The place was lovely. Clean, and exactly as it looked in the pictures. It was quiet and serene- a perfect writing escape, for example. However it was very rainy/cloudy/foggy- nothing to be done about that but many locals informed us its always like that, so it's good to know. The black sand beach was a bit further than we anticipated. There's not a ton to do close but relax and hang out besides the Waipo Valley, though the orchard is pretty cool. We were on a relaxing/honeymoon-esque trip, and we ended up leaving early because it was just too rainy for our liking- we went back to the western coast of the big island and were happier with the sun and swim-able beaches. Also the wifi isn't the most reliable- I had some things I needed to do online and we ended up having to go elsewhere to get a nice strong wifi signal-- we didn't ask the hosts to fix it, but they had already let us know that the vision of Hale KuKui is more of a retreat where you turn your gadgets off- we wished we had a heads-up about the wifi. Because we left early, there was quite a bit of confusion about how to pay some leftover fees we had online, but it eventually it worked out, and I learned they also have a website--- www.halekukui.com Overall, great, just not the sunny retreat we were hoping for----but maybe a phenomenal writing retreat (if you don't need wifi!)