Stayed in Wakiki for 5 days in an AirBnb. Drove to North Shore to spend last two days of vacation in more remote location of the island.
Arrived at Emmanuel's place at 5PM and let ourselves into unit. No issue with check in. Jumped into the shower immediately after arriving to clean off the sand from our day at the beach. I exited the shower and was standing in front of the bathroom sink with a towel and flip-flops when I felt something only toes. Looked down and a cockroach was crawling by. Ran into the bedroom as my partner killed #1. Stayed in the bedroom on the bed as my partner showered. Contacted Emmanuel asking for bug spray and whether he had suggestions for dealing with bugs. No response.
I noticed another bug in the corner of the bedroom. It looked like it was dead and lying on its back. When my partner got out of the shower he came to kill and and informed me #2 was also alive. Messaged Emmanuel informing him, still no answer. Also called him and left a voicemail. He didn't ever return it.
So I called AirBnb to inform them of bug issue and discuss options for cancelling. AirBnb asked me whether I had pictures to substantiate the claim. I told them I didn't because the cockroaches were killed immediately and put in the toilet. At this point I wasn't willing to stay through night in the Airbnb and was already packing up.
My partner walked through the Airbnb to see if there were any other roaches, and noticed #3 lying on its back by the garbage in the kitchen. Found three roaches in less than an hour in plain sight! Took a video of us killing it and sent to AirBnb. Also sent to Emmanuel. He told me that this was a tropical country and as a result there are bugs. He also told me he had a contract with Terminex to treat the unit and they had been there a week ago. This admission made it sound like the unit has a known cockroach issue.
My family is from a tropical country in West Africa. I have never seen a cockroach crawling in the house. Ants and spiders, yes, but not cockroaches. Additionally, I was in Wakiki for 5 days and didn't see any roaches. At this point, we quickly packed up our stuff into our rental car and sat in our car for 2 hours waiting for AirBnb to try to reach Emmanuel. Airbnb finally reached him and told me Emmanuel was willing to give me a full refund except for the cleaning fee - ridiculous considering we had left the unit cleaner than we entered it by killing 3 roaches in the span of an hour. Eventually after wasting our evening waiting for AirBnb to negotiate with Emmanuel, we were given a full refund.
We drove back to Wakiki and didn't arrive until 10 PM and had to book a hotel for our last two nights. It was an unfortunate situation and almost ruined our vacation. Luckily we were only supposed to stay there for two days.
I hope anyone considering staying here takes this review seriously. Feel free to contact me for more details/videos.