I just spent the last 10 days at the Polynesian.
The crowds in the parks were lower than I've seen them, this time of year, going back to the 90's.
The crowds in the Polynesian were higher than ever.
30-40 people in line at the Pineapple Lanai every evening instead of under 10.
Every table at Captain Cooks was occupied surrounding mealtimes. We had never had an issue with tables before.
The lava pool was packed, resulting in the Oasis pool having more people in it than I have seen before. Roughly 4-5x normal.
The Lobby was always full of people.
I understand why now that I have visited the new tower. Wailulu is not a quick service. It's expensive and I can see the food not having a broad interest. Personally, nothing on the menu looked interesting and my wife and kids had no interest either.
The tower lobby is sterile and completely uninviting. There's nothing warm or interesting about it.
The cove pool could have been great if they built what was shown in the renderings, but it's pretty lackluster.
We never attempted to go to trader sams. There was a constant filled hall of people around it while it was open.
We like to stay in Moorea. It's nice and close to the TTC. We don't care about the walk to the monorail, Captain Cooks or the bus stop. But I heard an awful lot of complaining while waiting at the bus stop and monorail about the distance from the tower.
"They'd better add another monorail stop."
"If the bus stop is this far away, I don't want to go anywhere that we need to get on a bus."
"Did we miss the bus stop at the tower? This is too far away."
To me, the biggest glaring issue with the tower is the lack of a quick service restaurant and some place that serves Dole Whip.
