Loading...

Priceline Hotel: Resort Oahu (Waikiki Marina) Hilton Hawaiian Village


Mike Dahmus
By Mike Dahmus,
in

Recommended Posts

We're very interested in attempting a resort bid on Priceline for Waikiki for 5/27-5/30 (checkout 5/31) but after seeing comments about construction, my wife is very very leery of getting stuck with this hotel (some recent reviews indicated no construction problems but many others did). We're very interested in the other 3 resorts (Hilton Hawaiian, Hyatt Regency, Sheraton).

The hotel lists for Priceline on this forum still have what appear to be old zone definitions? Like Waikiki North, Beach, etc. It looked like, based on that list, that we could bid on a zone where the Hyatt was the only resort option, but when I went to priceline, the zones were completely different:

Waikiki Beach Area

Waikiki Center

and

Waikiki Marina

I suspect that all of the resorts are now in Waikiki Beach Area except maybe the Hilton? When I click on the three zones, Beach Area and Marina enable the Resort checkbox.

How can we bid on some or all of the other 3 resort-quality properties without risking the Reef?

Thanks for any help you could provide.

Link to comment

Welcome to BetterBidding!

This was supposed to be an early nite tonite but instead i've updated the Hawaii hotel list :) and to the best of my ability i believe is now accurate. If anyone notices anything that looks incorrect please let us know.

You can't bid the Beach zone and avoid the Outrigger Reef.

You can check HOTWIRE where you can probably use the star rating and amenities to at best figure out the hotel beforehand, or at least avoid the Reef.

Take a look at the updated hotel list and also see what HOTWIRE has to offfer and let us know how we can be of further help.

Please use this HOTWIRE and these PRICELINE LINKS: HOTELS, CAR RENTALS, and AIRFARE to begin your travel purchases

Link to comment

Sorry for being the impetus behind a late night ;+). Unfortunately I don't know that we can bid at all now, given her distaste for the Outrigger Reef, which is a shame, because the prices on Hotwire are a lot higher than what we've seen people win the Hyatt Regency for, for instance.

Might try the Marina at Resort to get the HHV, but it's a bit out of our range (shooting for $150).

Link to comment

When we were in Waikiki a year or so ago we stayed at the Hawaiian Prince... it's not on the beach (although they do run a shuttle to there) and we enjoyed the hotel very much; i'd have no problem staying there again.

If HOTWIRE is out of your range, i'd assume that most hotel-direct bookings will be as well.

If you need help with a bidding strategy for whatever zone you decide let us know. As well, do follow-up with whatever you end up doing for this stay (even if it isn't priceline or hotwire).

Please use this HOTWIRE and these PRICELINE LINKS: HOTELS, CAR RENTALS, and AIRFARE to begin your travel purchases

Link to comment

Thanks. Would probably shoot for something like the Kaiulani on HOTWIRE before going as far away from the beach as the Prince. As it turns out we need to delay our bidding for a week or ten days anyways, so we've got more time.

Also saw an indication on another forum that the Reef has been downgraded back out of Resort. Not sure how to credit this. (I guess somebody there must have won it in a non-resort bid, but I couldn't find it anywhere). FYI.

Link to comment

Don't let the location of the HI Prince turn you off, if you walk out the back door facing the ocean and walk about 3 mins you will be at the ocean right in front of the Hilton Hawaiian Village. The Prince is a far superior hotel to the Princess Kaiulani hotel. The other bonus of the Prince, is you are also very close to the Ala Moana Shopping Center (walking distance) and Ala Moana beach park which has a lovely beach and with usually far less people than Waikiki beach. You can check this out on Google Maps and it shows you where all the beaches are. Hope this helps.

Link to comment

I was just checking things out on the Hawaii Prince Hotel throught the HOTWIRE link. It appears that a package for the Prince (4 nights and a rental car)is a few dollars cheaper than what appears to be the hotel alone....the golf icon is missing in the hotel alone, but all the other icons match up.

4 nights and car $814

4 nights $816.03

If you were planning to rent a car on your trip, this might work for you. When I lived there, parking was free behind the Prince hotel at the marina, don't know if that is the case now.

Link to comment
  • 5 weeks later...

5/27 - 5/31, 2 adults 2 children, showing as $193 today (what I think is the same property until now has shown up most days at $199)

Waikiki Beach Area

4 stars

- Resort

- Beachfront

- Fitness Center

- Pool(s)

- Restaurant(s)

- Business Center

- High-speed Internet Access

- Children's Activity Program

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Link to comment

Please keep all posts for the same stay in the same thread.

Unfortunately the above property has not yet been identified.

I will note however that the price difference is not indicative of a change in demand, HOTWIRE typically fluctuates their prices in order to increase opacity. I also think that you're approaching prices where it would pay to (at least consider) booking direct. If you look at the Sheraton website many of their properties are in the $150-$239 range for your dates above.

I also found the following (when searching for 4adults... try that instead of 2adults/2children):

Sheraton Princess for $129/nite. I think it gets mixed reviews, but for $129 it may not be that bad.. either get 2 rooms :) or use the extra money to do something very special in Hawaii (like a Helicopter tour of the island or something similar... see our sister website: ThingsTodDo411.com for some ideas)

Sheraton Waikiki for $204/nite. There's no booking fee so actually cheaper than the HOTWIRE property you're considering above.

Please use this HOTWIRE and these PRICELINE LINKS: HOTELS, CAR RENTALS, and AIRFARE to begin your travel purchases

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...

Am using this same thread per your earlier direction; please let me know if you'd like me to repost with a descriptive header.

After trying a bidding strategy described below for several weeks with no luck, I discovered that Marriott has some PointSavers rewards (basically a discount reward points option) available at the Ihilani (attractive to us since that where we had our honeymoon but as you may now very very pricey) so I could get a 2-night stay for the same award redemption as a 2-night stay at the next level down (which includes the Marriott Waikiki for comparison's sake - there are currently no PointSavers redemption options available currently at any of their other hotels in Hawaii incl the Waikiki one). Turned out by kicking in $260 and using all my points, I got 2 nights at this property. Couldn't do the whole stay there since the cost to buy the remaining points escalated rapidly beyond our budget and the first night of our yet-to-be-filled stay (Sun 5/27) had to use the regular redemption rather than the discount.

So we ended up with the JW Marriott Ihilani for Tues night 5/29 and Weds night 5/30. Since I still needed a place for the other two nights of our stay, I went back to Priceline and resumed bidding - but this time all the way up to $150, and I got the Hilton Hawaiian Village.

Original bidding strategy: select resorts, 5/27 checkin 5/31 checkout, start at 120, add 5 for each rebid zone; only accept resorts. I bailed out at 145 each time (was going to go up to 150 as time got closer).

Once I got the Marriott, I went back and rebid for just 5/27-5/29; but since I had a bit more budget room available this time, I started at 125 and went up to 150 - and 150 was apparently the magic number for us.

I'm still a bit surprised I never hit the Hyatt anywhere in here.

I'm very happy at getting the Hilton HV at 150. It did offer additional days, but I already had the Marriott reserved, and didn't see how many additional days it would let me take. That's a better rate for the HHV than I've seen anywhere in a long time; I just wish we weren't going to 3 hotels, but revisiting the honeymoon spot was too much of a lure to resist. Obviously the HHV wasn't available at 145 for all 4 nights or I would have hit it (I bid my normal bid right before the Marriott reservation) but it may in fact have been available at 150, so y'all might want to try that.

I have yet to call the Hilton and try to get us 2 double beds, though; probably get to that in a day or two.

I should mention that our TOTAL stay is 11 nights - I own a timeshare unit at the Celebrity Resorts back behind the International Marketplace where we're staying for the first 7 nights.

Thanks for your advice.

Link to comment
  • 1 month later...

Follow-up: Our trip went like this:

1. 7 nights at our timeshare (Celebrity Resorts, roughly behind Int'l Marketplace)

2. 2 nights at HHV (from this bid)

3. 2 nights at JW Marriott Ihilani (using PointSavers reward - basically a discounted reward certificate + some cash). This is the one at Ko Olina and has sentimental value for us as we honeymooned there 5 years ago.

HHV checkin was nice. My wife handled it but she said they never mentioned Priceline. We had a nice room in the Tapa Tower. Much larger than I would have expected. 2 double beds as requested. Not quite as clean as you would expect. Room was actually what I'd call a "partial ocean view" - you had a good sized angle of ocean view from one end of the balcony - our room was overlooking the central spine of shops.

During our stay, we stayed on property the whole time as planned. (Timeshare a better base for adventuring). Had a rental car for the checkin day - after hitting Lanikai for a few hours, we came back across the Pali and checked in at about 4:00 PM, after which I ferried a batch of remaining bags over from the timeshare and then turned it in and bused it back after family had gone up to room.

Property impressions:

Beach - not as good as I had hoped. Rocky if you went out very far. I had just gotten to some good fish while on my one trip out snorkelling when I got water in my bad ear (perf. eardrum) so had to hightail it back in, but seemed promising, at least by Waikiki standards. (Not Hanauma Bay, but there were some nice fish to see here and there, and some live coral).

Pool - the best I've seen in Waikiki. Lots of animals/fish to look at on property, and beautiful trees/flowers.

Restaurants: the ones in the towers themselves were disappointing and very expensive. Last day we ate lunch at the pizza place and the noodle shop which were reasonable.

Snacks/sundries: An ABC store is in the shops - so you don't pay true captive-audience prices like I had to later at the JW (although their in-hotel dining was actually a bit cheaper and much better!).

Lagoon: is being refurbished - is drained now and all dug up. Entertaining story from a waiter about a digger that got stuck (was stuck more than a day and counting at that point) after digging too deep in some murky water.

The property was fairly uncrowded - as you would expect given the deal.

When we left, the bellhops were helpful again in loading up the car service for trip to JW. (Hint to others: rent a car to go there - there is effectively no real shuttle; only option was a $22/person trip in a van which ended up even more for us than having our own Town Car - but doing that each way on a 2-night trip was doubtlessly more than rental car + parking would have been).

I was very happy not to have a rental car to deal with while we were here - and during the rest of our trip in Waikiki. Always meant to do this, but this was our first time. The #22 (Beach Bus) to Hanauma Bay was a great trip - took this one twice - standing room only at times.

Overall I was impressed with what Priceline delivered here. Had we eaten more in the shop area and less in the towers, I think we'd have been happier still. However, since the beach area wasn't that great, we'd probably stick with the JW for premium lodging in the future - wish Priceline had it. Also, I'd give up on the stay-on-property the whole time and would just walk to Ala Moana Blvd. for a meal or two next time around.

(Bus system works very well - I have seen people with limited bags take it successfully to/from airport, although I do not think you would want to do it with more than a couple days' worth of luggage).

Link to comment
  • 1 month later...
Need help with your own trip?

Register now, we have a huge community of travel enthusiasts to answer any questions you might have.

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account
Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
QUICKQUOTE [X]
PRICELINE & HOTWIRE on one screen!
NOTE: Priceline searches for
DOUBLE OCCUPANCY ONLY
Room %roomN%:
Age of child:
FINDFAST[X]
×
×
  • Create New...