PROS and TIPS: his house was perfect for our family vacation! We had 3 families (2 grandparents plus four adults and 3 kids under 4 years old) and there was more than enough space for comfortable sleeping, eating and lounging.

The house itself is located immediately behind the Princeville Shopping Center and grocery store (a 5 min walk). Note: Foodland is pricey, so it is worth the trip to the Lihue Costco if you have a large group. The backside of the house has ground level and second floor lanai that look out over a beautiful golf course. The kids loved looking for geckos and chickens!

Within the Princeville area, the house is a 2 mile walk to the nearest beach. The St. Regis hotel has an outdoor public access path to shared waterfront, but there is no parking that we saw (other than valet at the hotel). With our young kids, the 5 minute drive to Anini or Hanalei beaches were more convenient (and unique) options. The house amenities included numerous sand toys and floats, chairs and straw mats for sunbathing.

We've stayed in Princeville before and felt this house was the perfect launch pad to North Kauai --- Hanalei with its awesome beach, pier and shops, Tunnels Beach and Ke'e Beach trail along the scenic Nepali Coast were all a short drive away. Note: the winter surf on the north end is wild, so Tunnels and Ke'e were both essentially closed to casual swimming due to high surf and dangerous rip tides. Anini and the St. Regis beach are very calm and protected.

CONS: Only two little setbacks. (1) Lisa had prearranged to have the HVAC repair man come and fix the AC, but unfortunately it was never fixed in the Master Suite, so things were pretty humid and musty back there for our week long stay. He isolated some kind of coolant leak, but then couldn't fix the problem and told us not to turn on the AC... (2) Our second to last night we decided to do a big cookout on the lanai, only to discover that the grill was not working and/or out of propane. Not a huge deal, but we ended up cooking burgers for 8 people on a skillet in the kitchen. Side note: we thought the $600 cleaning fee was a bit high. Perhaps Lisa had someone come through and trash the house in the past, but we are a very tidy group and were somewhat surprised that the cleaning fee was fixed and non-negotiable.

Overall, we really enjoyed our time at Lola Hale and recommend it to anyone visiting the north end of Kauai!