Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
WAIKIKI
beach
WALK
If you haven't been to Waikiki in a few years, you'll be pleasantly surprised at the Waikiki Beach
Walk. One of Waikiki's biggest projects in decades, the total renovation of an 8-acre area bound
by Saratoga Road, Kalakaua Avenue, Lewers Street, and Kalia Road makes the area much
more welcoming and visitor friendly than the crowded, narrow streets of just a few years ago.
The project, by Outrigger Hotels & Resorts, cost some $460 million.
Phase One, completed in 2007, reconfigured the formerly very congested area (lots of delivery
trucks double-parked, crammed sidewalks, and no vegetation) into an oasis of broad sidewalks,
tropical foliage, water features, open space, and new, totally renovated hotels. Eleven hotels
were razed, upgraded, or changed to suites or condos. Five hotels and one timeshare con-
dominium remain. The bad news for budget travelers is that more-affordable near-oceanfront
hotels, neighborhood eateries, and small independent shops have been replaced by luxury
properties with 90,000 square feet of swank shops and trendy restaurants to match, all linked
through pedestrian bridges and connecting walkways.
Other changes to the hotels in this area include:
•
The former 480-room Ohana Reef Towers is now a 193-condominium unit timeshare, oper-
ated by Outrigger and renamed
Wyndham Waikiki Beach Walk.
•
The Ohana Edgewater and Ohana Coral Seas were razed and replaced by
Waikiki Beach
Walk,
a 90,000-square-foot retail/entertainment complex with 40 retail shops, four major res-
taurants, four smaller food and beverage spots, and an open pedestrian plaza.
•
The former Ohana Waikiki Village and the Ohana Waikiki Tower hotels, which had a total of
881 rooms, were demolished and an
Embassy Suites Waikiki Beach Walk,
with a total of
421 suites, was built to replace them.
•
The
Outrigger Reef on the Beach
totally refurbished its rooms.
•
The
Ohana Islander Waikiki,
on the corner of Kalakaua Avenue and Lewers Street, renov-
ated its 280 units.
INEXPENSIVE
KaiAlohaApartmentHotel
If you are on a tight budget and want to experience the Waikiki
of 40 years past, stay here. This small apartment hotel just a block from the beach is remin-
iscent of the low-key hotels that used to line the blocks of Waikiki in the good old days. It
offers one-bedroom apartments and studios, all furnished in modest rattan and colorful is-
land prints. Each of the one-bedroom units has a bedroom with either a queen-size bed or
two twins, a living room with a couch and two additional twins (Hawaiian houses of 40 years
ago all had extra guest beds, called punee, in the living room), a full kitchen, a dining table,
and even voicemail. Rooms are large enough to accommodate a roll-away bed for a fifth per-
son. Glass jalousies take advantage of the cooling trade winds, and there's air-conditioning
for very hot days. Studios have two twin beds, kitchenettes, balconies, Plexiglas roofs in the
bathroom (the forerunner of the skylight), and screen doors for ventilation. The units aren't
