I went to the Royal Hawaiian for my birthday week....

I went to the Royal Hawaiian for my birthday week. I checked in the 24th of May and checked out the 31st of May. On the 26th, my birthday, we returned to our room from the Luau to discover that is was full of flying termites. Now I have stayed at the RH many times in the past and found that any problem was soon resolved by the staff. But not this time. I called downstairs and was told they could spray the room but we would have to put up with the smell for the evening. Also I was told that they had bugs in the lobby so it was no big deal....really? I said that was not acceptable. The maids on the floor came in to clean the dead bugs out of the bathtub and told us the hotel should take good care of us since the hotel was not full. Well they didnt! We had to go to the lobby and wait for someone to help us and the we were moved to a room on the same floor but blocks away. When we started moving our 3 suitcase of close from the drawers and closet we found that the new room had no AC. It was broken. So downstairs I went again. Again, I had to stand in line with people checking in. Remember this is 945pm at night. I had no wish to be changing rooms and dealing with clothes and suitcases when I should be out enjoying my birthday.

So.......once I see someone, they give me the room right next door to my old room. But this new room had a bathroom that was basically non-existent. You could either sit on the toilet or close the bathrooom door but you could not do both. There was no bathtub, just a stall shower. The room had dressers but there were no drawers for clothes. The closet had a rail for clothes but 1/2 the rail was taken up by cement wall. This too was not acceptable but we slept that night with our clothes still in our suitcases and gave up on celebrating the birthday. We were just to tired and to angry to enjoy anything at this point.

The next day I went down and asked to see the manager on duty. I believe his name was Evan. He did move us to a very nice ocean view room. Now for the bugs we were paying $375 per night plus $35 resort fee plus taxes. So this was not slouch vacation to begin with. But the upgrade was very nice and very much appreciated. And finally someone said they were sorry for our inconvenience. Not one person the night before said they were sorry. Not one.

Well from there it just did not get better........it was nice but we did not get our room made up any day before 330-4pm in the afternoon. We finally had to call one day to have it done before 1pm. Then when they would make the room up at 4pm they would be knocking 2 hours later at 6pm to turn it down for the evening. Really??? When we said, no we just got in our room....they would hand us our pillow chocolates and say goodnight. One night we were in the hall as they were coming around to turn down the rooms and they asked if we needed anything and we said not really. So instead of going to our room and turning it down they handed us our chocolates in the hall and said Aloha.

Finally when I checked out on my bill was a charge for $127 concierge service. I guess that is from bothering the concierge more than most for a 1 week stay. All that room moving and all. I cannot think that it would be for asking them to book the Luau at the RH that cost $353 for 2. Since it was at the hotel I would not think it was for just asking them to make me a reservations. Isnt that what a concierge is paid to do by the hotel? I am not quite sure what that charge was for but I paid it anyway.

So there you have it.......my magical 60th birthday week at the not so magical Royal Hawaiian. It use to be a very very nice hotel. But honestly, if I wanted Howard Johnson, I would have stayed there and save a lot of money on the room and service.