Waimea Plantation Cottages

Alyssa · 05-07-2008, 12:44 PM

Waimea Plantation Cottages

Girls, this place looks amazing - it has all the luxuries of a large resort with no high-rise type buildings, ocean-front, spa, pool, etc and private cottages!

I just emailed TA Dina (Hawaii Specialist) to get quotes and think FI and I are going to go here for part of our Honeymoon!!!

Neema29 · 05-07-2008, 01:39 PM

Alyssa ..It does look really FAB! Beautiful grounds....definitely a winner!

Kriswim · 05-07-2008, 01:53 PM

Looks Fabulous! My best friend lives in Hanalei (North Shore I guess), her pictures are just AMAZING - i can't wait to go visit her!

Jenn3878 · 05-07-2008, 02:05 PM

Wow Alyssa! This place looks amazing!! Hope you get to stay there! Can you sqeeze me in your suitcase? LOL Just kiddin! Got my fingers crossed for you!

Alyssa · 05-07-2008, 02:48 PM

Jen, if you fit in my suitcase along with all my wedding stuff LOL you can come

yeah, i hope we cann go there too!!!

stefnicole · 05-07-2008, 03:04 PM

Thanks for posting this Alyssa! I may be changing where we'll be staying now...

Sandra E. · 05-07-2008, 03:16 PM

Alyssa, This place looks wonderful! I hope you book it!

Alyssa · 09-14-2008, 10:03 PM

Ok, so here is our honest take on the Waimea Plantation Cottages ... my DH and I were not happy with it (at first)...

TA Dina tried to warn me that it might not be for us but we didn't listen and wanted to book it anyway. Their website is so beautiful and alluring - it all sounds so quaint and great. In reality, it is on the South Shore of Kauai, which is really run down. You can stay 20 minutes away in Poi'pu and have amazing beaches and be close to the South Shore attractions (Waimea Canyon, Na Pali Coast Boat Tours and a couple small towns).

We were trying to avoid the really big hotels (high rises, etc.) and liked everything about this place except when they say quaint the mean it, it is not very luxurious and you can't go on the beach b/c the Waimea River runs into the Pacific Ocean here so the water is muddy and gross as hell. This would be be fine if they took great care of their pool but they don't and the pool is pretty gross and looks like a bad rental apt complex pool. We wish someone would have told us about the River run off here - that would have made a big difference.

Ok, the grounds are BEAUTIFUL, breath-taking really but that's about it - there is a restaurant "Waimea Brewing Company" - nothing special about it and that is kind of run down too. There are wild cats everywhere begging for food (kind of cute and funny too) but again not exactly what we had in mind for part of our HM.

The first night we were there after we checked into our cottage, we were like 'hell no!, we need to get out of here and check in somewhere else' but that was a bit of a problem b/c we booked through TA Dina and she uses Classic Vacations - we did not opt for the travel ins. (our fault) but when we called the 1800# for Classic Vacations help line they wanted to charge us $100 per person change / cancel fee in addition to the hotel charging us for 2 nights - we were only booked there for 3 nights so we would have to basically forfeit all the $ and re-book somewhere else which didn't sound like a good solution. We didn't call TA Dina directly b/c of the 6 hour time difference - it would have been the middle of the night on the East Coast. uggghhh - so we went to the front desk and the person on duty got in touch with the Manager.

She offered to upgrade us to a private, oceanfront 2 bed / 2 bath home that they had just finished completely upgrading (part of the issue - everything in the other rooms we saw was OLD, not quaint, OLD & DIRTY). They took us over to see it and it was very nice so we took it.

We spent our 3 days / 4 nights there in that Home/Cottage (No.B) and while it was VERY nice for this property, it still wasn't quite what we had wanted for our honeymoon - again, completely our fault but none-the-less a bit dissapointing.

Anyway, we made the best of it and did a lot of fun South Shore stuff that we planned and didn't spend much time in the home.

I should also note that the Property Manager was so kind and even sent us a Honeymooner's welcome basket with wine and some special local Hawaiian treats - it was so thoughtful and generous - we were really touched by that.

Overall, I highly recommend this place if you:

are not high maintenance
are not into high end luxury
want a lot of privacy
don't care of going to beach / pool for a couple days
want to cook / BBQ / have a kitchen
want to be close to Waimea Canyon for amazing hiking
want to be close to Na Pali Coast for boat tours / snorkeling

Here are some photos of the beautiful grounds...

...and here are some of Cottage (Home) B...