We just returned from a week at the Liki Tiki Village. 4/25/08 – 5/3/08. Like all of you reading this, I did several hours of research on the Internet to find a place for us to stay. We are upper-middle class travelers from California. My husband and I usually like to stay at higher-class resorts & spas. I was a little hesitant of Liki Tiki only because of the poor reviews that I read but we were travelling with our three-year-old daughter and wanted a fun place for her to stay. I have to agree with some of these reviews that the property itself is a bit old. And if you’re looking for a five-star resort, this is not the place for you. However, everything was awesome. When making your reservation, do request to stay in the newer towers. Although we didn’t see the inside of the older townhomes, the buildings did look older from the outside. We stayed in the 1200 building in a two-bedroom condo and it was great. From the minute we checked in, every staff member was extremely friendly and helpful.
Don’t be fooled by the “water park.” I thought it was an entire separate water park from the hotel. It is basically their main pool area. But it was awesome!! It is a zero entry pool, which is great with little ones. They have 4 smaller water slides and one larger one. My three year old had a blast on all 5 of them. I think kids of all ages will enjoy themselves. In a separate area right off the main pool, there is a baby pool area that comes up to an adults ankles. Perfect for babies to sit and splash in. This is where the Octopus swing is however there were no swings attached to it. Probably safer that way anyway. The water slide pool closes at dusk which is roughly 8pm. There are two other pools (just regular pools, nothing fancy) that are open until midnight. We never did use either one of them. All of the pools were nicely heated and perfect temperatures. I will suggest that if you plan on spending a day at the pool, get down there between 9:30-9:45 am to reserve your chairs. Just put some towels and lotions on the chairs and nobody will bother them. The chairs do fill up after 10:00 but we never felt that the pool was too crowded.
There is also a restaurant/bar at the pool with “pool type” foods at decent prices. You can get a kids chicken fingers and fries meal for around five bucks, and it comes with cookies too. And it was plenty of food.
They also have an activities area in the pool area. They offer different games throughout the day, probably best suited for under teenage years. They have chalk play, painting activities, air-brushed tattoos, tye-dye t-shirt making and other fun things. Karaoke on Wednesdays, Fridays & Saturdays after 5pm.
Liki Tiki is located pretty much off the main drag of the area and there are a ton of restaurants and gift shops nearby. It’s about a 10-15 mile drive to the theme parks but it didn’t take us long at all.
I have nothing bad to say about Liki Tiki. The people writing the poor reviews are probably snooty high class people who should go stay at Five-Crowns or something. We had a wonderful time and would definitely stay there again. When we checked in, we asked not to be bothered about taking a time-share presentation and we were never called or bothered about it.
If you are not travelling with children, and are easily annoyed by a lot of them, do not stay here. It is definitely a children’s playground and you will not find peaceful, quiet time at this pool.
If you want to ask me any other questions or would like to see some of my photos or videos, please feel free to contact me. Just make sure you put “Liki Tiki Info” or something like that in the subject of your email. Otherwise, if I don’t recognize a name, I will delete the email without opening it. I know it’s tough making decisions for your family vacation so I’m happy to give you my un-biased reviews and offer any answers that I can. hsaffel@yahoo.com