Review: Four Seasons Hualalai, Hawaii

Published Jan 29 2025, 7:15 AM, Updated Jan 29 2025, 1:00 PMThe primordial beauty of Four Seasons Hualalai is hard to put into words. The eruptions of black lava rock protruding out of crashing waves, golden sands, and green lawns contrast in a way that almost seems unreal.

Four Seasons Hualalai is located on Big Island, Hawaii, the one with the big and active Kilauea volcano, which means that the whole resort is built on the dramatic black rock and that you can take a trip to the live volcano if you like. It’s worth bearing in mind that this island is pretty big, so the drive to see the volcano is lengthy if worthwhile.

Visit Four Seasons Hualalai in the lower season for better rates and special deals such as three for the price of two-night deals. Ideally, travel straight after New Year as the islands tend to be quiet after the Christmas rush. During Christmas and New Year, this resort is almost always fully booked, so if you decide to visit at this time, speak to our luxury travel concierge, and we can try to secure you a room with all our free benefits including free breakfast for two prioritized room upgrades and more.

Spring (April to June) and fall (September to mid-December) are also good times visit, particularly if you avoid Spring Break and Thanksgiving. We like to visit Hawaii in the winter when the rest of the Northern Hemisphere is so miserable and cold.

Most resorts in Hawaii charge a resort fee (even if you are paying on points), but Four Seasons hotels don’t charge any resort fees in Hawaii, and because Four Seasons has no loyalty program all the guests staying have chosen to spend their hard-earned cash here, so the clientele are usually high end and appreciative. This is the kind of resort that you feel blessed that you can afford.

There are five wonderful Four Seasons hotels in the Hawaiian Islands in total, and you might prefer Maui for its resort-centric fun, Oahu for the calm bay, and Lanai for its remote beauty, but Hualalai wins for its rugged, primeval setting, and while the resort welcomes you with warm Four Seasons arms, the spectacular volcanic landscape is completely unique. We have outlined the best Four Seasons hotels in Hawaii. Each is utterly different. If you can, you should visit them all.

Location

Four Seasons Hualalai is on the Kona (west) coast of the Big Island of Hawaii, 8 miles from Kona International Airport. The resort is also 4 miles from Kekaha Kai State Park, less than a 30-minute drive from the city of Kailua-Kona, and less than 20 minutes from the upscale boutiques of Kings’ Shops. The only other hotel in the vicinity is the Rosewood Kona Village; otherwise, this part of the island will be fairly barren once you leave the resort area. This Four Seasons is an oasis of color in a volcanic landscape.

Style & Character

The hotel is perched on dramatic blackened lava from the Volcano. The entire low-rise complex is dotted with palm trees and has a hugely long private beach designed with cove-like waves along the edge of the resort.

The wiggly coastal pathway that runs from one end of the resort to the other is edged by sand and the waves on one side, and is fronted by pools, including the stunning infinity pool and some fabulous beachfront restaurants on the other side. The mix of warm sand, deep blue Pacific waters, lush green tropical foliage, and flowers means the setting can only be described as breathtaking.

The architecture of this low-rise hotel means that it never feels full, even though this glorious hotel often enjoys 100% occupancy (it’s that good!). The mainly two-story buildings are spread out, so you never feel like the hotel is particularly busy. By comparison, the Four Seasons Maui and Four Seasons Oahu feel much more lively and busy, which is a good and a bad thing!

The large lobby is open-air, and when you arrive, you get a sweet-smelling lei (flower necklace) and an Oshibori towel, which is a great start to every stay here. Communal areas are also always immaculate, and the staff are always welcoming and often address you by your name (although I still don’t know how they manage to do this, bearing in mind the size of some Four Seasons hotels!).

Sunset is a magical time at Four Seasons Hualalai. As the sun sinks into the ocean, the skies here provide almost rainbow-like hues of yellow and pink, and the green foliage and twinkling lights of the resort seem to offer a haven of safety and civility in the wild prehistoric setting that surrounds the hotel.

Behind the resort, your backdrop is a vista of wild grasslands edging their way up the volcanic Hualālai mountains. These mountains are often shrouded in clouds, adding to the beauty of the area at sunset. These mountains are expected to erupt again sometime in the next 100 years, and you can almost feel them holding their breath as they wait, biding their time.

Rooms

Four Seasons Hualalai has 243 rooms. All rooms offer Hawaii décor and paddle ceiling fans (along with air conditioning), and each has a lanai or terrace. The rooms are spacious, and the signature Four Seasons beds are stupidly comfortable. Even the standard rooms offer a separate living area with a sofa, coffee table, bucket seat, and a mini dining table with two chairs in case you want to sit up to enjoy a snack.

The decor is oatmeal and brown, with brown tiles covered in plush rugs, brown wallpaper, and wooden shutters. The sofa is cream, and the bed has crisp white sheets. The rooms at Hualalai are nicely decorated but are not as modern as those at Four Seasons Lanai or Oahu.

We prefer the downstairs rooms, which have private outdoor lava rock showers and terraces where you can sit out surrounded by greenery or take in the views. Our room had fun stepping stones from the terrace through the flowerbed to take you out to the main resort area. If your room is positioned in front of the lawns, you can leap out of bed and onto the dewy grass in the morning, which feels nice between your toes.

It is worth mentioning that even the cheapest room at the Four Seasons Hualalai is a great room, and you will have a similarly great holiday, whichever room you choose. If you book via our concierge, we can bump you up a room level for free (subject to availability on check-in), as well as offering a bunch of other free benefits.

I love the outdoor showers and the terrace as opposed to a balcony-style lanai, so that you can walk right out of your room and into the resort. I would therefore always pick the downstairs rooms as the best choice.

Poolside Rooms on the lower level are super convenient for the pools and brilliant for families, although they lack privacy if you are traveling as a couple.

Fundamentally, all the rooms are fairly consistent, with a high level of luxury and a very similar size and facilities. The best rooms are those on the Ocean Front (of course!).

Service & Facilities

The Four Seasons Hualalai has a wonderful lawned garden stretching down to the beach; its pools are an absolute highlight and largely sit at the end of the lawns adjacent to the shoreline.

Four Seasons Hualalai has five other swimming pools, some with infinity edges (like the pool in the photo above), some with sloping and sand bottoms, some with hot tubs. Deliciously green lawns meandering down to the pool decks, and many border the sand. You can look forward to complimentary frozen grapes at the poolside, whichever pool you decide to spend your day beside.

This vast resort spreads out to engulf numerous bays, and in between these, tendrils of sand that house groups of cabanas protrude into the greenery under the palms. Cabanas and loungers are spread all over the resort grounds, across the lawns, around the pool, and on the corners of each cove where the sand meets the pathways. The way the loungers are spread out means you can always find an isolated seat to relax on, and the pools and beach areas never feel too busy.

Beyond the pools, ponds and water features nestle under bridges like moats around the low rise buildings that make up this resort.

My favorite thing at the resort is the King’s Pond. Four Seasons brings the ocean into the resort for you with this pool, a quarry-like pond with a sandy bottom, carved free form out of the black lava and teeming with fish. It is next to the beach and is one of the most unique resort features I have seen. It’s filled with seawater and is home to thousands of fish, including a couple of spotted eagle rays.

You can swim in this pool for as long as you like with complimentary snorkel gear. Swim with real fish and rays, a truly magical experience, and all with the convenience of being just a short walk from your room. It’s a “must-do” for your bucket list. After your swim, or between swims, laze on a pool chair and have a drink or a bite to eat.

There is also a large gym with a lap pool, and of course, there is an amazing beach. From November to May, you are likely to spot whales and dolphins just offshore, and there are local turtles that meander about on the beach, too.

If lying on the beach doesn’t appeal to you, you can try watersports, take an outrigger canoe, swim or surf lessons, or go shoreline fishing. The hotel’s garden spa is a wonderful place to relax with a choose-your-own Hawaii ingredient treatment apothecary and outdoor treatment rooms.

The PGA-designated golf course is excellent, carved from oceanfront lava fields, which makes the scenery epic. This and the golf course at Four Seasons Lanai are probably the best golf courses on the Hawaiian Islands.

The complimentary Kids for All Seasons club runs daily activities for children ages five-12, including a daily feeding of the 21-year-old spotted eagle ray in the lagoon. The complimentary use of front-loading washer/dryer units spaced across the property is useful, along with 17 sets of connecting guestrooms.

Hualalai embraces its setting and heritage with daily traditional Hawaiian activities and talks in the cultural center. You can learn to dance the hula, play the ukulele, make sweet-smelling leis, or carve bamboo stamps. Most activities are free.

Food & Drink

Breakfast is served at the beachfront ‘ULU Ocean Grill and is included for free when you book a room via our luxury travel concierge.

There’s a buffet and an à la carte menu offering an incredible array of delicious breakfast items, including all the berries under the sun, bear claws, scones, skillet filled with teriyaki beef, or traditional Hawaiian Loco Moco (burger patty of local grass-fed beef topped with fried eggs and gravy). This dish may well be considered a heart attack on a plate for those who prefer a low-fat breakfast, but it is ridiculously delicious, as you would expect from this Four Seasons.

Fresh fruit, cereals, yogurt, juices, pastries, and more are standard, and healthy items are also available from the buffet, along with delicious hot egg dishes and hot oatmeal from the à la carte menu. There is everything you would expect from a Four Seasons hotel, and as much coffee from the pot as you can drink is included.

At night, ULU turns into a sushi bar and lounge, and 75 percent of the menu items are sourced from the waters and farms around Hawaii. There is also an indoor Italian restaurant, a golf-side steakhouse, and a mini-mart to stock up on snacks.

Conclusion

Four Seasons Hualalai lives up to its reputation as one of the greatest resorts in the world. It may not be one of the cheapest Four Seasons hotels in the world, but it is one of the best! The restaurants are fabulous. The pools and spa are world-class (The King’s pool is unique; you won’t find anything like it anywhere else). The staff are truly gracious, helpful, and caring. To get the best possible discount and offers as well as free perks, book via our luxury travel concierge.

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