In life, I've learned to "go with the flow" and it's always an amazing adventure when you do…read more Finding myself at the Lave Tree Tropic Inn was Jumanji! The symphony within nature kept me invigorate. The historical charm of the area is tempting to both an Indiana Jones or Tomb Raider adventurer(s). Yet, it is the subtle charm of Irene that soothes the balance between nurture and nature. You will be awaken by the most aromatic vanilla-macadamia-nut coffee whiff, while being tempted by a freshly baked warm, "banana-chocolate-chip-papaya-slice-of-heaven-bread." Now, a word-of-advice, the road towards the Tropic Inn requires "off-road" tires and caution within the trail. It rains often, and muddy roads create sticky situations. Nonetheless, if you're down those neck of the woods, you otta' know your terrain... Mahalo, Vee

I love serendipity!!!…read more Irene plays the ukulele and her friends sing Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, how fun!!! Admits tropical paradise, quiet, and serenity, I found quickness and humor, the best!!! Mahalo to all of you. Aloha, Vittorio is ready for his ukulele lesson.

What a fantastic resort and location. The hotel grounds, facilities and rooms are quite nice and…read morethe staff is friendly, professional and knowledgeable. The Ka Lihikai bar was terrific and Aaron was our amazing server. My wife had the frozen Mo'o and I had the Famous Ka Lihikai Tia and both drinks were fantastic. We also had the mushroom appetizer which was yummy. Highly recommended

Well after years of me giving 5 star reviews here, recent management and structural changes here…read morehave soured the experience, and we likely wont be returning. #1 change is the forced $30/day Valet only parking. Up until recently they allowed self parking across the street in another lot. Sorry, $30/day plus tax plus multiple tips/day and the loss of valuable vacation time standing in line waiting for valets to get the car is a non-starter. They have PLENTY of available parking space here, this is just a money grab. They also changed up the breakfast offering. Hilton offers an $18/day/guest benefit to purchase food, instead of setting up a continental breakfast. This used to work well when they setup in the lounge area with grab and go offerings reasonably priced, like spam musubi, pastries, fruits. But no more; now the only offerings are the vastly overpriced Ka Lihikai restaurant, and you cannot get breakfast there for anywhere near $18. The lovely morning coffee service that they used to have in the open air lobby has moved to a claustrophobic little meeting room. Art - sad to report that they're removed the ultra-classy Kim Taylor Reece B&W Hawaiian culture photos and replaced them with ordinary tourist-grade photos. Pillows huge and firm (not good) hard as rocks. You do get a minifridge, but no microwave. Lovely views of the working Hilo Bay, pool, and Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa.

What an amazing place to stay. So close to Volcano National Park. We were able to catch this mini…read moreeruption and arrive within 10 mins. The Coffee and banana bread were spot on. Would recommend staying here 100%. The Staff was so friendly and accommodating. We didn't actually check in until 10pm. Very easy to find. The room was clean and comfy. The only thing we missed out on was asking for their banana bread recipe.

About the only positive thing I can say is that it's close to Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park…read more The issues: - Upon arrival around 5ish PM, there was no one around to greet us. Finally someone was running around and told my travel buddy to look for an envelope in the basket. - The room: Small, kind of musty/moldy kind of vibe. The bed was small and squeaky. You need a key to turn on the electricity. Also, there is no TV! - No potable water in the room. The provided water in the carafe had mold on the lid. - Bathroom: The shampoo, conditioner, and shower gel were all filled about 1/4th of the way. The shower gel wasn't even labeled. Very little counter space for toiletries. - Breakfast: I was expecting something a little more substantial. There were papaya boats and banana bread. - No shoes inside policy. Sorry, I wasn't leaving my shoes outside the room. Rain? Bugs? Heck no! All in all, I didn't see the value for $285 for a single night. This was my first time ever staying at a BnB and I didn't feel like it was very hospitable.

I've never had the most horrible front desk service in my years coming to Hilo & staying at the…read moreHilo Hawaiian. if the front desk lady thought she could get away with her stink attitude she's sadly mistaken. Her disrespect towards me (and I'm LOCAL! BORN & RAISED! She spoke with no respect! No friendliness, NO ALOHA! Why would you employee someone like this! Im not sure if housekeeping was short staff, but we waited patiently for 4 hours for a room! it's sad that one rotten employee can act this way and get away with it! I hope she apologizes to us for the wait as a common courtesy...if not I will take this to the higher ups...Saturday 2/14/26 3:31pm HER NAME IS ALICIA...

Fantastic hotel in Hilo! We stayed here for a couple of nights on our vacation and it was great…read more The lobby is spacious and modern looking with plenty of places for lounging. There is a pool to the side of the hotel and lots of parking available. The hotel also has a restaurant bar and a proper restaurant, a steakhouse that does buffets on the weekend. We didn't do the buffet as neither of us really enjoys eating at a buffet but we did have breakfast there and we went to the bar side for a couple of drinks, including a free cocktail upon check in. The room was clean and had everything we needed. We booked a room facing the water and the coconut island which was a lovely view. You can hear through the wall quite loudly but if turning on the fan constantly helped drown out the noise at night. I was a little annoyed that we were placed in a room next to a family with a bunch of kids, including a crying infant when the hotel didn't seem to be too busy during our stay. I went outside a couple of times to enjoy the view with some drinks but had to get back inside immediately due to the loud crying. We were also issued a $10 voucher to use at the restaurant. We used one for breakfast but could not use the other 2 vouchers. There are other restaurants nearby and even one that is a walking distance. Had there been an option to order from a menu at the steakhouse, I would have loved the chance to do so. Perhaps next time. Overall, the stay was good and would not hesitate to book this place again if ever in Hilo in the future.

Poor place and difficult host (Ophelia). This place has very crappy electricity: running hot plate…read moreand microwave together during cooking leads to blackouts. True, the host left instruction not to use two electrical device together, it's just not intuitive at all and who can remember that precisely during a long travel, and mistakes do occur on everyone. This place has no internet (no problem, we can use our own). No hot water in bathroom basin, no problem, we can get hot water from the shower. Shower door leaks, no problem, put a towel there, just endure 3 days. Kind of dirty and disgusting: the bathroom was connected completely to one of the small bedrooms, so the smell from the toilet can actually go into the bedroom, no pictures of this detail shown in the booking pictures. We endured all these, no problem, we know we did not pay that much. Left thank you message and decent review for her, since we know running a business is not easy, being a decent guest is always good. We said publicly 'Ophelia truly tried to help and is very kind hearted person'. Sure, when the crappy electricity went off, she did came to turn it back on so we can cook our dinner. Guess what happened next? After we left, this host Ophelia smeared us on Airbnb for 'not able to find the place which is right on central avenue, that she had to drive out in midnight to lead us in', sorry, this completely did not happen, we found the place ourselves. She accused us for not shutting her doors, which did not happen either, I just text her for unclear instruction on how to close the doors (she wrote a sentence without punctuation, which makes the information misleading, and she did not respond or solve the problem), and then we figured out how to lock it, and wrote a note to cofirm with her 'no worries, problem solved'. She completely did not read any of the messages. And God knows why she later used this communication to accuse us in the guest review. What's most infuriating in her review is that she continued to write 'The guest is not able to read her instruction written in English. I think this could be due to the language barrier. They could have traslated it.' This discriminative language entirely crossed the red line, had to report to Airbnb, don't think there is another choice. With such a lot of hate, she completely should not have been a host. This is a profession for people who wants to help.

(Please note that I haven't posted any photos for this place. What is here was posted by someone…read moreelse.) I am so embarrassed to have stayed here. But others need to know to avoid this place. To my utter disbelief, Lonely Planet recommends this place. They need to remove it from their short list, which makes one wonder if there just isn't any place to stay in the Puna area. Lonely Planet uses the pithy word "ramshackle" to describe downtown Puna. That adjective is perfect for describing this inn. This place is a nightmare. What I've learned: Don't pay until you see the place AND HEAR the surrounding noises. If you think it's going to be tolerable staying here, make sure to listen for a TV playing in the background when first walking through your cabin with the owner. If you hear a TV, you don't want to stay in this particular cabin. The guy next door plays it all night long. He won't turn it off if you ask him. He just yells at you that he needs it on to help him sleep. This place is scary well beyond TV Guy, but it was after 8 p.m. when we arrived, and finding another place would be difficult. Once inside and facing the fact we would be sleeping here, I dreaded touching anything, especially anything with fabric. Of course, that included the bed and towels provided. All the furniture save the kitchen table was upholstered. I feared bed bugs. My fears were valid, though not for creepy crawlies. There was a substance on the bed sheets which was better not to think what it could be. No joke. So were these cleaned prior to our stay? Up until seeing that, we believed they were. But it was late, and we were tired and trying to give the place the benefit of the doubt. Creepy creepy. But we were able to avoid it. The floor was dirty, too. Not filthy, just not thoroughly cleaned. Wear thongs, if you have them. The dishes in the kitchen were dusty, and represented the rest of the place well, if you're still in the checking-it-out phase, and no money has passed hands. There are two sets of short stairs you have to navigate walking from the bed to the bathroom. One set has gravely varying in size steps. The two sets of steps together are uneven, which make it a difficult trip, especially in the middle of the night. We were here to sleep. That didn't happen for me. I was too horrified. In hindsight, I'd sleep in our rental car instead. Perhaps this place seems awful because everything is in a rough-around-the-edges secondhand thrown-together state. But I must say when the owner was escorting us from our pristine, quite inhabitable 2014 Nissan Maxima through the inn's junkyard to the cabin we would be renting, she expressed embarrassment over the "temporary" mess they had. "What do people think?" she asked out loud. Well, this review is your answer. This place gets two stars, because there weren't any critters or infestations.

Do you want an experience of a lifetime? Do you want to be a part of living history? Ever want…read moreto walk in the footsteps of those that dared to be a part of something so amazing words fall short? Book a stay at the Volcano House! The rooms take you back to a magical time, a time with character! The staff feels like family. The location....the location is beyond imagination, especially on nights like tonight when the fire and flame meet an unbroken gauze of the bewildered! Stay in the only place on the Big Island Mark Twain would recommend, talk to the family that hosts you, and experience the smells, sights and sounds of the past, present, and future! Make sure to have dinner....Get a reservation for the five star food and the attached Volcano House Restaurant ! Trust me!!!!!! There is Nothing like this in the world

After hiking this is the closest (and I think only?) place to eat in the park. The view is great,…read moreyou can see the volcano! Unfortunately the food wasn't great. My friend liked her steak salad but my pulled pork was very dry. I was able to save it with barbecue sauce. The staff is friendly but the wait can be a little long since this is one of the only spots to eat nearby

The price felt fair overall, but I think many reviewers weighted the cleanliness and renovated…read morerustic aesthetic too heavily. Having stayed in 2-5 star hotels across the U.S., this property is a good example of how subjective hotel ratings can be. Hilo simply does not have the newer luxury resort inventory you find on the Kohala Coast, so don't assume another hotel is upscale because it has "Grand" in the name. I can understand the appeal of its boutique-style, active-traveler, eco-conscious, customer-friendly atmosphere, hence the skewed 5-star ratings. Our biggest disappointments were room size, cooling performance, and noise/poor acoustic privacy. I'd still give it a low 4 stars because of the location, cleanliness, Aloha atmosphere, and staff friendliness. The property offers very basic accommodations in what resembles an old Travelodge/Motel 6-type property but cleverly renovated. The owners clearly understood that with clean rooms, vinyl plank flooring, fresh paint, and updated furniture, and a hint of a Zen/Environmental/Aloha vibe, they could offer a strong alternative to Hilo's aging high-rise hotels. While there are wheelchair ramps, the property has three stories and no elevators which means you'll have to carry your luggage up the stairs for most the upper floors. Some rooms face the inlet/ocean across the street fronted by a very old looking fish pond, while most others look across to each other with a small garden areas between or the decent pool area (no hot tub.) There's free lobby coffee in a large pump dispenser since rooms lack coffee makers, plus complimentary bikes and paddleboards. A very small lagoon beach is directly across the street, with two decent restaurants within a stone's throw. Downtown Hilo is about a six-minute drive but probably not walkable for most people. Rooms are compact, and the bathrooms are tiny with no exhaust fan. The bed leaned softer than average, and the TV was smaller than most modern computer monitors. The A/C struggled with Hilo's humid climate but managed to keep the room barely cool enough for comfortable sleeping. Shower pressure and temperature were acceptable, though the showerhead sat around chin height for me at 5'11". The biggest drawback was noise and lack of sound privacy. The glass louver windows provide almost no sound insulation, so you hear everything outside your room -- kids running the halls, conversations, foot traffic, and nearby guests. Anyone outside your room could easily overhear conversations inside. There's also noticeable jet noise due to the airport proximity, though fortunately I don't recall hearing flights between 10:30 PM and 6:30 AM. Rates are typically less than the nearby aging high-rise hotels with more upscale branding (and more uneven reviews). If SCP is at least 20% cheaper than those competitors, it's probably the best value in Hilo. If it fits your budget, I would opt for the ocean view rooms with the balconies at the SCP. The hotel appeared to be finishing renovations on its last older rooms during our stay, so many of the older 1-2 star reviews are probably no longer relevant

The staff is amazing! From the desk to cleaning crew, Trisha is so kind! Everyone always so…read moregracious and went above and beyond. Truly tried to do everything and anything possible for my Mom and I. thank you! Also loved the Koi pond we looked out over and the views. The room was clean and comfortable(mattress is amazing) but it is an older hotel and could use some updates. Faucets in the shower were sticky and hard to turn. No fan in the bathroom either. New mirror is great though! Construction on the first floor was very loud as well as traffic due to thin walls. Banyan drive felt very sketchy and unsafe at night and neither of us wanted to walk in that direction Coffee at the front was excellent and got our days started right! From check in to check out was so smooth and easy!

Very comfortable place. We visited Hilo from Kona and didn't want to drive back. So we found this…read moreplace. It didn't have AC but the fans kept us cool. The Mark was very hospitable and got us situated.

Just about everything I said about Wild Ginger Inn, also applies here. In fact, they are so close…read moreas to be within walking distance of each other. The bonus is that the man that runs the show here, John, is incredible! We were doing a backpacking trip at trailhead known for break-ins and John let us store our luggage here while we hiked and camped. When we came back, it was waiting for us in our rooms, I almost never receive service this good anywhere, let alone at a hotel this affordable! John is also one of those rare people you meet in the service industry that isn't just into making quaint small talk for the sake of it. He doesn't robotically recommend things everyone knows about. He really knows every nook and cranny of the island! Everyone else we told about our hiking trips on the island just met us with puzzled looks. John had done those hikes and had useful information to contribute about those hikes. Stuff you couldn't get with just a Google search. I LOVE competent and friendly people that know exactly what they are talking about! So many folks these days just run their mouths in a desperate attempt to make conversation, whether what they are saying is actually useful (or even true). John, if you read this, and ever come to Alaska, look us up, we'd be happy to do the same for you!

Our respite stay after a full day of chasing Volcano Craters and remote petroglyphs…read more Ten minutes from the park exit, just had dinner in the park. Works out great , self check in. Old fashioned but just right for the Area.

This was a great fond for us. We have never been on this island. Literally 3 minutes from Volcano…read moreNatl Park. We stayed in Rm 9. Convenient path to car and hot tub. We used the hot tub 2x and it was perfect temp. I thought it was crazy for a gas fireplace in room. We used it 3x because it was rainy here. Staff was helpful by providing us ice and utensils and glasses that we could leave in room. They don't want you drinking the water so they provide a 5 gal jug of water. Good to bathe in but not drink. They provided a small fridge, coffee maker, toiletries. The room was big enough that they could have added a coffee table by fireplace to set your drinks on. No TV but we had our own electronics. WiFi was on point. Ample parking. They don't do daily room service unless you ask. The sound of the birds at night is amazing. They communicate right away via text for anything you need. I would definitely stay here again.