Your first impression of this hotel is breaktaking...

Your first impression of this hotel is breaktaking. The foyer leads you into an open lobby area with lush gardens, a large koi pond complete with pink flamingos and even a majestic black swan. This area leads into multiple swimming pools, slide, adult only area. Off the lobby up one flight of stairs is the weight room/gym area, which is open - I really enjoyed this concept. The hotel is perfectly situated on the beach, not far from the Whaler's Village, which is a mini mall with stores, restaurants on the beach, and let's us not forget an ABC store. The hotel is also in an excellent location to visit other parts of Maui - Lahaina (10 min ride), Road to Hana (30 minutes), ziplining, horseback riding - both 20 minutes away. Perfect time of year for whale watching - no need to go on an excursion, just sit on the beach or look out your balcony if you have an ocean view - they are in abundance EVERYWHERE!
Outside of a few issues we encountered early on in our stay. There were issues with our phone not working. We arrived on superbowl weekend, and the cable was out in a number of rooms in the hotel. They were charging $20/table or $10pp to hold a seat to watch the game. We ended up going elsewhere and had a great time! The worst part of the trip was when my son, daughter and I got stuck in the elevator for about 15 minutes around 10:30pm. The staff clearly did not know what to do, and it took them about 5 minutes to get their plan in place. The engineer ended up talking my children how to open the elevator from the inside - we were stuck between floors. While I understand these things happen, I was extremely disappointed the female manager on duty at the time never came to ensure we were okay, no phone calls, poor customer service. When I followed up with a phone call to her, her response back to me was "well you were only in the elevator for 8 minutes". I'm sure you can guess why my response was back to her. I must admit I was more than a bit disappointed in the service of the hotel up to this point. We were greeted by the not so friendly check in woman upon arrival that I had read about the week prior on Trip Advisor (was hoping to avoid her), no cable service & want to charge their guests anyways to the debacle in the elevator. Mind you we had only been at the hotel for 3 days! In this same timeframe, the other party we traveled with had issues with their room as well (no cable, broken slider to the balcony, etc.
On Monday morning, I called to speak to the management of the hotel. Michael was like a breath of fresh air! He made sure the remainder of our stay went very well, continuously following up with us to ensure our needs were met. He addressed every issue thoroughly and professionally. There were also a number of staff who treated us the same as Michael so I don't want to give the impression this is a horrible hotel. The beds met the Westin standard, never ran out of hot water, etc.
However, if you're accustomed to the Westin "standard", you will not find it here. The rooms are run down a bit, tiles cracked in the showers, mini fridges with broken parts, phones not working properly, elevators breaking down (they had a sign on the broken elevator basically for the remainder of the week), broken sliders, etc. While they are undergoing a renovation, I understand they have been "renovating" for some time. Apparently, the Westin chain needs to pay a little bit of attention to their Maui resort,and put some of the money they receive under their Starwood program back into their property.
If you want to book excursions, please see the American Express desk, Janet Powell was phenomenal!