Hamakua Guesthouse

Very nice place, beautiful surroundings :))

Nothing

Beautiful scenic landscape and beautiful private waterfall! Close to cow cuddling( also 10/10)!

Not a thing. It was perfect.

The waterfall, the stars, even the chirping animals

Self-check in instructions for the front door a little bit of a challenge.

This is a darling little house north of Hilo. It's close to Akaka falls and the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens! You can meet some amazing, friendly people in the shared spaces, which is everything short of your room. It's cozy, if you love being around a lot of people this is the place for you! Beautiful view from the patio over the property. Outdoor shower and indoor shower, good toilets!

There were some things I didn't realize- you share a bathroom with a *lot* more people than I realized, for one, so there was more than once that I had to wait and wait for some much needed time in there. I thought it was shared between two rooms, but it's shared between 4 rooms, and sometimes people from the other floor or the cabanas outside if they were desperate. Some people would spend a lot of time in there, so it was unavailable often. We were in a loft bed at the very top of the house, which had looked fine online but was in fact super cramped with a sloped ceiling that we hit our heads on. One night the fire alarms were low on battery and beeped for hours before we took them down. The walls are very thin, so we heard loud music one night all night from Room #1 and the next two nights we could hear some guest who hadn't silenced his notifications over and over and over all night long. Then his alarm was going off and he just...didn't turn it off for an hour. I wonder if he was deaf? I met another guest wandering the corridor with me, trying to figure out who it was. Sleep was sometimes difficult for all these reasons. If we were all family and had each other's numbers this would be fine- but I wasn't willing to confront a stranger. The window in the upstairs loft had no curtain, so the light came in first thing and woke us up in the morning, but the kitchen is closed down hard core until 8am. You can't even open the fridge. There is no microwave, which I also didn't expect, and no toaster. You have to use the stove for everything. You have a shared space for your food, which is a rather small bin and shelf for us 4 adults from room 2 to be sharing. The main problem was this: It only takes one guest to wake up early and talk loudly, slam doors at 6am, break the rules, over-use the bathroom, leave their phone on all night etc to make it hard for everyone in this space.