Kona Bali Kai Resort

If I could, I’d give it no stars. Filthy rooms (dusty floors, shower was grimy) and broken blinds on the windows. How do they honestly charge a «cleaning fee»! The a/c’s are only in the living rooms and are LOUD window units. My family rented 3 rooms and they were in completely separate areas with different parking lots! TERRIBLE! Will never stay here again!!!

The staff is incredibly accommodating and hospitable. Good value, good location and nice room. The friendly staff is what makes the place. They went above and beyond a few issues I had with the room upon check in…

A new low-​the ceiling fan is on a timer!!! The air conditioner is inadequate and also on a timer The office closes at 8 pm so if you arrive after that, the individual answering the phone delights in giving bad directions as to where your room is. It took an hour to get it figured out. We were across the street from the main hotel. Over priced joke of a place.

This place smells like dog piss the minute you step in. You can tell no money has been put back into it. I got a condo off hotwire. They didn’t disclose cleaning fees in the price up front. Realizing this place was a disaster when I walked in — I called hotwire and forced them to cancel my reservation.
Sorry Hotwire — just because it is on the water does not make it a three star hotel. Do youself a favor and stay at the Holiday Inn Express down the road. It is new, clean and comes with breakfast.

Writing this review while sitting in this one bedroom unit, I’m a bit disappointed. This is what I get for booking for a place last minute. The lower cost does not justified how run down this place is. They need to replace the bed sheets and carpet! The unit smells old and outdated. I’m not enjoying my stay at all, definitely going to be outside most of the time.

My goal was to travel around the Big Island and stay in cheap locations because the experience, for me at least, is in the sites not the place I spend my least important hours of vacation by sleeping. The reviews for this place are pretty bad but I guess it depends on what amenities you need in your stay. I didn’t expect much so I was a little more impressed by what I did get.
The «aunty» working the desk seemed a little overwhelmed at the moment but she was still thorough at her job considering there were a few people waiting.
When we arrived at the room I was happy to find a full kitchen and a great deal of space. And a small balcony with an ocean view. If I’d bothered to stay in the room I could have watched the sunset and such rise from my balcony but, like I said, I’m here for the sites. There’s so much to see and do on the Big Island. Get out of your room! There’s a pool (even though you’re next to the ocean), a laundry room, and WiFi here as well.

Upon arrival seemed like we made the right choice because the hotel was right on the beach and the pool was a good size but after checkin we were sent across and down the street to a 3story walk up! Everything was old and discolored (i.e… carpets, tub, bathroom tile, toilet) our soap and lotion were used! The kitchen floor was sticky! They have a bug problem so they ask us to keep lanai door closed and don’t leave food out. Air conditioner made a lot of noise and didnt keep the room cold enough. Charged 40 bucks at check out for «cleaning fee» i wish they cleaned before we got there!!! Not worth the price at all!!! Worst hotel ever!!! The only positives were parking and front desk girl was friendly booked via hotwire! Bad choice

This is a large, old condo complex. Renovations occur frequently. We’ve had two horrible experiences at this location. In 2013 it was a condo right above the pool area being renovated. The contractor left the front door open so the dust, noise and mayhem occurring in the unit was shared with everyone trying to enjoy the pool. KBK property management did nothing, despite repeated requests. In May of this year, we stayed in unit 219 — unit 319 was being renovated. That ruined our vacation. Pneumatic (air) tooling, saws, hammering, drilling all made staying in our unit during the day impossible. Thankfully we had three days of quiet over the Memorial Day weekend.
You can avoid these types of vacation disasters. Be sure to ask the owner of the condo you’re considering renting, if any renovations will be occurring near the one you want to rent, during your stay. They know. Owners have to notify the HOA board of all planned renovations. If they won’t provide the information, don’t rent from them. They’re resisting full disclosure for a reason. Protect your vacation investment, and book elsewhere.
If you’ve stayed at this complex and have experienced similar events, or have other complains, file a «Transient Vacation Unit» or TVU complaint with:
The Planning Department, County of Hawaii
74 – 5044 Ane Keohokalole Highway, Building E, 2^nd Floor
Kailua-​Kona, Hawaii 96 740
Telephone: 808−323−4770

I would caution anyone looking at this place to reevaluate. The location and proximity to the beach are nice, but the price is not as cheap as they make it out to be once they add in fees, and it’s filthy.
When we first arrived, the room was very dirty and several things were broken. The front door was jammed and very hard to open. There were stains in the bathtub and greasy fingerprints on the walls. We definitely saw a few cockroaches. The most annoying thing was that the toilet would not flush. The chain that connects it in the back of the tank was broken. It was clear by the stains around the broken chain that it had been like that for a long, long time.
We contacted the front desk and everything broken was fixed within a few hours. The next day, as we were trying to open the sticky front door, the key snapped off in the lock. Very little pressure had been applied to it, it bent like butter. Must have been a very cheap key. This, too, was fixed very quickly, but it’s still not the kind of experience you want to have on your vacation.
The hot tub was only big enough to fit three people, and not very well cleaned.
The worst part was that they charged us a «cleaning fee» of $ 40. I thought this was pretty audacious considering the condition the room was in when we arrived. By the time the fees were added in, we were paying as much for this place as the Aston down the road costs. We packed up our things and changed hotels, and had a much less stressful rest of our vacation.

I highly recommend this community! It’s right on the water, has a nice pool, and a few gas BBQs. It’s nice to have a condo instead of a hotel room so you can cook and do laundry. Every unit is a bit different because they are independent owned. 203 is AMAZING. I also recommend 307. Enjoy!

1. Smell: place reeked of old cigarette smoke, and mildew/​mold. Yes, it is near the ocean. But I live near the ocean and my house does not reek. Lose the carpet for a start: put in linoleum or laminate!
2. Pillows were literally 1 inch thick. Walmart sells decent pillows for $ 5. Splurge on your guests a little…
3. The cable tv had no menu. Call to the desk «What do you want to watch, I can tell you what station…» um… don’t know, that’s why I want a menu! 200 channels available… but no way to see «what’s on»
stayed here one night before running the kona marathon. I think being unable to sleep on razor thin pillows and being kept awake by the odor negatively impacted my run the next day!

We are in room 423 and it is beautiful. The location is amazing ! The view is to die for ! My room is clean and has everything we need in it. The only problem is the curtains are broke and don’t open and close in the main bedroom. Thats why I gave 4 stars not 5. That really sucks but I can handle a broken curtain for this view ! It is not a resort. So of that’s what you are looking for then don’t stay here. This is more of a home away from home ! Just the perfect place to relax and enjoy the beauty of hawaii ! It is also close to everything but yet not in the center of town with people all over. You will enjoy your stay here for sure !
Thanks Kona Bali Kai !!

Really clean quiet 3^rd floor room nice view of the ocean a little cheaper on the opposite side of the street. My wife & I really enjoyed our stay. Only issue was the extra $ 40 cleaning fee not disclosed at booking.

This place was disgusting! There were SO many roaches in our unit, I was afraid to walk on the floor. Yes, I understand it’s Hawaii and some bugs will get indoors– but the level or disgusting roaches in this unit was unsat. We stayed here at the end of our one week vacation, and none of our other three rooms had ANY bugs; let alone MANY roaches. This was in August and I’m still shuttering thinking about it. Our building was next to what I call the «stab n jab» quickie mart, which was super sketchy. We went for a morning swim the day we left Hawaii, and at 630 am there were people across the road from the «stab n jab» drinking alcohol out of paper bags staring at us. Very uncomfortable. If I wasn’t SO mad I would’ve asked for my money back and stayed somewhere else; I didn’t even care about the money at that point.

I enjoyed the couple of nights. Clean and comfortable. Not happy about the «cleaning bill» of $ 50…wasn’t aware of that little secret.

I enjoy staying at hotels like this one where it feels like an apartment so you can make yourself right at home. My girlfriend and I were able to run to the local market and grab some food to cook instead of spending a ton of money eating out. I requested a partial ocean view but the hotel upgraded us to a full ocean view so that made the trip even more amazing. The hotel furniture is island theme so we felt quite immerse.
However, the location of the hotel is pretty bad for playing on the beach as there were rocks everywhere. You can take a nice hike along the shore among the rocks (we found a turtle eating in a tide pool… lazy bum) but unless you’re planning on swimming out about 75+ yards or relaxing on the rocks, you have to drive elsewhere. Also, the hotel faces the beach and the wind blows behind it thus blocking most of the wind (i.e. it can get balls hot). We didn’t notice cockroaches in the room like some other people but they were definitely on the beach at night. This is also one noisy beach as there are so many rocks that the waves are constantly breaking at different points as they come in. Also for you wifi nuts, they only offer that in the lobby.

Uggh! Yuck! This place was disgusting! We paid $ 200 for a condo, which was worth maybe $ 100 at most! The carpets looked like they’d been through World War III, and there were cockroaches everywhere! The toilet had urine and blood dripping down the side. There were old buckets of paint mixed in with the few pots and pans they had (none of which were clean). The curtains also had blood spatters on them, and the comforter on the bed smelled and was stained with urine.
The view is nice, but was definitely NOT worth it! I understand that all the condos are individually owned, but the person who owned ours did not give a sh$t about it. They had a tiny tv with a vcr and furniture that was brown, sticky, and definitely from the 70’s or early 80’s.
If you choose to stay here, don’t stay in room H306! Nasty!

Stayed here in March for a few days. There was a line of ants from the floor to the ceiling right by the bed and all over the kitchen The screens reeked like dust and were filthy. The bathroom smelled musky. The only thing we liked was being across the street from the beach. There also was people smoking upstairs from us which was nasty.

Good… not great…
The bed was rock hard so we went to Target and got a mattress cushion, which helped a lot!
Our unit was clean enough, but needed a good upgrading.
Ants on the counter.
The air conditioner is the «in window» type and was very noisy.
Check in was a breeze… check out was a breeze as well. Very friendly.
I booked on
because we had a free night coming but I wouldn’t stay here again… too many choices that are better in Kona.

We stayed at Kona Bali Kai for 6 nights in March and I would not recommend this hotel to anyone. The unit was spacious and oceanfront, but poorly maintained and managed.
The unit was very dirty (unchanged bed sheets in the sofa bed, floors that turned your feet black, screens/​lamps/​closet floors covered in dust. There were several fire hazards including electrical wiring not to code, lamps that shorted out, and a sock found in the dryer lint trap. The unit appears as though it not been updated since the 1980s, mirrors/​closet rods are rusting, floors in the showers were spongy, the dryer was rusty and ruined white clothing, blinds were inoperable or missing. The water in the shower ran cold after 2 people took less than 15 minute showers. Also, the door to the 2^nd bedroom does not close unless you remove the headboard from the bed.
On our last day there, housekeeping entered the unit without notification or consent and left the unit door propped open while we were out. We were shocked to find our unit left open, especially since there is no security gate or restricted access from Ali’i Drive. The management was unprofessional and referred to us as being «pissed off» (I quote) about the incident and told us we were «wasting our time» filing a police report (which would have been required for any insurance claims).
Overall a pretty unpleasant stay. I recommend supporting a local Hawaiian B&B in Kona and avoiding Kona Bali Kai