Vacation Reviews: Royal Lahaina Resort, Maui

Royal Lahaina Resort

Maui

My husband and I stayed at the Royal Lahaina Resort in August of 1997 on one of our stops on our Hawaiian honeymoon. The Royal Lahaina is a nice place. Back then we were thrilled with the resort, because this was the first "big and fancy" vacation that we had ever been on. The Royal Lahaina is a great, standard resort that is the "middle of the road" in the resort selections in Maui. It is not one of the fanciest resorts on the island, but it is definitely not lower end, cheaper lodging. The Royal Lahaina is a great selection if you want great quality without the high costs such as the Grand Wailea or the Ritz Carlton. The resort is north of Black Rock. It is a little past the main strip of hotels in Kaanappli and the Whaler's Village. It is a very short drive over to the Whaler's Village area to shop, dine, or swim. The first thing you will see on your approach to the resort is the large golf course. The Royal Lahaina has a 12 story tower. The rooms have all been remodeled in 2007. The photos of the rooms look great on their website. When we were there, the rooms were plenty big, clean, and the housekeeping service was good. There are also cottages on the property that have a condo setting and include a full kitchen, a living room, and multiple bedrooms. These were nice too. The entire property is very beautiful. The lush landscaping is great and well maintained and of course the views are gorgeous. The lobby of the resort is smaller than most of the bigger hotels and it contained a few shops. There are 3 pools on the property. The pools are basic and smaller compared to the bigger resorts in Maui. We mainly used the pool that was ocean side outside the front of the main tower. There was also a pool that was by the large tennis area that was on the grounds. On this trip we didn't spend a lot of time hanging around the resort, like we do now with 3 little kids. We spent most of our time exploring the island and beach hopping around all the glorious beaches. See some of my other Hawaii posts that contain information about all the wonderful places we have explored around Maui. The beach is nice in front of the Royal Lahaina and it is a little more quiet that south of Black Rock. There are several restaurants at the Royal Lahaina. We had an all inclusive package. I would not recommend getting an all inclusive plan anywhere in Hawaii. It is not needed and there are so many places to explore and choose from on the island that you will not want to be stuck eating at the same places everynight. We also found that the all inclusive packages in Hawaii consisted of you choosing from only a few selected items on the menu. If you chose something on the menu that was not an all inclusive entree, then you had to pay extra for your meal. We didn't like that. There is the Royal Ocean Terrace which is beach side and has indoor and outdoor seating. We ate the buffet breakfasts here, which were wonderful, and a couple dinners. There is also a restaurant called Don The Beachcomber. This restaurant provides a private, intimate atmosphere. There is also an Italian restaurant called Basil Tomatoes, that was also good. There are also a couple bars and lounges. The Royal Lahaina also offers a luau. Many people from the resort and elsewhere, frequent the ocean side luau nightly. The luau is great and if you choose this luau, you will enjoy it. The Royal Lahaina had a good sized parking lot right in front of the hotel. We self parked our car everyday. When the luau is going on, the parking lot does fill up during showtime. There will also be some extra cars at night, due to visitors to the hotel's restaurants. We never had a problem with parking, though. I you are looking for a great hotel in Maui that isn't the most expensive, elaborate hotel, but not the cheapest, basic accommodation, then I recommend the Royal Lahaina. It is a fine choice.