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Kona Tiki

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  • 75-5968 Alii Drive
     Hawaii, Big Island, Hawaii
    (808) 329-1425Website
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rubylu
rubylu
First Reviewer
5 out of 5
Avg. Member Rating
1
Review
4
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Editor Pick

Kona Tiki

  • December 10, 2006
  • Rated 5 of 5 by rubylu from Sebastopol, California
Kona Tiki

The Kona Tiki is a gem of a place to stay. It has almost a cult following who come back year after year. It is a small hotel and tends to fill up well in advance. We were visiting off-season, and were lucky enough to get rooms for a 4-day and 3-night stays. When we returned for the later stay, it was like coming home.

Our kitchenette rooms, $98 a night including taxes (over 11% in Hawaii), each had a double and a single bed and a full kitchen. Rooms without the kitchen cost less. No tub, but a big shower. Our first floor room had a nice lanai opening up right on the shore. The third floor room had a superb ocean view from the lanai. Both rooms were in good shape, though there were not many electrical outlets to plug in our various equipment. No TV or phone, and they don’t even take VISA and take checks only in advance. I had to go to an ATM to get cash to pay for my second stay. No wireless, but it did come in from nearby sites sometimes.

The staff are very friendly. Apparently it is managed by people from the mainland who come and take shifts for several months at a time. The guests get to feel like a family—we had conversations with a number of them and picked up some good tips on places to go.

In the office, you can pick up towels, folding chairs, mats, and coolers to use on your day’s outing, and books and magazines to read. The parking lot doesn’t have enough spaces, so the last two groups that come in at night have to park in the middle and leave the car keys in a mail drop so the manager can move the cars if others need to get out in the morning. I was reluctant to leave the key at first but got used to it.

A breakfast bar is set up every morning outside the office. You can carry the food to the tables near the pool. It includes coffee, tea, juice, fruit, bagels, Danish, and muffins.

Our first night, the woman staying in the next room told us about the eels that live right under the sea wall 15 feet from our lanai. She dropped bread crumbs in the water and sure enough, the pools below turned into a writhing mass of eels. We saw other guests feeding them too, leftover fish and chicken. Apparently they’re not very picky eaters. After that first time, I only saw one eel at a time, maybe the same one. It came out promptly anytime there was food. It looked about four feet long, and was probably a moray. We could also see fish from the sea wall, the bright yellow ones and others, and we could see the black crabs walking among the rocks and sometimes on the wall too.

From journal Big Island 1--Kailua-Kona

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