Our family goes to Hawaii every year. It's a wonderful tradition that brings us all (around 30 people) together. We have stayed at hotels (Kaanapali), houses (VRBO's in downtown Lahaina and even once in Kihei), Lahaina Shores, and more. Ultimately we discovered the sunny Puamana Estates quite by chance. IT IS A SPECTACULAR Gated Community with three pools, private beach, tennis courts, and round the clock security. The prices for the condos are truly fair. It's located about one mile south of the Banyan Tree Park and downtown the quaint town of Lahaina.
Rustic, usually uncrowded, rambling, unpretentious housing estate. Self regulated (lots of rules like any condo area) and not for everyone... But for some it will prove to be simply divine.
To me, it seems like they just completely dropped the ball on things. The company had moved us to this bungalow, and knew we were coming for over a year. In my mind, this kind of incident is inexcusable.
4. Ants in kitchen (no spray if possible)
10. No big screen and broken window on living room and bed room
I hope they realize how badly they messed up and take steps to ensure other travellers do not have this happen to them. A bit more honesty in the advertisement, a bit more explanation as to what happened, and a lot more cleaning/fixing up would be good places to start.
11. Broken screens on screen doors X 2
5. Many broken light switches
Awesome family friendly spot.
2. Loft no lights working
My family had booked a place far in advance, over a year before we arrived. Prior to arrival, there was some confusion about which bungalow we would be in, and plans were changed a few times by Puamana Vacations. I imagine this is where the trouble started.
8. No room key!
The company refunded one night's stay on their own volition, and did react quickly to our predicament. We did enjoy our stay in Puamana very very much, and wish to go back some time, but still the bad taste lingers. I have travelled and backpacked all over the world, and the initial check-in was worse than some $5 places I have stayed in SE Asia. Most of the amenities in the place were also old, not hooked up, and dusty. The place was not as advertised, and we never saw any sofa bed.
4. Many extra unusable lamps (~6 or so)? all over the apartment
9. TVs - remote controls have no batteries, nothing connected or plugged in
3. Many dead light bulbs
On top of this, the place was thoroughly dirty:
2. Dead cockroaches and bugs everywhere
12. No information anywhere on anything, no phone numbers, no guide to Puamana, no rules, no explanations.
5. Loft smells awful
Luckily, the bed was clean, but with no pull out sofa, our whole family (2 little kids and wife and I) slept in one bed. We had no key (the place was open when we arrived), no cellphone (coming from overseas), and so we had almost no way of contacting anyone, and could not leave the place as we had no way to lock it. We were stuck in a dirty room.
1. No pull-out sofa bed as advertised
This was a tough review to write. Asides from the initial check-in experience, our family loved our time in Puamana. I wish I could write two reviews, one of zero stars for the first day, and one of five stars for the remainder of our time. However, given the initial mess with our arrival and considering the price we paid, I am putting down a one-star review in the hopes that this will spur Puamana Vacations to get their act together.
1. Floor is filthy!
6. Gecko poop everywhere
It was like we had walked into someones open room while they were out, and they hadn't cleaned in a while.
7. Lock box broken
6. No internet or internet password?
We phoned the company on the landline in the place (after retrieving the phone number from an email saved on my computer, still no internet), and they came around the next morning, and began to fix things one by one. They were gracious and kind, but we never received any explanation for how such a mess had happened, and never once was specifically told "sorry". We were told a family had lived there until recently, and it was implied that this was the cause of the mess, but it was never really explained. It took almost a week to get things totally in order, including us cleaning many of the floors and dishes on our own. The kids slept for the entire vacation on mattresses on the floor I had pulled down from the loft beds.
So beautiful, and relaxing.
Our family arrived to Maui late at night, with our information to get into our place in hand. When we arrived past 10 p.m., we came into the room to find this situation:
3. Sofa and furniture also flithy
Puamana Vacations is a US Travel Agency based in Lahaina, Hawaii. Puamana Vacations is located at 272 Pualei Dr #3, Lahaina, HI 96761, USA.
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