We spent our first night at the Maui Beach Hotel because it was close to the airport (we arrived that day) and it was a good jumping-off spot for the Hana Highway. The staff was friendly enough (actually, most of the staff was REALLY chatty and friendly) and the common areas are open, airy, and quite pleasant. However, our room was small, warn, dark, and sort of unpleasant. (It did have internet access though.) The web site indicates it is/has been remodeled, but they clearly hadn't gotten to our room yet. We paid $117, which was way too much for what we got.

There isn't much in the neighborhood either, but we did find the Manana Garage right there, so there was good food available within walking distance.

Arriving in the early evening in Maui, as most planes do, we wanted a place to stay near the airport. We were pleasantly surprised by the Seaside. It was reasonable (for Maui standards in February, $185), it was clean, it was comfortable. Folks at the front desk are a bit stingy with a smile at first, but work them a bit and they loosen up.

By the time you arrive and check in you'll probably be pretty tired, so check out a restaurant called Mañana Garage which is just across the street from the Seaside, serves great blended margaritas and TexMex-inspired food. They were very friendly to us tired travellers.

Our group of two adults and two children stayed at the Maui Beach Hotel from Dec. 27-29, 2007. This hotel has a very friendly staff and I heard it's a place where Hawaii residents often stay. It isn't a 5-star hotel but it's clean and comfortable, and we had very good service. We had trouble with our car rental and the bell desk clerk was nice enough to offer to drive us to the airport to get the problem fixed. When we requested extra towels, they arrived within 5 minutes. We were always greeted with smiles and friendly hellos when passing by staff members. We were warned not to swim at the beach that the hotel is on because the cruise ship docks nearby so the water is not clean enough to swim in. They do have a decent sized pool on the 2nd floor, but you need to bring towels from your room. It is very conveniently located 10 minutes from Kahului airport, and is also convenient as a starting point for sightseeing around the island. The rooms are not very big, but we had enough space to plop our two large suitcases without tripping over them. The laundromat downstairs has 3 washers and 3 dryers, and a detergent dispenser - don't forget to bring quarters. My only complaint would be that once after flushing the toilet, the tank didn't fill up so it ran for about 10 minutes before we realized it. Just a jiggle of the handle fixed the problem, so it was a minor detail, but it could've meant a big water loss if we had left the room without noticing it. But that was the only thing that concerned me during our stay. It was a nice place to rest our heads, and we would recommend the Maui Beach Hotel highly.

This is not the worst hotel we've ever stayed in, but it had quite a few problems. First of all, it is nowhere near the beach. This was not a problem for us because we'd rented a car, but anyone staying here should realize that a car rental is a must. The hotel is located on a highway in an industrial/retail area. The staff was not helpful when we asked them for suggestions of where to visit, so I will mention here that the charming plantation town of Pa'ai is a 15 minute drive, back past the airport. Just before Pa'ai is the Baldwin State Beach, a lifeguarded swimming beach with exciting (i.e., rough) surf. Hookipa Beach, a famous windsurfing beach, is a bit further down the road. The northern Maui beaches, near the bigger resorts, are accessible to the public. You need to drive about 45 minutes and find on-street parking, but this was also not a problem with a decent map.

As for the hotel itself, when we arrived their key card machine was broken, so we needed to be escorted to our rooms every time we wanted to enter. A day later the machine was fixed. You need a card to access the hotel rooms-- yet the back door to the hotel was continually propped open to the parking lot with an orange traffic cone! Our room was clean enough, but some others in our party had complaints about the cleanliness of linens . The hotel has a pool, but it is only open from 9-5 because, apparently, you need to walk through the restaurant to get to the pool. Because we were gone all day we never saw the restaurant or the pool. There is no coffee machine in the room and the lobby coffee shop/snack bar opens at the peculiar hour of 9 AM, so we drove elsewhere for coffee and breakfast.

If we return to Maui we will take a wide berth around this hotel. True, it is close to the airport, but the island is so small that it does not seem to be a particular advantage to stay close to the airport.