So what is bad about our place?
We don’t water the lawns just to keep them green. If there is a dry spell it will be a dull lawn. One of these days we might change that and turn the sprinklers on — but these days we pinch pennies (like lots of folks) because it won’t hurt anything and the grass will spring back when it rains. We are surrounded by beautiful flowers and scenery all around us that does well naturally -- there is no practical reason to artificially stimulate our local lawn since we see green all the time everywhere.
The house is a typical Hawaiian frame house. Many of the floors are stone tile. Many of our local hotels, condo complexes, retail businesses are built with wood framing and have solid floors -- and that means if you are on the bottom level you might hear some of what is above you. There is a tradition in Hawaii of removing shoes when you enter a home. This is very helpful for sound transmission when they are removed if the shoes are heavy or have hard soles/heels and therefore might clonk on the floor. Usually people are very considerate, they come to Hawaii to enjoy and be friendly and have a good time.
If you come from an air conditioned environment you could possibly feel hot. But not near as hot as if you stay down at a lower elevation or if you stay at a home that has windows only on one side (no cross ventilation). Most people acclimate well, but it can depend a lot on where you acclimate from, and if you are only in Hawaii 13 days — that’s not a lot of time. But, if you go to the beaches and spend time at sea level you will quickly appreciate it when you go up the hill to the house and feel the temperature drop. Most local people simply would not take a home in an area that required it to be air conditioned — those are mainland standards, and terribly impractical when our electricity is about 34 cents a kilowatt hour. Many people come from States where they are paying 7 cents or 10 cents — and it can be logical to pick locations that need environmental heating or cooling, but over here is is a luxury or for many who buy homes that they think are cheap at lower elevations (or by the beach) — they pay for the high air conditioning like a mortgage payment each month -- or otherwise swelter and suffer.
The house was originally designed as a single family. Sort of. When it was built it was a lawyer and his wife. The wife had the upstairs as her domain and had her own little DISH satellite. The husband, he had the downstairs as his domain and had his own big sports satellite — the flat was his pad. The only thing lacking is that it was conceived for a regular family and we have only 50 gallons of hot water. Since the house is about 8 years old and we are the second owners it is too early to change out the hot water for a bigger system. So if everyone jumps into the shower at the same time, or if you wash clothes, wash the dishes and take three baths — you will run the water to lukewarm or cold and then need to be patient and let the hot water re-generate. We use solar assisted hot water and if the day happens to be cloudy or rainy the electric elements are not as fast. We used to live at that house and we just knew if we had a house full of people to stagger our baths. Got to remember we are not set up like a hotel — but we don’t feel like a hotel either, and these few things are to be expected.
Most people will come back and appreciate being at our home versus where they went to visit. I suppose there have been some wedding parties that had a really plush environment for the main affair that considered our home humble in comparison — but then those are particularly fantasy oriented events and if it were not a wedding with a big budget they would not be on such a “high horse”. In contrast - we recently had a wedding family that stayed at the whole house about a month ago — they were from Honolulu, and they felt like the house was very suitable to them, wished they had stayed longer — but then I doubt they had a $20K budget and had a main wedding house with fountains and gazebos and what not.
We are pretty much down to earth and on that plane we get very high marks and regards.
Bringing motel standards or mainland standards to this big island vacation rental is the only thing that will make you not like it — scores of people have come before you and left with beautiful memories.