Anyone see this review of Aulani on TRIPADVISOR?

pharmlivin

Mouseketeer
Joined
Jun 8, 2000
I know you have to take reviews with a grain but I have found TRIPADVISOR to be one of the better review sites:


“Dangerous resort”
Reviewed December 24, 2012 NEW
My daughter and husband, along with their 31/2 year old son visited the Aulani in early December.
The day before they were to come home they were lounging by the pool with their son at 4:00 in the afternoon.. Unprovoked, 5 local Hawaiians, 2 males and 3 females attacked them at poolside.. My daughter experienced multiple lacerations,sprains,bruises and chipped teeth, her husband beatin unconscious all while their son was screaming.. Arrests were made and an apology came from the staff.. Needless to say none of us will return..

Stayed December 2012, traveled with family
 
I know you have to take reviews with a grain but I have found TRIPADVISOR to be one of the better review sites:


“Dangerous resort”
Reviewed December 24, 2012 NEW
My daughter and husband, along with their 31/2 year old son visited the Aulani in early December.
The day before they were to come home they were lounging by the pool with their son at 4:00 in the afternoon.. Unprovoked, 5 local Hawaiians, 2 males and 3 females attacked them at poolside.. My daughter experienced multiple lacerations,sprains,bruises and chipped teeth, her husband beatin unconscious all while their son was screaming.. Arrests were made and an apology came from the staff.. Needless to say none of us will return..

Stayed December 2012, traveled with family

I have a hard time believing this. It was the reviewer's first review.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUser...i_i-Kapolei_Oahu_Hawaii.html#CHECK_RATES_CONT
 
One thing to remember about TripAdvisor's contributing reviewers is to 1) check how many posts they have made (another Dis'er mentioned that this was someone's first review on TA and 2) Of the reviewer's other postings how are they with ratings? i.e., if someone has posted 25 times and EVERY experience (hotel, meal, whatever) is rated 5 stars I give them less credence than a poster who has a variety of ratings. I mean, not EVERY meal/hotel stay is a 5 star event unless you are incredibly easy to please:confused3

Frankly, I find this report a little suspicious.
 
Could be legit. Hard telling. I've never posted on TripAdvisor but if I had an experience sufficiently bad, it may prompt me to start.

Many places aren't as safe as people think they are...including the Disney theme parks and resorts.

But if it is legit, I tend to think there is more to the story. What would prompt a group of 5 people to attack a couple of strangers? I find it hard to believe that they simply hopped the gate, walked into a crowded pool area at a resort which certainly has a security force, and started beating on a random family for no reason.
 
I have posted a lot on trip advisor and I have noticed there are more and more reviewers with "an axe to grind", so to speak. I am always suspicious when a reviewer focuses on an isolated part of a resort or a single incident. If this alleged incident happened, its a disgrace, but is not necessarily a reflection of the resort.

I agree that this review is suspect.
 
Maybe this did happen and maybe it didn't but it says the incident happenend by the pool and after having been there I seem to find it odd that no one else at the pool was attacked or that someone else wouldn't have stepped in to help. There are lifeguards everywhere, Disney people everywhere and no one came rushing over to help.

And also don't you think someone here would have posted or we would have seen this somewhere online. In this day and age of social media, some news outlet or blog woulld have had something.
 
I'd be suspicious of that review.

It sounds like it was a pretty serious assault with severe injuries. If that was the case, I'm sure it would've been covered by the local news as there would've been a police report about it.
 
So you are saying they were alone and nobody was around to stop this?! OR The pool area was SO crowded nobody notice these violent acts?! I find either hard to believe!
I was there in June & the locals (whom all seem to mellow)all stayed at the beach not in the pool area although I heard they were now trying to keep locals (not staying on property) from hanging out at all!
 
I don't trust trip advisor anymore. I prefer sites like booking or expedia, where only people who booked through them can post a review. It's much more difficult to manipulate the scores this way, for the better or the worst.
 
If this happened, the reviewer is doing a great disservice to their credibility and the readers of the site by completely omitting any important details.

Even if this is true, the point is what did the property do that allowed this to happen? There are crazy people everywhere, but the response of the property is the important part. From this posting, we don't even know if the alleged assailants were themselves guests of the resort!

It does not at all read like what I would expect from someone who actually experienced this, so I would tend to ignore it.
 
pharmlivin said:
I know you have to take reviews with a grain but I have found TRIPADVISOR to be one of the better review sites:

“Dangerous resort”
Reviewed December 24, 2012 NEW
My daughter and husband, along with their 31/2 year old son visited the Aulani in early December.
The day before they were to come home they were lounging by the pool with their son at 4:00 in the afternoon.. Unprovoked, 5 local Hawaiians, 2 males and 3 females attacked them at poolside.. My daughter experienced multiple lacerations,sprains,bruises and chipped teeth, her husband beatin unconscious all while their son was screaming.. Arrests were made and an apology came from the staff.. Needless to say none of us will return..

Stayed December 2012, traveled with family

Don't believe everything you read. That's why I don't always stop at stop signs.
 
Well, who knows what really happened. But I find it hard to believe that 5 people jumped the gated pool area and just randomly started beating up a family.

I don't trust trip advisor anymore. I prefer sites like booking or expedia, where only people who booked through them can post a review. It's much more difficult to manipulate the scores this way, for the better or the worst.

Totally agree! I do read the reviews there. But I take the extreme ones with a grain of salt. I also find it strange that something so awful happened and the author only wrote a short paragraph about it. Then at the end the author says, "none of US will be returning." From the write up the author wasn't even there. When there is something funky going on, there is usually some type of slip in the review.
 
If you check out post 230 on this thread: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2907389&page=16, you will see that someone trying to get into the pool area is going to have to go through the construction area up a ramp before even getting to the gate. So they either went to all that trouble, or came right in from the lobby. Just having a tough time believing this review.
 
The review is gone. :confused3

I belive that means that TripAdvisor did a little investigation and found it to be fraudulent.

I know that one of my reviews was questioned (there are 2 Holiday Inn on the same street--1 block apart!!! in Edinburgh) and when I mentioned how freaking expensive and annoying it was to deal with their wi-fi, the review was put under the WRONG Holiday Inn. TripAdvisor contacted me for the specific address on the property and made the correction.

I imagine that it came to TA attention that this was bogus and was removed when the source either didn't respond or couldn't back up their claim.
 
the fact that the review was removed restores my confidence in TA and makes me feel better about our upcoming trip to Aulani. True or false, I'll just let it serve as a reminder that no place can be 100% safe so it is best to be alert and aware of your surroundings no matter how relaxing or beautiful they may be. Happy and safe traveling to all. (I am also very hopeful that such an awful experience did not really befall any family on vacation or any other time for that matter).
 
The review is gone. :confused3

I belive that means that TripAdvisor did a little investigation and found it to be fraudulent.

I know that one of my reviews was questioned (there are 2 Holiday Inn on the same street--1 block apart!!! in Edinburgh) and when I mentioned how freaking expensive and annoying it was to deal with their wi-fi, the review was put under the WRONG Holiday Inn. TripAdvisor contacted me for the specific address on the property and made the correction.

I imagine that it came to TA attention that this was bogus and was removed when the source either didn't respond or couldn't back up their claim.

I just read the review it is still there on tripadvisor
 

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