I have to say, we were pretty underwhelmed with Kona as well. We did breakfast (I know, I know, sorry to the Kona fans!), but I'd had a dinner ADR booked for ages and ended up cancelling because I just had a feeling it wasn't going to be what I wanted it to be. I was glad we *only* dropped $ on breakfast. Sorry Kona, but that was a one and done for us.
We are definitely in the love breakfast camp, but sounds like you were very smart in canceling your dinner ADRs. Since we don't have an upcoming Poly trips in our sights I think we'll be taking a break for a while.
Oh, and our service was lousy and super slow too. Is that like their claim to fame?
Apparently it is. If you are grouchy and want to provide bad service, than Kona is hiring!
Your experience has been what my experience tends to be. The thing that sucks about it was that I used to have a few dishes I really loved before the dumbing down of the menus so I put up with hit. We skip it now because there are so many better options around!
Yeah, I think we are definitely in the skip it camp. The wings were good and some of the sushi had promise, but I just can't get over the "service" and as you said there is so much more to be had.
The sushi looks good but we have made the mistake of ordering that shrimp tempura roll as well and didn't care much for it either. I'm in the "still love Kona" camp but I've always been able to get a second beverage... and my beverage of choice there being the heavenly (and very potent) backscratcher, maybe that changes my opinion
Sounds like you guys may be done with kona for a while, which is sad, because aren't you pretty much a poly gal? (Wilderness lodge dalliances aside)
Maybe if I had loaded up on the backscratchers (and gotten more than 1 of them) it would have been a better experience too
Casey loves the Poly, but we are definitely a Wilderness lodge family. We just do the Poly once a year when they have great labor day rates. Next trip is AKL though, cause the price was right.
Rude! What kinda gift shop do they think they are?! Good thinking though. I myself tend to keep a wine key in my suitcase for "emergencies"... learned my lesson after I found myself in Rome (Italy not Georgia) with no way to open a bottle of 5 euro wine I'd picked up on my last night before flying back to the states - had to call down to the desk to ask if they had a wine key and they sent up a very nice gentleman to OPEN IT FOR ME

and to my horror when we removed the foil the cork was plastic and BLUE! He had a good laugh at my expense but I enjoyed my Italian wine nevertheless. Not that my wine sensibilities are much improved, I'm still buying $10 wine from Trader Joe's which isn't far off from the price of the blue cork special given the exchange rate at the time



Love that story, though after you get back from Sonoma your wine taste may change. I remember we'd bought some cheap stuff while we were out there just so we didn't go through as much of the good stuff. Unforutnately the taste difference was just too much and I was never able to go back. RIP Yellowtail.
Thanks for the update. Now I have learned that I probably don't ever want to do Kona dinner. Not that I had it on my list anyway (so many more I would like to try) but it is nice to read a review just to file away.
Kona breakfast is awesome, but you can skip dinner in favor of pretty much everything else out there!
I had a wine key on my packing list for this past June but I forgot it! However, we were in a 1 bedroom villa at SSR and they had one. Nice! I wonder if the studios at WL have them. I just need to remember it next trip!
I think we had one in our one bedroom a VWL so they likely have them there, just not in the regular rooms. We used to have one we traveled with but TSA took it a few years ago. Not sure what their regulations are these days