This photo is the shadow of Mauna Kea, the highest point in the Pacific, being cast onto the clouds at sunset. Mauna Kea is home to the largest telescopes in the world. The reason they sit on Mauna Kea is because the peak usually is well above the clouds, as you can see in this [...]
Aloha again to our Kohala Coast visitors,After you followed our last post about
Mauna Kea Beach Hotel closure
, we have a little bit of new information from our Mauna Kea tennis club friends. Here is what they told us: The big guest parking lot will be serving for the hotel construction crew. Too bad for Mauna Kea Beach lovers but it does not look like there will be more beach parking and passes available. Sorry guys! It's not quite sure where the tennis club members will be parking in the future. The ladies locker room and the storage room next to it were converted into the "new' beauty salon. Air conditioned and newly carpeted, it looks pretty nice. Reason for this necessary change is that Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel never had its own beauty salon and Hapuna hotel guests always used the Mauna Kea salon.
It's also going to be interesting to see how much the Hapuna guests continue to shuttle over to use the Mauna Kea beach and the Hau Tree beach restaurant there. They are,
Sometimes we hear news of the passing of someone or a closing of a famous place, and it hits us hard...even if we didn't know them all that well. Such was the case when I watched the television news report this past week and heard the famous Big Island Resort Hotel, the Mauna Kea, had been closed down, perhaps permanently. This sad news felt like the end of an era for me. Apparently an October earthquake wreaked heavy structural damage to this older hotel.
The blog in USA Today online by Larry Olmsted says it so very well, "Mauna Kea
is not just any big Hawaiian luxury hotel. It is the oldest and most venerable golf resort in the state, and was once the flagship property of Laurence Rockefeller's Rock Resorts chain." You can read the rest of his blog here.
Here's my personal connection with the Mauna Kea Hotel. She was the FIRST resort hotel I ever visited in the Hawaiian Islands, and back then, she was the bomb. Beautiful antiquities and exotic Oriental and Hawaiian items and
Mauna Kea Beach Hotel is closed!Yes, you read it right. Now, it's final. One of the most favorite Big Island hotels on the Kohala Coast is temporarily closed for repair due to more structural damage than originally assessed from the Kohala Coast earthquake in October. Some hotel employees anticipated this move; others were totally caught by surprise. Hotel management waited with this announcement till the last minute.Last Saturday, the official day of closure, was a very sad moment for employees (we feel with all the employees being laid off at a time when they need their jobs the most!), guests and residents alike but safety comes first. It's hard to comprehend that this oldest of the Kohala Coast hotels won't be open for their regular busy Christmas crowd over the holidays. Current guests were moved to Mauna Kea's sister hotel Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel. Mauna Kea Beach Hotel will do everything to find appropriate accommodations in other Kohala Coast hotels for guests with fut
