Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea

Service

You get a lei and a cold drink before you've reached the desk, and from then on things simply work. A lot of the team have been here twenty years or more, and you can tell. They pick up your name without making a show of it, and the concierge desk is very good at finding a sunset table.

My favourite part is how much is handed to you by the pool: sunscreen, cold towels, little smoothies and fruit that come round through the day, and cabanas that are mostly free. The outrigger canoe paddle from the beach is the thing I'd sign up for on day one. In winter you may well find yourself sitting among whales.

It does get stretched. This is a 380-room resort that takes a lot of group and corporate business, and in a full week you feel it. Breakfast can mean a 15 or 20 minute wait, the front desk can be stretched, and rooms aren't always ready at check-in time. When it's quiet the service is superb. When it's packed it's good, and a step behind the best Four Seasons resorts.

Rooms

The rooms are big. Even the entry-level ones are around 600 square feet, with a furnished lanai, a marble bathroom with a separate tub and shower, and a very good bed. King rooms have a sofa bed, which is why families like it here.

The older rooms had started to look tired, all brown and beige with the odd worn edge, and the resort is fixing that now. The Club Floor reopened in May 2026 in a much lighter, more Hawaiian style, and the rest of the building is being redone in sections, with work due to finish in mid-December 2026. Until then there can be drilling in daytime hours near the section being worked on. I'd ask for a finished room well away from the works, and get that confirmed before you travel.

On categories, I'd skip Mountain-Side. The name flatters it. Many of those rooms look at the roof of the service car park and the road, with the pickleball courts in earshot. Garden-View is a fair saving, and some catch a slice of sea. The one I'd book is an Ocean-View room on a high floor, because watching the sun go down over the water from your own lanai is half the reason to come. If you're travelling with children, the Executive Suite has a door between the bedroom and the living room, and that door is worth every dollar.

The Club Floor is the treat. It has its own lounge with breakfast, afternoon tea, evening bites and drinks, and a private check-in.

Food and drink

For a resort, the eating is strong. Ferraro's is the one I'd choose first. It's open to the air right above the beach, and lunch there in a swimsuit and a shirt is exactly what I want from Hawaii. At night it turns Italian, with handmade pasta and the sound of the waves. Book a table for just before sunset.

Spago is Wolfgang Puck's restaurant and the big night out. Order the spicy ahi poke cones, whatever else you do. It's good, but it's the place where the bill can run ahead of the cooking, so I'd go once. Komo, the newer Japanese restaurant off the lobby, is my pick for a second special dinner. It's small, with a 14-seat sushi bar and fish flown in from Japan, and it only opens from 5 to 9, so reserve before you arrive.

Breakfast is a big buffet at Duo, which becomes a steakhouse at night. It's generous, though not thrilling, and the birds will take a pastry off your plate if you look away. The pool food is ordinary and pricey. The new Pantry cafe is the place for a quick coffee.

The best hour of the day is at the Lobby Lounge, with a drink, live music and hula as the sun drops into the sea.

Setting

The hotel sits on Wailea Beach, a wide crescent of soft gold sand with calm, clear water and turtles at the rocky ends. It's the sunny, dry side of Maui. You get loungers, umbrellas and towels set up for you. The beach is public, like every beach in Hawaii, so you share it with the Grand Wailea next door. Nobody can serve you food or drink on the sand, so lunch means walking back up.

There are three pools. The Fountain Pool is the handsome main one, the Waterfall Pool has a small slide for little ones, and the Serenity Pool is the adults-only infinity pool with a swim-up bar and music under the water. Serenity is lovely and it's too small for the hotel. In busy weeks people queue before it opens at 7 and there's a waiting list by mid-morning. The pool team now checks you in and gives up your chair if you vanish for an hour, which has helped, but I'd still go early.

The new Kai Holo Spa opened in July 2026 with hot and cold pools, saunas and steam, and it's the best rainy-hour plan in Wailea. If your children want slides and a lazy river, though, that's next door at the Grand Wailea, not here.

Value

It's one of the most expensive hotels in Hawaii. Expect from around $1,000 a night in the quieter months for the entry rooms, $1,500 and up for an ocean view, and a great deal more over Christmas and New Year, when there are minimum stays. January after the holidays and late August to October are the calmest, best-priced weeks.

For years the selling point was that there was no resort fee. That changed on 1 July 2026, and it's now $55 a night, covering access to the spa's thermal pools, the canoe outings and the cultural classes. Parking is valet only and charged nightly. On the other hand, the cabanas, the kids' club, the snorkel gear and the fitness classes are all still included, and at the neighbours those add up.

For the service and the beach I think it's worth it, but right now only in a finished room.

This is a hotel where booking through an advisor really helps. Breakfast for two each day and a hotel credit come at the same rate, with an upgrade of one category when there's space. Given what breakfast costs here, that's a real saving over a week.