The most popular of the Lanai hotels, and the most typical of the luxury Hawaiian beach resort that people picture in their minds is the Four Seasons Manele Bay Resort. Perched on the edge of one of the prettiest little bays on Lanai, The Manele Bay is the central and main beach location for the island. The hotel is just a few hundred yards from Hulopo’e Beach, one of the best water sport and snorkeling beaches on Lanai and in all of Hawaii. The hotel also has a beautiful swimming pool and outdoor restaurant that look out over the bay and which all guests on the island, not just guests of the Four Seasons or Manele Bay, are welcome to use. The property is gorgeous, with tall palm trees swaying in the winds and flowers exploding from hundreds of flower beds and boxes around the hotel. The hotel is built around the artifacts of an ancient dwelling site of original Lanai inhabitants and you can view these remains from the trail to the beach. Add to that the exquisite oriental art decorating in the main hall and throughout the hotel, and you have a truly unique and extraordinary destination that contrasts well with the other Lanai hotels. The Manele Bay Resort is a place that is simply a magnet for all of the guests that come to Lanai, whether you are staying at the Manele Bay hotel or not.

We stayed at the Four Seasons Manele Bay last year for the first time. We love the sister property located up-island, the Four Seasons Lodge at Koele, and generally like to stay there, but we thought this last trip we would finally close the circle of Lanai hotels and stay at the beach. And then we would be able to say that we have stayed at every one of the Lanai hotels.. all three of them! And since we were not splitting time with Maui this past trip we would have a full 10 days to soak up the sun and enjoy some of the treats offered by this exquisite property.

Since we were skipping Maui, we flew to Lanai on the Hawaiian Airlines flight from Honolulu and were picked up promptly at the airport by the Four Seasons shuttle. They snagged our bags without a word and we were off towards the hotel in mere minutes. They are very, very efficient. Upon arrival, there is the lei and cool towel routine that is so familiar with all the better hotels but pretty much everyone does it now. The assistant manager checked us in himself in just a couple of minutes. That is one thing I love about the Four Seasons. Once you have stayed at any of their hotel properties, they have all of your information and don’t fuss about asking for information and credit cards and such. You pretty much arrive and get escorted to your room.

We were hoping to get upgraded on the room, and I asked about it, but since they were pretty well full, they could not accommodate us. But, it never hurts to ask! Especially at Four Seasons. The room was quite nice though nothing particularly special. The bed was okay, the bathroom was nice, and the bath products were good. And we had a partial ocean view. We knew we would not be spending much time in the room so we didn’t splurge for this stay. Actually, staying at any of the Lanai hotels is generally a splurge for us no matter what type of room we are in!

The Pool area at the Four Seasons Manele Bay Resort is the central point and main gathering spot for this smallish hotel. And it is a very nice, if small, pool on the back patio area of the property overlooking the bay. It’s a great view. You pick a lounge chair and sit and within a minute or two an attendant arrives with towels to stretch over your lounge and take your order for drink, food, etc. The service is excellent as you would expect it to be at the Four Seasons. Every half hour or so a pool attendant comes around the pool and offers the guests fruit popsicles, and we both thought that was a nice touch. Over the course of our stay we spent a couple of hours total at the pool since we are not so much the sun worshipers as we are the snorkel hounds. But, if you like the pool scene, this is a beautiful pool area if a little crowded during the main part of the day. Note that all visitors to Lanai are welcome at the pool regardless of which of the Lanai hotels they are staying at - hence the relative crowd.

The beach directly adjacent to the Manele Bay Four Seasons is a public beach called Hulopo’e Beach. This is an absolute jewel for this island or any of the Hawaiian islands. And even though the beach is public it was never crowded (as opposed to the pool). Sure, there are plenty of people on the beach during the day sunbathing, swimming, snorkeling, and boogie boarding, but you never need to feel like you are being crowded. If you do feel crowded, you can always pick a more open part of the beach.

The beach itself is located inside a protected bay and is part of the Hulopo’o-Manele Marine Life Conservation Area. This means the area is a protected marine habitat and as a result the snorkeling is awesome, especially the left end of the bay off of the black lava rocks. We snorkeled here every day for several hours and saw the best variety of fish we have seen anywhere else in Hawaii. The bay is also home to a pod of spinner dolphins that tend to make an appearance during their daytime resting period. We saw dolphins on a couple of days, but none ever came close and you are not supposed to swim to them. One thing to watch out for snorkeling around the rocks is when the surf picks up you can be washed (or slammed in my case) up onto the rough and sharp lava rocks. It is better to stay in deeper water if possible. Turtles are also often in the area, but we saw none at Hulopo’e this trip.

Dining options at the Manele Bay resort consist of the more formal restaurant, Ihilani, and the less formal Ocean Grill on the terrace by the pool, and the Hulopo’e Court restaurant. We ate at all three during our stay for various meals, but generally we’d have lunch at the Grill if we were around the hotel or beach area. The Ocean Grill is outdoors and has a great view of the bay. We saw humpback whales going by and playing just outside of the bay on several occasions while having lunch there. The food is alright, but nothing so great that I remember what except for the homemade potato chips which were yummy. The same goes for the Hulopo’e Court: not bad, but we generally just had breakfast there which was fine if not remarkable. We do the same at the other Lanai hotels when we have stayed at them: we generally enjoy breakfast at the hotel.

Ihilani, on the other hand, was excellent. We are both Italian food lovers and Ihilani is an island of delicious Italian in a sea of Hawaii fare options. We had dinner there several times and enjoyed every meal. I especially enjoyed the spinach gnocchi and the osso buco. This is easily the best of the restaurants, but is only open for dinner and it is expensive, but you don’t have a lot of options directly around the hotel.

Other dining options include going into Lanai City and trying the couple of restaurants that are open there for dinner or dining at the other two Lanai hotels.  In Lanai City, we really liked Pele’s Other Garden. It’s good food at a decent price (at the Lanai hotels, the food is excellent but the price is… er.. pricy). You can also dine at the Lodge at Koele which has the Terrace restaurant that is very good and the Dining Room which is more formal (as in wear a jacket). You can sign for meals in any of the restaurants at either resort as a Four Seasons guest.

Like virtually every Four Seasons hotel or resort, the Manele Bay Resort delivers excellent, but understated service. Things just get done and your wishes and desires are easily met sometimes even without anybody asking. In the case of both the Manale Bay Resort and the Lodge at Koele there is the added benefit that the hotels are so small that they remember your name. The service is what places the Four Seasons slightly above peer hotels like the Fairmont or Marriott. Where these two are generally good and also have beautiful properties, the Four Seasons service is virtually always excellent. The Four Seasons Manele Bay Resort is no different.

If you are the Four Seasons type and you have never been to Lanai, I would select the Manele Bay Resort over the other Lodge at Koele for a first visit to the island. However, they are both excellent and top the list of Lanai hotels. The Manele Bay Resort has all the typical beach accoutrements: it would be a gorgeous place for a wedding and/or honeymoon. But, if you don’t need the luxury, I think the best of the Lanai hotels for a first visit is the Hotel Lanai.

Of the three Lanai hotels, the Lodge at Koele is the most unique. The hotel was built to resemble a large country sporting lodge on a vast landscaped baronial estate. And it pulls this goal off in spades. The Lodge at Koele is exceptional and extraordinary on its own, on the island of Lanai and in Hawaii as a whole. We have traveled all through the Hawaiian islands and have never seen anything quite like it. Yes, there are hundreds of lush beautiful resorts all throughout the islands, but for us, nothing to quite match the beauty of the grounds and buildings, the serenity of the location, the low number of other guests, and the specific cadre of activities that lend themselves to the property.

With that said, this hotel is not for everyone. Not even considering the cost which is astronomical, this is a quiet, introspective, get-away-from-it-all place, and much different than the other Lanai hotels. There is an over-arching feeling of peace in the place. And as we noticed when we first arrived, most of the few other guests at the hotel were also couples. No big rowdy groups of guys drinking it up in the bar or anything like that. So if you are looking for nightlife this is not the place for you. In fact, if you are looking for either nightlife, or shopping or a vast number of places to chose to have your meals, then Lanai is not the place for you.

We arrived at the hotel on the shuttle that runs from the bay where the ferry comes in. That is really the only transportation readily available, but they were right there when we arrived to take our bags and offer us a drink of cool punch when you get off the boat. We were greeted upon disembarking the shuttle by one on the concierges at the hotel who offered the ubiquitous lei (make & female version here though! And real!) and another cool drink and escorted into the main hall of the lodge. That is when the size of the place really hit us.

The lodge is an interesting building from the outside as you drive up the long driveway to the entrance. With the cute little church building to the side of the drive and the main building framed by a few large trees, it is not that impressive on first seeing it. And, I didn’t get a feel for how big the place is until we entered that main “great room” with it tall wood beamed ceilings and two massive stone fireplaces on either side. Massive stone fireplaces that had fires going in them in the middle of the day… in HAWAII! It was a sort of surreal experience at first because it is just so unexpected even if you know what the lodge is about before you get there. The two other Lanai hotels give you completely different experiences, but the experience here at the lodge is a crackling fire!

The concierge checked us in sitting at one of the little tables in the sitting area between the fireplaces. No credit cards asked for, no forms to fill out (she did that) and she only asked our preferences for morning papers, breakfast, asked if we needed information or help with scheduling transportation or activities, etc. It is a very nice touch and I have not experienced that at a Four Season before. She explained the Lodge at Koele’s layout and walked us around to the doors at the back of the main Great Room to point out different features of the grounds. We appreciated that, and that was when we first got a sense of how huge and beautiful the grounds behind the hotel were. But we would explore all that later.

We had decided to upgrade the room for this stay since it was a special occasion for us (our anniversary). But, to our happy surprise our concierge said they would only be charging us at the regular room rate even though we had actually booked reservations at a higher rate. That has never happened to us before at any hotel (and it hasn’t happened again at any of the Lanai hotels - I guess it was our lucky day). That is a great way to start a hotel stay! She then showed us to our room in the upstairs corner of the main lodge building. Most of the rooms at the hotel are in the two wings that go out from either side of the main lodge hotel building, but ours along with maybe 10 others were on the 2^nd level of this main building. We were actually concerned at first that we would be hearing noise from the fireplace and dining room area, but that was before we understood how quiet the whole place generally is. There is a piano that plays in the dining room during the evening that we could hear if we were in the room, but that stops around 9:30pm when dinner is done.

The hotel room was one of the most interesting we have stayed in. It was octagonal shaped with the bed area on one side of the octagon and a living room area with a real wood burning fireplace on the other side of the octagon. It was a very different room indeed. We had a large patio that looked right out on the front driveway of the hotel and one of the croquet fields at the hotel was directly below with the balls and mallets sitting out waiting for players. Past the crochet field we could see one of the holes on the famous Experience at Koele golf course. The room amenities were all top of the line Four Seasons stuff that always makes the wife happy but this husband wouldn’t know the difference.

We decided to take a first tour of the Lodge at Koele grounds once we got unpacked. We headed down the big staircase and out the back doors. They are interesting doors by the way: huge accordion type doors that can be opened so that it feels like there is no wall at the back of the hotel or closed like this day for inclement weather. It was a little drizzly the day we arrived, but plenty warm.

Out the back there is a nice little swimming pool area with few lounge chairs and a small workout facility behind the pool. The pool is large enough for taking a cooling dip after a long walk around the hotel grounds, but not a lap pool. Interestingly we never saw anyone using the pool area the entire time that we stayed at the Lodge at Koele. And we didn’t end up using the pool either since all of our pool time was spent at the sister hotel on the beach. But, it is definitely a pretty pool area, they obviously just don’t anticipate high usage.

We walked around the lake to the orchid greenhouse and then through the huge trees with gargantuan rope-like roots (banyan trees I believe) and over onto the miniature 18 hole golf course. I have played a few of these and they can be fun, but there are no windmills or flashing lights on this course! A few other hotels on Maui and Oahu have these little putting courses, but the Lodge at Koele course was cute with a number of interesting half-buried statuary objects like lions and horses embedded in and around the course. My wife and I played the little course a few days later and had a blast – she not being the golfer – so that says something. And this was a popular attraction since we noticed people there most evenings playing.

The Lodge at Koele has an orchid greenhouse; a cute white building located on the far side of the lake and it is obviously the source of many of the flowers seen all throughout the hotel. But they had a couple of nice patio tables and chairs in the middle of the greenhouse so (I assume) guests could relax and enjoy the flowers which they had growing in many different colors. We sat for a few minutes and enjoyed the quiet and the lovely smells.

The thick needled Cook pine was introduced early in Lanai’s development as the world’s largest pineapple plantation. The pineapples and the plantation are now long gone, but the Cook pines are still everywhere at the higher elevations of Lanai. The Lodge at Koele is surrounded by the trees and the slope behind the hotel is covered with them. They provide cool shade on a warm day, but this day we walked on the path up the slope at the back of the hotel grounds in a light rain and under the dripping pines to complete our survey of the property and head toward the stables we could see across the road from the lodge. This is what really contrasts the Lodge at Koele with the other Lanai hotels.

The property where the horses were grazing looks like 50 or so acres all enclosed in rough frontier fencing made from rough-hewn logs. It lends a touch of authenticity to whole scene. Two horses saw us approach and practically galloped across the field to meet us on the other side of the fence. These were horses that were used to getting treats from hotel guests! They are probably used to apples & carrots. But, we had no treats for them so we just said hello and stroked noses for a few minutes. They were very friendly and we later learned the names of these two while visiting with the woman who runs the stables and the trail rides: Mr. and Mrs. Smith. All very cute!

That evening we dined in the Terrace restaurant which is the more casual of the two restaurants at the Lodge at Koele. The other option is the Dining Room (that’s what it is called). The Dining Room is a dress code affair with a jacket required. While I don’t mind a dress code, a jacket is a step too far for a Hawaiian vacation for me, so this limited our options by half. But it is not really a problem since the food at the Terrace is creative and delicious and cooked by the same chefs and kitchen as the Dining Room and so we ended up eating breakfast there most mornings and dinner at the Terrace a couple of evenings. The other evenings we tried different places in town or the restaurants at the other two Lanai hotels.

Virtually every other guest also chose to eat at the Terrace we noticed. In fact we only saw a single couple in the Dining Room the whole time we were there. It must be the dress code issue since it was not like the Terrace was cheap! And it was very good. I chose a comfort dish the first evening we dined there: meatloaf. And I was tempted to order it again the next evening. My wife also enjoyed everything she ordered. For breakfast I am generally a light eater and the kitchen had no problem fixing me plain toast and poached eggs. They even made it look good! I would recommend the lobster hash & eggs dish that is on the menu. I tried that one morning before our all day hike and it was delicious and very interesting.

If I had one complaint about the Lodge at Koele it would be the lack of dining options. But, that really goes for Lanai hotels in general. The two Four Seasons hotels both have excellent food, but if you don’t want to eat there, your options are limited to a couple of restaurants in town. I think that when we were there only two were open for dinner. There are a few other restaurants (diner type) that are open for breakfast, but this is a SMALL town on a SMALL island.

Several evenings after dinner we wandered around the lodge and ended up in the game room with a few other guests. The room offers two pool tables, several backgammon tables, and a myriad of card and board games to choose from. We found the game room a nice place to wind down after a day of activities.

Many people come to the Lodge at Koele for the sole purpose of playing the world famous golf courses on the island, namely The Experience at Koele and The Challenge at Manele Bay. I am an occasional golfer, so I had never played either course before our latest visit to Lanai. But this last trip when we stayed at the Lodge at Koele, I actually made a tee time at the Experience at Koele since my beautiful wife agreed to go along and “drive the cart” which she considers an activity in and of itself. Unfortunately, it rained again the second day of our stay, the day I was planning to play, and they were not allowing anybody on the course. They eventually did let a few groups out late, but we had given up by then. This will have to wait until next trip.

The Lodge at Koele is a wonderful experience if it is something that fits your budget. Like I said in the beginning of this review, it is very expensive. But, we found the service at the hotel was excellent. Our needs were anticipated and everything is accomplished with a level of professionalism and precision that you would expect for this caliber hotel and a Four Seasons hotel in particular. From sending someone up to light a fire in the room each evening to remembering our names and what activities we had been engaged in each day, the concierge staff was superb. The Lodge at Koele is a fabulous experience in peace, and tranquility that very few people will ever experience. It is also such a different experience than the other two Lanai hotels or any other Hawaiian hotels. We look forward to our next visit.