Such a nice place and nice staff. Since it's been rebranded, in sure it will become a very popular place, with it's chic aesthetic, nice pool area and amenities and good location. Would absolutely come again!

“Second time at Wayfinder!
Greeted by the Front Office Manager Kaila, who happily remembered us and tagged our car for valet. We also had a surprise set up in our room when we arrived as a welcome back gift!!!

Thank you for always taking great care of us Wayfinder! We are sharing this hotel with all of our friends back on the east coast!”

We wanted to enjoy this hotel, we really did, especially after obsessing over their highly curated Instagram and reading the rave “reviews” from high end travel publications like Condé Nast and Sunset, but unfortunately, we had a pretty awful experience at the Wayfinder Waikiki. It was so bad, in fact, that we ended up leaving a day early and cancelled our last night. To be honest, the hotel experience at Wayfinder was a bit of a bummer for our overall trip to Hawaii (it was my first time going and we were going to celebrate our first year anniversary/delayed honeymoon).

I’ll start with some positives…the location is highly walkable and a block from the new Waikiki Market, which became a favorite place during our visit. The staff was friendly and seemed to be doing all they could to be helpful and solution oriented. We had especially positive interactions with the wonderful housekeeper on our floor, Josephine, the staff at B-Side Coffee and Redfin, as well as one of the managers. The design of the hotel is gorgeous, just as the “reviews” state (and remain strangely focused on; I’ll get to that). That said, it’s mostly lipstick on a pig.

Let’s get to the biggest issue we had…our room. After initially being placed in a small, ADA accessible room (which is GREAT that they offer, but we, as two able bodied, 6 ft plus people, do not need to take from those who may actually need and benefit from lower to the ground amenities), the manager corrected the situation and put us in a different room, a corner room, on the top floor. The new room was beautiful, with great views, but small for spending a week in Hawaii, with limited storage and bathroom space. It was fine though. The big issue was that here we are in this gorgeously renovated space and guess what they didn’t renovate and replace…one of the first things you should…windows and sliding doors. One of our aluminum sliding glass doors would not shut all the way, so all day AND night long, we would hear the winds howling in through the open spaces at the top and bottom of the door where it did not connect. It got especially bad as a tropical storm moved in about halfway into our visit. It shook the entire door and window (we have videos that are pretty insane) and not only were we not getting good sleep, we felt unsafe. We finally called maintenance about it and their solution was to put a wood door stop at the bottom to close the bottom gap, with the top gap still being present. The noise caused by this issue is one of the main reasons we left early as we were not getting adequate rest on a VACATION. Lipstick on a pig. I also wonder if we, as a gay couple, were placed in this room on purpose to inconvenience us as there is no way they didn’t previously know about this structural issue.

Other issues we had included check-in. We got in early and they gave us ONE luggage tag for our five bags, some of which are valuable, and then stuffed them into the operations room. Once check-in time started at 3 pm, the lobby was CHAOTIC (a pattern we saw every day) with rooms not being ready on time and the works. Just seemed like they didn’t have enough people working to ensure rooms are being cleaned on time and guests are being properly taken care of. When we went to retrieve our bags, along with several other people, the stressed out employee told everyone to just “go back there and take your bag,” opening a Pandora’s box that could have led to people stealing other’s belongings. After checking in and getting into our first room, we noticed not only was it ADA, but they also forgot to set up the honeymoon package we ordered (which made us feel like they just threw us in whatever room was ready). Even when we got to the second room (two hours+ after check in), the package wasn’t set up and we had to call for them to say “oh yeah! We must have forgotten.” Again, as a gay couple, I can’t help but to wonder if this omission was purposeful…

In addition, one of the two elevators broke for two+ days during our visit, causing long waits and even more lobby chaos (the guest elevators are also used as service elevators). In asking employees where things like the ice machine were, staff either didn’t know or had wrong answers (we ended up going to every floor and found it ourselves). In speaking with other guests staying on property, there seemed to be this general feeling of disappointment. One guest we talked to in the gym said she went and bought a coffee maker because even a simple coffee maker, like a Keurig, is not in the room (they told her, “well there’s a cafe in lobby,” which is true but also cost $4-6 for a coffee and opens at 6 am as opposed to the ease of having one in room). We also reached out and wanted to talk about our experience with them…they have yet to respond or reach out.

When Condé Nast, Vogue, Travel & Leisure, Sunset, etc. are all writing and recommending a hotel, there’s a certain expectation to meet and the Wayfinder Waikiki is far from meeting it. It makes those reviews/recs seem more like paid advertisements than actual substantial reviews/recs. The Wayfinder Waikiki has a lot of details and kinks to work through and iron out. I cannot recommend this hotel to anyone with good conscience unless some serious leadership, amenity, and structural changes occur.