Kiahuna Plantation in Kauai HI review: Room assignment

We have stayed at this resort twice before this incident so we are no strangers to Kiahuna Plantation and their policies.

We booked a reservation in 2020 for a 10 day stay at the resort. We were forced to cancel due to covid two years in a row. We finally were able to travel in June of 2022. This was to be our family vacation to celebrate our 50th anniversary which after two years of having to cancel due to covid, now was our 52nd anniversary.

We made our reservations in early 2022 with our arrival date June 10th 2022. My husband had talked to the people at the desk many times before our trip and indicated that I was handicapped and had a extremely hard time with stairs. We requested a lower room due to this. We also asked that our family hopefully could be in the same building so that we could be close and have dinners together at the condo.

Everything seemed to be going great until early May of 2022. My husband would call and again indicate that I needed a ground level room and was told that they could not guarantee such a thing and that they had no idea where we would be located. We were told that the condo owners had the right to cancel our reservation if they wanted to visit their condo or have close friends use the condo at that time. Not sure if this is true as we never heard this before in our other two bookings. Right away, my husband and I got a bad feeling and were offered absolutely no help from anyone in the front office as to correct information.

Fast forward to our arrival at the Kiahuna Plantation. We arrived late June 10th. We were checking in and was given a map to our room. When looking at this map it indicated that we were given a room in the back of the resort. My husband objected and they said "you booked for the royal garden". Which we did. This particular "royal garden" was backed up to a parking lot with foliage in front of that.

But honestly, that really wasn't the problem... the room they assigned to us had a series of 10 stairs that had to be used in order to access our room. We were not happy as this was a major issue while booking the reservation. I am legally handicapped and this was not what we asked for. I am not sure how your handicap rules are but this was unacceptable. Due to the fact that the manager had left for the day, we had to wait till the next day to talk to her. She said she could give me another room but it would be away from my family and that there was a "path" that lead to the room to avoid the steps. She even showed us on a map. So in order to stay close to my family I stayed where I was and figured I would use the "path".

Upon arriving back at the condo.. we immediately went looking for the "path". None of us could find a path that lead to the lower rooms. My entire family looked and no one... not one of five people could see a path. We felt deceived and disgarded to get us out of the office. I wanted our money back and wanted to go to another resort. But everywhere we called was "sold out". I had a very hard time on a daily basis try to navigate the stairs. It was very hard for a 71 year old woman who is legally handicapped.

I am sorry to say that ourselves and my family members will never return to the resort due to this. If this is the way you treat handicapped people you need to change your policies. I cannot recommended your resort to anyone after the way we were treated. We stayed in room 419 if this information is needed. There was nothing wrong with the room... it was nice... but the stairs are the issue and the daily discomfort I endured doing the stairs. I think your staff at this resort should be shamed of themselves.