Kings' Land NOT so kid Friendly!
I just returned from a week at KL on the Big Island. I had a 2BR Plus, which basically just gets you a nicer view from the 1st or 2nd floor. I called about a week prior to arrival and asked about a high floor corner unit as I had read those were the best. The agent I spoke with told me because of my Elite status we were confirmed in a "high floor corner 2BR unit". Sounded good, so couldn't wait to get there. When we arrived I found out we were in the "near end" of Bldg. 10, which is about as far away from the pool as you can get, save Bldg 11. And the "corner unit" wasn't in the corner at all. In fact I was told later that there are no 2BR corner units - they are all 1BR units. But I have no evidence of this... The units look nice, but are small compared to what I hear the Bay Club offers. The pool doesn't look like the first pic on the HGVC website as there are no units directly behind it - that is where the clubhouse is. Also, the MG states there is a "lazy river". Any pool I have went to that had a "lazy river" implied a circular flowing river that you sat in a tube and float around the river passing other pool areas. I don't know what part of the KL pool is supposed to be the "lazy river" as I never saw it. All I saw was an adult section, two large adult/kids sections, and a kid section with a sand (small rocks) beach. The pool was nice and never really overcrowded, which was good, but I imagine that will change once all the new units they are building across the street are opened for business.
The reason I put that the resort is not kid friendly is that the insulation between the floors is NOT adequate. Being on the 2nd floor, I could hear the folks above us quite often but it wasn't too loud to cause any issues. The same could not be said for the folks below us unfortunately. I had my 2 yr old grandson with us and as with most 2 yr olds, he packs a lot of energy that was released by running around. The resort clearly states that "resort quiet time" is to be observed from 10PM-6:30AM each day. So imagine my surprise on our second night when we get a knock at the door from security at 9PM. He told the folks below that we had another hour before quiet time, but they insisted he come talk to us, so he did. We did our best to keep our grandson from running a lot after that, and ensured he was in bed by 10PM each night. Our last night we got him to bed right at 10PM and the folks had once again called security around 9:45PM. I guess their watch was broke?
While this was obviously frustrating (for all parties involved) it could have easily been solved with better flooring and insulation between the floors. I have stayed at HHV several times and never heard anyone above us nor have we had anyone complain about our grandson running around there from the folks below. Other minor issues is the lighting in the kitchen isn't that great and the AC unit doesn't have enough vents for the space being cooled, e.g. there is one vent for the kitchen, dining, and living rooms. And for some reason the breakers to the lights in the bathrooms and hallways kept tripping. I think I'll pass on KL again anytime soon - disappointed with the (expected and advertised) pool features and lack of quality/construction in the (small) units there.
The one bright spot was that a guy stopped me by the pool one day and asked if I owned there, liked it, etc. as he had just plopped down $18K for a 1BR bi-annual usage and asked me what I thought. I told him to rescind ASAP and gave him some ideas for a better way to spend less than $18K for annual usage and more points and pointed him to tugbbs.
