Hawaii Kai

My mom has been a resident here for a few years. I can say with confidence that she has thrived here and I feel reassured of her safety. They recently switched to a pendant call system instead of the pull cords which is an upgrade but there are still some snags that need to be worked out which result in unnecessary delays. If they can fix that, I would be thrilled.
The other ongoing issue is the food. I hear constant complaints about the quality – some meats are too tough to chew or cut and overall the food quality is poor. They say there is a chef overseeing the food prep but no one tastes the food before it goes out. For over $ 6000 per resident per month, they really need to work on this.
Other than that, the grounds are beautiful, there is ample parking, and the staff are excellent. Please, please, please improve your meals. My mom is underweight as it is unappetizing meals are not helping the situation.

I wish that my family will put me here when I reach an age of assistance. I love all the activities. I love all the dining areas. I love the food! I love being able to go visit my friends or even having a physical therapy session here too. It is absolutely gorgeous here and the rooms are good and the little houses are great too!

Welcome to Fogeyville!
My grandma has lived here since about 2007ish I would say. When they first opened, the place was really well kept and everyone was friendly. Her room was cleaned often and you could feel like they cared about you as a person.
Fast forward 5 years when the economy still isn’t the greatest and people have to watch their aging parents at home… the care isn’t as great. It’s harder to get people to help my grandma if she needs things. The lights in her room are always flickering… perhaps it’s time for them to replace them but do they? Nope! The carpets aren’t cleaned and I know my grandma isn’t the cleanest but they don’t even vaccum the floors for them.
The place is expensive… perhaps not as expensive as some others but the quality of care does not match the price tag. They finally paved the roads a bit so now there aren’t AS many potholes and such. They do have a bus service for them and ample parking but my grandma doesn’t drive nor does she want to ride their buses. If your grandma or grandpa or other older relative is thinking about living here, consider the fact that they don’t serve much Asian food. My grandma doesn’t care too much for their Americanized dishes and sometimes they just serve sandwiches… seriously? We try to take her out when we can but still. I just think our kupuna deserve a bit more for their money.

OMG… WHERE do I begin with this place?
FIRST…let me review the PROS:
Location and facilities… VERY nice! Located at the end of Kawaihi ST and sits up overlooking Koko Head and the Ocean. Very nice grounds with impressive open lobby/​entryway with fountain. The facility is very clean, bright and well maintained.
OK…now the CONS:
My Mom lived here 6 months. The apartments and living spaces are quite small. She lived in the independent living section in a 400 ftsq 1 bedroom apartment with a small fridge and kitchen counter she paid $ 4000.00 a month.
When you first arrive to preview and shop the place, everyone keeps emphasizing «the HOLIDAY spirit» (Holiday is the name of the corporation that owns this facility). You’re repeatedly reminded that this just isn’t a place to live, but a «family» and «community» where everyone looks after and takes care of each other. Once you sign a contract and move in… the message changes to «you are a tenant here and we are only renting the living space to you» should you have any problems.
ANOTHER PLOY: once your family member moves into independent living, they schedule an evaluation and start pushing them to move over to Assisted Living (which costs about 2X MORE… starting at about $ 7500 a month). The entire six months my mom was there she lived in Independent Living with NO problems, but they kept pressuring us to move her over to assisted.
Management is CLUELESS: One of the full time GM’s who lives on site with his wife, «Marv» walks around with the most unhappy scowl on his face. He won’t even smile when you crack jokes… I get the distinct impression he really doesnt like being there.
Whenever you have problems and need to address management, you’ll get non-​stop buck passing every time, «Oh. I’m not the manager who handles that… you’ll need to talk with so and so.» Ok, so we DO talk to «so and so» and he/​she also cops out and begs us over to someone else who acts summarily clueless and inconvenienced. I guess the plan is to make everyone go to so much trouble to have concerns addressed that they give up trying. Nobody here seems to want to take responsibility for anything… NOT a desirable quality for a retirement center.
At the end of six months we moved my Mom out because they wanted to RAISE the price of her apartment another 12−15% (despite the fact that almost one THIRD of the facility’s units were VACANT). We contracted a moving service to take out all the big items… her bed, tables, couch, etc. When I returned the next day to pick up all her clothes, bathroom articles and books, I was shocked to enter her room and discover everything was gone (including a $ 150 ceiling fan and $ 100 wall mount TV bracket.) The room had also been cleaned and smelled of touch up paint. As usual, No one had a CLUE what had happened to my Mom’s personal property; we still had MORE than one week remaining on the rent that had been paid out until the end of the month… so technically, it was still her room.
As I pressed the issue… nobody could locate the GMs… apparently Marv and his wife had gone off site to dinner at a restaurant… without leaving notice where they had gone or would return. About 8 hours LATER at 10:30 pm… they came wandering back in. Of course, they had NO idea about what happened to my mom’s property and proceeded to INSULT me by suggesting that it was really I who had come in and cleaned out the room, so that I could make an issue with them about a phony theft to squeeze them for money.
They challenged me to «call the police» and file a THEFT report if it really wasnt me who was staging this bogus theft. They were quite surprised and annoyed when I DID call the police. The ensuing «investigation» took two hours and when the police finally told Marv they were finished with him, he departed to his room, but NOT without first telling me, «By the way… we were at the hospital all night tonight visiting my sick sister.» WTF? He was off site all night long at a restaurant without letting ANY of the assistant management KNOW where they were or when they would return… plays DUMB when a customer’s property turns up missing… to which his solution is to ACCUSE me of staging the theft of our own property… then lays a GUILT trip on me as an EXCUSE to do NOTHING before he retires for the night!
Two days later… he left a sheepish voice mail telling me my mom’s belongings had been bagged up and stored by house keeping to PREP the room for the NEXT tenant (even though my mom still had one more week remaining… no «We’re sorry for the misunderstanding,» NO nothing… just «we found your mom’s things so come and pick them up.
As I said earlier… the management here is CLUELESS… they dont even know what is happening in their own facility.
Unfortunately, i have reached the text limit of this review… LUCKY for them, because there is sooo much MORE I could write about this place!

Quite pricey for what you get. My great aunt lives here and i give it a B for facilities. Decently maintained and they have a bunch of activities available (even a gym). I rate the food here a C-​, to our active aging, this is one of the most important things that they look forward to everyday. It seems like every time spending gets reevaluated here the food is left on the short end of the stick. Hotdogs and cold sandwiches are often fixtures on the dinner menu. (Not very health conscious) This is a nice facility with ok staff (Allison is great) but the cuisine needs help. Upgrading the meal selection would be a simple fix that would go a long way.