During a recent stay to Turtle Bay Resort, I overheard someone saying this, “Turtle Bay is great resort to stay at in Hawaii where you don’t have to leave the resort.”  I tend to agree.  Once you get to Turtle Bay Resort, you really don’t need to leave it, and there’s a good chance you wouldn’t even want to.  Here is the listing of their extensive on site resort facilities:

• Two Golf Courses – home of PGA and LPGA tournaments 
• Spa Luana
• Wonderful Restaurants
• Shops
• Miles of Walking Paths
• Tennis
• Horseback Riding and Stables
• Fitness Club
• Helicopter Tours
• Two Swimming Pools
• Swimming, Snorkeling, and Surfing Beaches
• Kids Club
• Wedding Facilities

Turtle Bay Resort is located on the northern most tip of Oahu miles away from another hotel.  It is about an hours drive into Honolulu from Turtle Bay  Yes, it is remotely located, but that is what makes it so charming. 

All Turtle Bay Resort rooms have ocean views.  (See the view from my lanai.) The rooms are well sized and most of them have lanias.  The fresh, comfortable decor is what I would describe as “island modern”.  We stayed in a Deluxe Ocean View Room.  (The photo on the left is of our room.)  The room had a comfortable king sized bed, more than ample closet space, two lavatory areas, in-room safe, free wifi, and a desk area.  The room also had a TV, but we never had a need to turn it on.  The lanai was equipped with two chairs and a small table. 

The room had a mini-fridge which was very useful.  I actually prefer having an empty fridge available rather than a stocked mini-bar.  If you were desperate for the typical mini-bar items, there is resort shop will all the snacks and drinks that you would find in a mini-bar.

Our room was cleaned daily and we had nightly turn down service.  The turn down service was a nice little touch.  It included fresh baked cookies or chocolate covered macadamia nuts. They also provided a newsletter that listed the upcoming day’s sunrise and sunset times as well as the weather forecast.  The newsletter also provided a Hawaiian phrase along with sight seeing ideas and activities. Another nice turn down touch is that the staff would turn on relaxing music from the radio alarm clock.  The Sharper Image clock had a selection of relaxing spa-like music and sounds programmed into it. 

Valet service was available, though it wasn’t thrust upon you, which I liked.  There was ample self parking within easy walking distance of the hotel.

We enjoyed our stay, though there were a couple of things that we wish had been different. 

• The pool area was mobbed by screaming kids.  I don’t begrudge kids having fun, but they were screaming and yelling at the top of their lungs and this wasn’t the relaxing environment by the pool that I was hoping for.  I think the resort should designate one of their two pools a a kids’ pool and the other as an adults’ pool.  If that isn’t possible, it would be helpful if the pool staff would politely ask children not to yell.
• The hotel rooms don’t have bathrobes.  We thought that this might have been an oversight from housekeeping in preparing our room.  We did ask at the front desk for bathrobes and they told us that they are normally only reserved for beach cottages, though they would check to see if they had any extras for us.  When we returned to our rooms later in the day, we had two bathrobes there.

Over all we really liked Turtle Bay and do hope to return someday, especially when the keikeis are back in school. 

Watch for upcoming posts reviewing the spa and restaurants at Turtle Bay Resort.