The Whale House is a beautiful space with amazing views. Kalapana is a little out of the way in the grand scheme of the big island, but that was part of the appeal for us. We were only due to be there for two nights and arrived Saturday evening where Andre met us right on time, gave us a rundown of the place and then left us to our own devices. We explored Kehana Black Sand beach across the street (really cool - wish we'd had more time there) and then headed over to Uncles Awa bar down the road - it was super chill because apparently half the island was up in Hilo for Merrie Monarch, but that was fine with us - food was great, very reasonable prices on drinks.
Sunday morning we headed out around 10 for an all day volcano excursion (hiking the lava fields, seeing the lava glow, etc - highly recommend if you've never been to the island before) and didn't get back to the house until about 10:00 that night. Unfortunately we stepped into the front door to a squishy front mat - the entire place had flooded due to the septic backing up (part of the problem of that darn black sand is having to rinse it off). Luckily none of our stuff was ruined, but I'm not going to lie, it sucked. HOWEVER, I called Andre and within about 7 minutes he was at the front door and within about 8 more minutes after that he had spoken to his brother in law (Scott), who runs an Airbnb next door and luckily had an empty room that night, and shuffled us next door to alternate digs for the night. Scott was also super nice and helpful as he could be. The next morning Andre came by to let us know that he'd called a gift card into a local restaurant and that our lunch was on him (Kaleo's in Pahoa - it was delicious). When we left later that morning, he'd already fixed the septic issue and was working hard on getting the Whale House back up and running. The situation was less than desirable, but their customer service was absolutely stellar. I loved this slightly off the beaten path part of the island and would definitely stay with them again in the future.