Botero Bar at Grand Wailea Resort

sat at the bar. Poitone was bland. waited almost 30min before a bartender asked if I wanted another cocktail. bartenders seemed more interested in serving a fellow employee who just finished work the taking care of regular customers. very disappointing service.

We stayed at the Grand Wailea and went there twice. The first time was a Tuesday night, service was good and food and drinks were both excellent.
The second time was a Saturday night, and they were understaffed. (I have to blame the management rather than the wait staff, since the private party that was taking up their time had clearly booked in advance.) At any rate, it took half an hour to get our order of drinks and snacks, and our second order of drinks never came.
Hard to tell if there is a trend based on two visits, but it seems like a place to avoid when busy.

Loved how Mark the bartender totally ignored us when we sat at the bar. Hope the 2 girls you stood and talked to for 15 minutes left you a big tip. So many bad reviews for service.

Love this property and make an annual trek each year but the service at the Botero Bar is inferior and in direct contrast to all else that is the Grand Wailea. It takes too long be treated and served and the hostess acted like we are putting her out. Management really needs to look at the serving staff, when I went to the bar itself the bartender said he would send the hostess right over, this of course only slowed her down. Twice she didn’t get the drink right, no cocktail napkin and never offered appetizer menu and begrudgingly delivered nuts. Only got attention when I got up to leave, wanted to sit there and drink and eat but was afraid I would starve and dehydrate. Get it right!

Really poor service. 40 minutes for a drink. Ours was one of several scheduled private parties and they were not staffed correctly. It is a beautiful location, but not if you are stressed waiting for a drink.

good for a hotel bar, just wildly expensive. we got here late our first night, got some drinks and the short rib sliders. The bartenders are nice and chatty, they want you to order more ;).
Good enough for a hotel bar, and hotel is amazing.

If I could give 10 stars I would… we went at the request of friends who are regulars… and now I know why they are and why we will be. Three reasons, Michael, Keoni, and Mitch… the best bartenders with the best service ever… and to make even better, they are super friendly, helpful, kind and gracious… Senior Management pay attention, you need 100 of these in your hotel as your staff or more… we will be back and until then, keep the Mai tai’s flowing and the chardonnay chilled… Aloha!

This is more the almost strictly bar area of the hotel. It had live music both nights — quite good in fact — that we stopped in, and they served us olives and nuts in addition to our drinks.
The service was probably the fastest on the resort because the lounge was never really busy during our stay, but was a nice area near the entrance to relax. A few people ate there, but it didn’t seem to be a high traffic congregation area, despite it’s central location.
All in all when we wanted a drink and didn’t want to deal with the pool crowd, we headed here: D

Excellent service and good food. Visited this beautiful lounge located in the foyer of the Grand Wailea twice during our stay. The bartenders are so friendly and the food was good. This is a fantastic place to have a beverage and relax. The scenery inside of the foyer is beautiful.

Best Mai Tai in Wailea — especially during happy hour. Love Keoni and Michael the bartenders — they will remember you and make you feel very welcome. Great cheese plate which was huge. Our daily visits to Botero during the week we were here were so much fun!

Food is good. Watermelon with black rock salt. You have got to try this. Service is quick and with a smile. Prices are good. Better than most other places

The Botero Bar in the midst of the Grand Wailea could be elegant in its own right, after all it is in one the nicest properties around. However the LED lighted center showpiece and the tropical fruit drinks make you quickly realize that you are in an area that caters to the tourists and a piña colada or a lava flow might be more in order.
With that in mind, the menu is that: Sweet drinks mixed up with rum or a fruit juice mixed with vodka whose name ends in «tini.» A lot of «tini» in fact. Yet, despite all of this, its alcohol selection is respectable with some quality liqueurs and bartenders that can make up a drink more to your liking. In other words: If you like stiff cocktails, order off the menu.
It’s ambiance is what immediately draws you in. You’re in the middle of one of the grandest properties on the Wailea coast and the frescoes adorning its ceiling makes you almost feel as if you’re in an Italian piazza… but you aren’t, you’re in Wailea silly!
Let’s be honest, when you’re on vacation, you really don’t want to do much. You’re generally going to be lazy and take the fastest approach to achieve the desired outcome. In this instance, the objective was to have alcohol.
Oh.and don’t mind the bill when you have to pay for that $ 17 cocktail… remember, you’re on vacation!

Great for the ambiance and the mai tais were pretty good as well.

Loved the music of Craig Soderberg in the lobby bar. It doesn’t get much better than this. He gets a great big 5+ from me.

HMMMMM – where to start. Well its not super friendly to locals — no Kamaaina — and the one hour «happy hour» is a bit short — but the food ands the drinks are top notch (what else would you expect — it is the Grand). I didn’t like that we had to validate parking at bar — but seriously it is a nice place to grab a drink and meander round the property. Its good to support local places so we will be going back.
Cheers

Botero Bar was the bar in the lobby of the hotel we were staying at, The Grand Wailea. It’s in a lobby but technically outdoors; halfway through my adventure at Botero I started feeling pricks of cold water on my arms and face and I wasn’t sure if I was on a really strong buzz, roofied, or getting rained on. (I was getting rained on.)
I chose to go to Botero on a Thursday night, which is the night they offer a not-​very-​well advertised cocktail tasting happy hour event. I think I was the only person that night to order it.
You should do it! It was $ 20 for the following items:
+ Specialty cocktail #1
+ Specialty cocktail #2
+ Specialty cocktail #3
+ Cheese plate
+ Bread basket
+ Souvenir mug of a fat guy in a bowler hat standing on top of a naked woman.
+20% off food ordered from Botero Bar and 50% off Happy Hour pricing all evening on well drinks, house wine by the glass and domestic beers.
I don’t know if the waiters screwed up and didn’t know that the deal is not that many items. (The way it was advertised was just free mug and drinks and discounts, I felt) but hey… On any other day at Botero, each cocktail would cost$ 16.50 each. The cheese plate is regularly $ 15. The mug is $ 25.
It ended up being $ 90 worth of stuff for $ 20. It was more than enough so I didn’t even use the all night discount.
The drinks were okay, definitely strong (hence «is that rain or the buzz?») and like weird, experiential drinks designed to advertise the brand of vodka that they serve. The cheese plate and bread was excellent, including figs, with enough food for me to share with one other person for lunch the following day.
The mug… well… The bar is called Botero bar because it features the artwork of a Colombian artist (not Native Hawaiian) named Fernando Botero who is known for making jet black sculptures of chunky people. So there are a bunch of chunky naked people statues lounging around the bar… and the souvenir mug is an embarrassing awkward-​sexist mug of a fat man in a business suit standing on the back of a naked fat woman.
I mean it could be a commentary on capitalism and the excesses of the spoilt and wealthy. Which would be interesting except it is the icon of a bar for some of the wealthiest people in the entire world…
Speaking of which… While the staff was very friendly and even checked the mug stash when my first mug came out of the box chipped, I felt the clientele was kind of obnoxious. It could have just been luck, but I was seated next to a bunch of white dudes in business suits saying sexist stuff about ladies and a rich drunk woman whose husband was on Maui for a golf tournament, who was going on and on about whether or not they should buy a beach house on Maui or a ranch and restaurant in California…
Later on in the night, a young man sat down next to me. He told me he was working for Apple and that he was applying for law school. He was kind of waxing grandiose about how he was going to work realllly hard to get into law school by doing volunteer programs for poor kids in a really vertical charity case way, and how the grad program I was in (social work) wasn’t for him because he wanted to do something that would «change the world.» He then urged me to «join us for sushi.»
Through talking to him, I later learned that «us» was his parents, who he was traveling with at Wailea. And that «working for Apple» meant handing out stickers for Apple as a campus promoter.
Then it started to rain.

Beautiful area of the resort, open air and nice atmosphere. We grew accustomed to the prices at the resort so I’m not going to b@tch about that but honestly if I’m going to spend some time at the bar, @$ 15 each, I would like at least an ounce of alcohol in the drink (and like Alex L. says they tasted like kool-​aid). Told my husband to tip good so the next drink might have hope but that never happened. I got stuck here with other people that wanted to hang and drink beers here and it was convenient as we were all staying at the wailea.
1 star for providing a convenient «waiting for the wife» spot keeping my husband from whining in our room about waiting for me to get ready
1 star for the shrimp cocktail husband said was really plump, big shrimp that he had on several occasions
1 star for the galaxy of blue lights above the bar cause I’m a sucker for blue lights.

The boyfriend and I knew that we were probably in for a few sugary tropical drinks at this bar, but the menu managed to fall below our already-​low expectations, seemingly curated meticulously by a 17-​year-​old girl who had just been introduced to coconut rum and needs to pair it with generous amounts of kool-​aid, because «ew alcohol gross, amirite?»
The cocktail menu lacked diversity, so when the bartender approached, we asked what he specialized in and if he could make us anything, *anything* that was outside of the flavor profile of a Ring Pop. He stared blankly, sputtered, and ended up recommending what he thought was the least sweet concoction available, the Wailea Splash. After a sip, we had to ask for soda water on the side to cut down the sweetness of the drinks. Strange juxtaposition to sit in the heart of a lavishly appointed resort with works by Botero littered about, and be poured drinks by a bartender who doesn’t understand (or care about) his own craft.
We quickly cashed out and moseyed on over to a place that makes cocktails for grown adults. Do yourself a favor if you need a drink and go next door to the Four Seasons, where you can say words like «Aperol» and «St. Germain» and not get a completely blank stare from the bartender. The bar at Monkeypod, nearby, will also do in a pinch as well.

Yeah, the Botero Bar, like everything else at Grand Wailea, is expensive. But if you’re resigned to paying the prices (like we often were after a day full of some activity or other), this bar is the best place to be in the resort. The bartenders are fantastic. They’re friendly and they remember you by your second visit. We had a great time just hanging out for a while, drinking our expensive drinks, and talking with them (and other patrons) about all sorts of things.
An excellent way to wind down after a long day of sightseeing. :-)

I’m truly a fan. The best thing about Botero Bar is how close «Botero» is to «Boto.»