About Hotel Tip Waikiki

Hotel Tip Waikiki is an independent guide to hotels in Waikiki and the rest of Oahu, published in English and Spanish. We help you decide where to stay by answering the questions hotel listings tend to skip: what a room really costs once fees and taxes are added, which tower you will actually sleep in, and whether “beachfront” means stepping onto the sand or crossing Kalakaua Avenue first.

What we cover

Our guides focus on Waikiki and Honolulu hotels, plus the main resort areas elsewhere on the island: Ko Olina on the west side, Kahala just east of Diamond Head, and the North Shore. Alongside hotel reviews and comparisons, we publish the planning pages a hotel decision depends on: resort fees, hotel tax, parking, airport transfers, things to do and where to eat.

What makes our guides different

• The all-in price, not the headline rate. We add each hotel’s mandatory resort fee, apply Oahu’s 18.712% hotel tax to both the room and the fee, and show overnight parking separately. Our Waikiki resort fees list shows the result hotel by hotel.
• Tower and wing detail. Large resorts such as Hilton Hawaiian Village spread rooms across buildings of different ages and views. We explain which tower you are booking, as in our Hilton Hawaiian Village towers ranking.
• True beachfront, checked. We separate hotels that sit on the sand from those across the street or a few blocks back. See our list of true beachfront hotels in Waikiki.
• Closures and changes. Pool closures, tower renovations, fee increases and shows that have ended all change what a stay is worth, so we track them and update the pages they affect.

How we research, honestly

Our reviews are research-based. Nobody on our team claims to have stayed at the hotels we review, and we don’t write as if we had. Instead, we check the facts that decide most Waikiki stays against each hotel’s own website and against official sources: resort fees and what they include, parking rates, check-in and check-out times, room types, beach access and closures. Each hotel’s facts are kept in one registry with the month they were last checked, and our tables say when fees were verified.

We use software tools, including AI writing assistants, to research and draft articles. Every fee, price and policy is checked against its source before publication. Our review method and editorial policy explain the process step by step.

How we are funded

Hotel Tip Waikiki earns money through the Booking.com affiliate program: if you book a hotel through one of our links, we may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. We are not affiliated with any hotel or resort operator. Hotels cannot pay for a review, a placement or a better ranking, and when booking directly with a hotel is cheaper, we say so. Our affiliate disclosure explains how this works.

What we are not

We are not a travel agency or a booking site. We don’t take reservations or payments, and we can’t change, cancel or refund a booking. For those, contact the hotel or the company you booked with.

Where to start and how to reach us

New to Waikiki? Start with where to stay in Waikiki and our best hotels in Waikiki ranking. Every guide is also available in Spanish.

If you spot a fee that has changed, a closure we missed or any other error, email editorial@hoteltipwaikiki.com or see our contact page. Reader reports help us keep these pages accurate.