilton.
Don't you remember the threads from time to time questioning why there's availability on Hilton.com and nothing online via the HGVC website.

The Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach Resort & Spa is one of Hilton's largest and most profitable properties. They don't want bad reviews. Take a look at the Lagoon tower availability on the Hilton.com. You'll generally see more availability there than you see online at the HGVC website. For example, look at 2014 availability at Hilton.com vs HGVC.com. Where do you think all of the last minute HGVC open season availability is coming from?

I've been staying at the Lagoon Tower almost every year since 2003. I finally bought a week at the Lagoon Tower in 2009 after several stays. I never said that I wanted or expected Four Season quality. Here's the expectation I stated:

ONGOING CONCERN: I expect a clean and well maintained room from HGVC. I’ve been staying at the Lagoon Tower since 2003. Based on the Lagoon Tower maintenance issues we’ve experienced over the years, HGVC doesn’t do a great job in maintaining the Lagoon Tower rooms (see photos below).

As shown in my photos, I don't expected mold, dirty air vents, stain furniture, peeling paint, etc at a Days Inn, Hampton Inn, Fairfield Inn or a Best Western so I certainly don't expect it at a Hilton timeshare. I would be surprised if anyone would

If HGVC can't handle keeping up with the small stuff like housekeeping/maintenance how are they going to handle the bigger issues like termites, bedbugs and cockroaches. Honolulu is on the top 50 bed bug cites and the Hilton Hawaiian Village is on the bedbug registry list.

Being quiet in fear of impacts to potential rentals doesn't help the situation. It just allows conditions to get worst and that's not what we paid for. I hope all HGVC guests (owners and non-owners) who experience bad housekeeping/maintenance issues at any HGVC resort share their experiences on the various websites (RCI, tripadvisor, yelp, facebook,etc) as well as HGVC corporate office.

As I stated before, I really like the room layouts and view that the Lagoon Tower offers which is why I decided to buy a week there after several stays. But things seem to be getting worst and this recent experience really doesn't sit well with me. I also keep thinking that Hilton hasn't learned from their Kalia Tower mold issue closing (In 2002 Peter Schall, senior vice president and managing director for Hilton in Hawaii at the time, was quoted saying the mold was discovered by a housekeeper on June 7, but the union representing 1,500 workers at the Hilton said housekeepers had notified management of the mold several months ago.).

Hilton Hawaiian Village Termite Infestation

alwysonvac

Fern Modena

alwysonvac

ThierryJapan

1Kflyerguy

TUG Review Crew: Veteran

1Kflyerguy

TUG Review Crew: Veteran

sjuhawk_jd

alwysonvac