Some things you may want to be aware of before booking this AirBnB. There were mudslides that occurred in March 2021 just south of Hanalei (this rental is north of Hanalei by about 4 miles & then there’s a long dirt road to get to the rental). This creates a complication for your exploration of the island because the mudslide corridor is reduced to a single lane. They do construction/repair of the mudslide area during the day. What this means for you is that the road is closed all day with the exception of a small window in the early morning & a small window in the afternoon where cars are allowed to go through. (Things we knew nothing about until we found a sticky note on the fridge with the opening & closure times)Traffic gets pretty backed up as cars line up and wait for the road to open up. This also means that no taxi, Uber, lyft (absolutely no one) will go north of the mudslide area because it takes too long for passage. You absolutely must have a rental car if you are staying here. My rental car fell through/turned out to be a scam when I arrived at the island. So, I opted to take the Kauai bus to the rental. As I said before, no taxi service of any kind goes north of the mudslides, but the bus will get you as far as Hanalei town (which is adorable btw!) I called Dawn (the host) and asked for suggestions on how to get to her place. Dawn is not at the property, but she does have a “caretaker” person who stays in the unit below yours. The caretaker came to pick us up & charged us $30 for the 4 mile trip to the rental. Exhausted & tired from a stressful travel day, we paid “the fee”. We soon found out that this is “the fee” for a one way transport of the 4 miles to/from Hanalei town. There are no accessible beaches within walking distance of this rental.
You will be staying on the upper level of the home with the caretaker in the unit below you. There are two flights of stairs to get into your rental. There is also a very steep/narrow hill to drive up to drop off your luggage. After that, you’re expected to hoof it up and down the steep and at times of rain, slippery hill. There is an additional cottage adjacent to your rental that is rented separately. Because you are on the upper level you will hear whoever is in the separate cottage especially if they are loud & obnoxious. The first two nights of our stay were quiet, but nights 3 & 4 were loud. The guy that was staying there was shouting expletives during the night & we could hear him vomiting in the morning.
The views from the rental are beautiful, but the rental is in need of a serious deep clean and maintenance. With the cleaning fee of $275 one might expect a cleanliness level comparable to a hotel, this is definitely not the case. There was a thick layer of dust on the headboard of the bed & grime building up on the baseboards & where the baseboards meet the carpet. The windows need cleaning, the screens are filthy & the window tracks are littered with a dark/dirty substance, possibly mold/mildew. Linens, bedding & towels were clean. The exterior of the home is covered in a green/black mildew/maybe mold & it’s evident that no exterior maintenance has been performed in quite a long time.
The kitchen has basic pots, pans & dishes. There were no basic cooking supplies: no salt, no pepper or any other cooking spices or condiments provided. No cooking oil, nothing. One of the kitchen cabinets is hanging on by one hinge. We found trash in a number of the cabinets.The refrigerator water filter was flashing that it needs replacement. The oven and stove are electric & there is a small toaster oven & microwave. When I used the toaster oven there was a trivet sitting on top. I began using the toaster & started smelling a burning plastic smell. I checked all over inside the oven to try to locate the source of the noxious fumes, but found that the trivet was on top to disguise the fact that the toaster oven top had previously been melted & the paint is peeling & bubbling away.
During our 7 day stay we lost power at least 3 times. The caretaker brought us candles & battery operated lamps. I asked if this was normal to lose power? She said whenever there are winds/rain the power goes out. (This is a rainforest area, it rains regularly) Normally this would not be a big deal for me, but all of the cooking appliances are electric so we couldn’t cook anything & also you have no internet service without the power. Make sure to keep your devices fully charged & you have some form of entertainment downloaded on them.
I tried to speak with Dawn about the importance of sharing all of the road closure information and tried to get her to realize that it is important for her to be honest and share all of the road closure information on her listing. She did not seem at all remorseful about withholding the information.