Lanai Hotels

This is your guide to all Lanai hotels and detailed reviews from an experienced traveler to Lanai. If you are lucky, if you are adventurous, if you are looking for a place to get off the beaten track and away from most everyone else for a vacation, then you are probably looking for a place like Lanai. And if you are planning to come to Lanai and stay here, you will need an experienced guide to the Lanai hotels. That is what this site is about. This is a guide to the Lanai hotels from experienced travelers and longtime visitors of Lanai and we will give you all you need to know and a first person review of what each hotel has to offer.

Unlike Maui, where you could read hotel reviews on Fodors, TripAdvisor, Yahoo, and everywhere else for days, Lanai hotels can be summed up in a few pages right here from somebody who has been coming to Lanai for many years – years before there were resort hotels on Lanai. We have stayed in all the hotels on Lanai which is not saying much since there are essentially three! The quaint plantation style Hotel Lanai is independently owned and operated and located right in the center of the main town on the island, Lanai City. The Manele Bay Hotel and Lodge at Koele are both Four Seasons resorts that were built in the early 1990s. Each of the three hotels has its own charm, and each delivers a very different experience of the island.

Lanai offers many of the same benefits that the other Hawaiian islands have to offer: Beautiful tropical weather, gorgeous beaches, clear water with oodles of fish, turtles, and if you are lucky – dolphins. And Lanai is easy to get to, in fact it is just a ferry ride from Lahaina Town on Maui. Lanai also offers its own unique set of adventures and activities related to the history and geography of the island. But the hotels on Lanai, while similar in some ways to other hotels in Hawaii like excellent service & food, are also unique for Hawaii and uniquely different on Lanai.

The Four Season Manele Bay is situated right on the water and directly next to probably the best swimming and snorkeling beach on the island, Hulopo’e Beach. This is a luxury beach hotel in line with other similar Four Seasons properties: it has gorgeous flowered grounds, interesting architecture, unique oriental artwork and superbly appointed rooms. A lovely swimming pool and outdoor restaurant overlook the Bay where you can watch humpback whales swimming by and spouting in the winter months. This is the kind of hotel many people imagine when they think of an exotic Hawaiian vacation. Except that, for this level of luxury, this hotel would have 500 rooms if it were on Maui. The Manale Bay hotel has just over 200 rooms with the feel of a small beach-side estate instead of a huge luxury hotel that you get lost in. You feel like you know your way around after just a few minutes walking the grounds at the Manele Bay.

Heading up island on the only road from the beach and the bay you ascend about 1000 feet in elevation past rows of Cook pine trees and eventually come to the town of Lanai City with its brightly painted little plantation style houses. Just about in the center of town and just off the central town square is the Hotel Lanai. This small 10 room hotel was originally built in the 1920s as part of the Dole company’s pineapple plantation. It was originally used for company operations and now serves as a great little slice of island history as well as an interesting and comfortable place to stay. The Hotel Lanai is by far the most affordable of the three hotels on the island.

Continuing on up the road and ascending a few hundred for feet in elevation brings you to the long driveway of the Four Seasons Lodge at Koele. This truly interesting Lanai hotel is unique for Hawaii, for Lanaii, and also for a Four Seasons hotel. The hotel was built to resemble a huge old hunting lodge with a large central great room consisting of a towering wood beam ceiling and two wings of rooms built out either side of the central hall. The hotel is situated on vast landscaped grounds that creep up the side of the hill behind the lodge. And while the lodge is certainly impressive, the grounds are more impressive still with acres of grass, flowers, trees, paths, a lake and miniature golf course, and large orchid greenhouse. The whole scene as you first walk through the great central hall and then out the back of the hotel to lay eyes on the grounds will leave you wondering whether you are still in Hawaii or were somehow transported to the mountains of Canada. There is nothing else quite like it in Hawaii.

Each of the two Four Seasons Resorts is lavish in its own distinct way. The Lodge at Koele is about “mountain” activities like skeet shooting, horseback riding, and sitting around an outdoor fire in the evening sipping a warm drink in the cool air. It is not an old hunting lodge but it is meant to feel like one and it does. The Manale Bay hotel is all about the beach. Both hotels come with a Four Seasons price tag plus a few extra dollars for being in a remote location where everything is brought to the island by boat or plane (mostly boat). But, if you are looking for that one of a kind, away-from-it-all, luxury vacations and are willing to pay the price, either of these Lanai hotels will deliver an experience you will not soon forget.

The Hotel Lanai is much more down to earth in terms of service and accommodations compared to either the Lodge at Koele or the Manele Bay hotels. It is a small comfortable inn with plenty of charm in the middle of a town with plenty of the same charm. If you are just going to Lanai to experience the island and island activities, not an exotic hotel experience, then the Hotel Lanai is the place you want to stay. It is not over-priced considering the location and you can still go visit the other two fancier Lanai hotels since they are open to everyone.