We recently spent almost 10 days at the Ritz Carlton Kapalua and it was heavenly. I traveled with my husband and our two little girls and it was a fabulous trip. We stayed in one of the hotel's residential villas and the room furnishings and amenities were just lovely.

One night we dined at Banyan Tree which is just breathtaking and the food is delicious. We also had a great dinner one night at the hotel's Terrace restaurant...

The girls loved the beautiful beach and the swimming pools were a huge highlight. They probably could have spent all day every day by the pool sipping smoothies!

The concierge team did a great job..they arranged for us to go horseback riding at the Ironwood Ranch which was a great adventure...and we also experienced the new Kapalua Adventures which was a real treat! My husband and daughter went rock climbing, did the ropes course and even explored their new zip line adventure....it was awesome and well worth it!

We are planning our return trip now....you really can't go wrong staying at the Ritz Carlton!!!

I don't think I can adequately emphasize the weather situation at the Ritz in Kapalua. While the hotel itself is very nice, the weather is enough to ruin a trip there. We were there about 4 days for our honeymoon and it was windy and/or rainy every day. Even on sunny days, the wind woudl blow the book out of my hand. On morning, we woke up to clouds/rain and departed for our surfing lesson in Lahaina (15 min south). It was totally sunny in Lahaina when we arrived there! We wish we would have paid more attention to what the guide books say about the weather in Kapalua - we likely would have stayed elsewhere.

While the Ritz had great rooms and nice facilities, they didn't really do anything to make us feel special (and they knew it was our honeymoon). We had just come from the Hyatt in Kauai, which sent us complementary champagne twice during our visit there. Something like that at the Ritz would have been nice.

My husband and I recently returned from the Ritz-Carlton Kapalua and it was a wonderful experience. The results of the recent remodel were beautiful. Staff members were extremely friendly and helpful. We spent most days by the pool, as the beach was windy. We enjoyed brunch most mornings and ate our first night and last night at the Banyan Tree at the Ritz-Carlton, which is excellent. I didn't want to leave!

Not given the room we had requested even though reservation made 8 months prior. Confirmation calls to ensure we would get our room request (two adjoining rooms) made 2 months prior to arrival. We were instructed to call back after the opening of the newly renovated property, which was done one month prior to our arrival and we were ensured that we would be able to have adjoining rooms. We got to the property late on a thursday evening and were assigned rooms that were not together. The reception clerk stated "you will be staying in these rooms for the duration of your visit" in a rather direct tone and proceeded to hand us our keys. Upon trying to explain the efforts made to ensure the correct room assignment, I was told that all the adjoining rooms had been given out and that I should have paid more for a suite but those were not available now anyway. No effort was made to even give the illusion that they were going to try to find a way to fill my request. (By the way, request means no guarantee even if someone says differently over the phone) Now since this was a business/vacation trip and I brought my 15 month old son and paid the way for a nanny to help while I was away at conference, I certainly wanted to have some proximity to the other room. Needless to say that didn't happen until 3/4 of my 8 day stay was up. I was unhappy about the outcome but upset about how it was handled. I called to the front desk after check in to voice my dissatisfaction. I was placed on hold for 20 minutes. Another time hung up on. I called back to speak with a manager and was instructed to call at another time. The manager was polite but did nothing but apologize.

There were other problems too,
In- room DVD did not work and engineering couldn't fix it. It took 2 days to figure out how to get the DVD to play on the TV through their entertainment system. Finally had to rewire from behind TV to DVD with an RCA cable running across the entertainment system to make work. Apparently all of the DVDs were not working right, they were taking them out of the rooms as we were leaving the property.

In- room alarm clock not reset when rooms cleaned. Alarm went off at 3 am on first night. New alarm clocks so engineering did not know how to set. We were told to just unplug and use wake up call. If you walked halls late at night, other rooms had alarms going off.

Ice machines were removed from our entire floor because they were not working

They had to send someone to another hotel to get a crib because they were all out (I "requested" one but apparently those are first come first serve as well)

One phone in the room was not operational

Room service was inconsistant. One day the fruit plate was huge the next skimpy. Fruit plate is better later in the week. I ordered breakfast in the room every morning, timing was off on delivery.

Ordered out from onsite restaurant (Pavillions) Part of meal was left out. Had to go back to get it.

Bellman 20-30 minute wait

Pool service is scant. If you want a drink, you are better of to get up and get it.

Charges were placed on the bill that were not supposed to be there. I was charged double for valet.

Construction still happening during day.

Work out facility OK, no mens/womens changing rooms. One common locker area and one bathroom with shower in it. If you are looking for steam rooms or sauna or private changing area, not at Ritz Kapalua.

Overall, the experience was full of little slips and mishaps that individually might be no big deal but together do not constitute the 700+ $/night charge. This property was not , in my opinion, ready to be open and certainly not performing at the level of what I would expect at a Ritz Carlton. There were failures at every category of service which makes me question their employee training and the management overseeing the operation there.