The friendly folks who run the Kilauea Lodge and its excellent restaurant have left their personal imprint on each room. You''ll find a basket of interesting Hawaiiana to read, a wooden foot roller to soothe tired toes, kindling and wood waiting in your fireplace, Kona coffee service, and in the closet, fluffy robes and a flashlight for nighttime strolls (or power outages?) The bathroom was particularly inviting, filled with bright natural light and featuring quality body care products and a ceramic water cooler full of potable water. The Lodge, like so many other buildings on the Big Island, gets its water from the catchment system, so the tap water is not drinkable. If you walk around the grounds you might find the two big cisterns where the "caught" water that drains off the rooftops is kept.
Rarely have I had such a pleasant hotel experience for under $150 a night. Even the honeymoon suite at Kilauea Lodge is only $145 a night. The lodge is small - only 11 rooms and two cottages - and each building is different, so call ahead and make sure you are getting exactly what you want. That might be a remodeled 1929 two bedroom cottage with fireplace, kitchen, living room, garden, and porch ($155), a koa wood-filled nook in the 1930''s era main building ($125), or what I reserved: a cozy corner (Room #2) of the Hale Maluna building with your own fireplace ($135). All prices include a mouth-wateringly good breakfast (described in the Kilauea Lodge dining entry) which is only available to hotel guests. Despite the challenges of running a hotel in such a remote area, Kilauea Lodge even manages to provide an outdoor hot tub. The only drawback (which some will find an advantage!) is the lack of telephones in the room. The shared phone is in the main building''s common room. And best of all, you are only a mile from Volcanoes National Park, making it easy to slip in and out of the park for some post-dinner stargazing or an early morning trek to watch the sunrise over Halemaumau crater.