On Friday the Hawaii Tourism Authority told visitors there was no reason to cancel upcoming trips. The same day, the Royal Hawaiian, Moana Surfrider, and six other iconic Waikiki hotels opened their doors to flood evacuees at the governor’s request.
The governor called the hotels himself.
Hawaii Governor Josh Green said he personally reached out to major Waikiki properties to secure rooms for residents who could not safely return home or chose not to stay in emergency shelters. These were not fringe or overflow type accommodations. They were some of the most iconic hotels in Hawaii, the same ones that appear on visitors’ wish lists.
The properties include the Royal Hawaiian, Moana Surfrider, Sheraton Waikiki Beach Resort, Sheraton Princess Kaiulani, Outrigger Waikiki Beach Resort, Outrigger Waikiki Beachcomber, Outrigger Waikiki Paradise, and the Waikiki Beach Marriott.
Rooms are being offered at rates starting at $191, with resort fees waived. The governor described the pricing as a deeply discounted Kama’aina (resident) rate, estimating it at roughly 60% to 70% below the normal cost. His intent was to give displaced residents an option that felt safer and more stable than large-scale shelter environments, and in a state where housing inventory was already tight before the storm, the list of properties willing to participate filled up fast.
The HTA said there was no reason to cancel or postpone.
While those calls were being made to hotels, the Hawaii Tourism Authority continued to urge visitors not to cancel their trips. The official guidance emphasized that airports remain operational, hotels are open, and tourism infrastructure is functioning.
Hawaii has been through this before and hopes to rethink the calculation this time. A sudden collapse in visitor arrivals ripples quickly through our fragile economy, where tourism touches nearly everything, and state officials have become acutely aware that messaging continuity is a critical component of disaster response.
The challenge this time is how visible the contrast appeared. On one hand, the state is asking travelers to proceed as planned. On the other, it is actively placing displaced residents into the same hotels those travelers have booked.
For visitors, that raises questions beyond whether flights are operating or hotels are open. What visitors find when they arrive is a different question than whether their flight lands on time, and that was not addressed by either the governor or HTA.
These are the hotels on many Waikiki vacation wish lists.
The Royal Hawaiian and Moana Surfrider anchor the historic end of Waikiki and are among the most recognizable of all properties in Hawaii. The Sheraton Waikiki and Waikiki Beach Marriott alone account for nearly 3,000 rooms, making them two of the largest hotels on the beach.
What this means if you have a Hawaii booking coming right up.
Having a reservation at one of these properties does not mean your trip is disrupted in any way. Hotels remain open and operating, but your stay may not look exactly as you expected when you booked it.
The Kona Storm that made this necessary is not over yet.
This situation was triggered by two back-to-back Kona lows within a single week, a rare pattern that brought prolonged and intense rainfall across multiple islands.
The first system hit Maui hardest, and the second has also focused on Oahu’s North Shore, where evacuation orders remain in effect, and flooding has been described as catastrophic in some areas.
Governor Green has said the event could result in $1 billion in damage statewide, and on Oahu alone, there have already been 233 rescues due to flooding. Green called it the largest flood Hawaii has seen in 20 years, and the full picture of the damage is still coming into focus. The longer residents remain displaced, the longer those rooms stay committed to emergency use.
Weather is expected to improve quickly starting Monday, with conditions clearing from Kauai down the island chain and a return to typical trade wind weather with largely sunny skies across the state through the coming week.
Do you have a trip to Hawaii booked right now, and has this storm changed how you’re thinking about it?
Photo Credit: © Beat of Hawaii at Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Honolulu.
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We were scheduled to stay on North Shore in Waialua near the sugar mill. We couldn’t get ahold of our friend to find out if it was habitable or was flooded…it is literally 30 steps to the ocean. We decided to postpone our vacation as we know there is so much damage to roads etc. it broke our heart to cancel but felt it best. If anyone knows the area by sugar mill please let me know if it is flooded.
Good news Hawai’i residents your state that taxes the hell out of everything doesn’t have enough funds to cover a few nights for flood victims at local resorts, but hey they got that nasty resort fee dropped for you. What a joke.
$191 a night, then add taxes and resort fees is basically a slap in the face to people who have lost all or almost all of what they hold dear. Show me one local person from the North Shore area who can afford that
The Hawaii Tourism Authority should be fired. I remember the old days, when Kauai was expecting a hurricane and hotels were advising tourists to leave and offered refunds without questions asked. Some tourists decided to stay and help residents. Others reminded how kind everyone was and went back to the same hotels the following years. This was then, now it’s all about money. So sad.
One party rule…
I have a different view. Any time I am at a place that has a “natural disaster”, then I see how news depicts the event, I see things totally blown out of proportion to get viewers. If there’s one collapsed building they show it over and over until people think the whole city is trashed. I’ve seen this same thing with storms, earthquakes, and volcanoes. And it’s not innocent because then tourists cancel their plans and the area suffers for no reason. If it were as bad as being depicted, they would tell you to stay away.
I live on Maui and can tell you that I have never seen a storm like we had now. It has been raining hard for 2 weeks straight and there was a lot of damage all over the islands.