All's well that ends well

This morning we flew from Honolulu to the Big Island. We flew into Kona and drove around the northern side of the island and ended up in Hilo. We had planned to stay at the Inn at Kulanaiapia Falls near Hilo. We rented the pagoda house which looks like this from the outside:

Looks cute, right? Now look at what we found on the inside:

Yep, that is mold and dirt on the main edge of the staircase. What was even better was that the spiral staircase wasn't installed correctly so that when we walked up or down the entire thing shook. In addition, there was no air conditioning (not noted on their website) and in the first 10 minutes we were inside we both got multiple mosquito bites. Not what you expect from a 'luxury bed and breakfast' (their words, not mine).

We decided pretty quickly that we weren't going to stay there. We went up to the main house to let them know and on the way in I slipped and fell banging up both of my knees. We were greeted by the wife of the owner. When I mentioned I had just fallen her first response was "where?" and she neither asked me if I was okay nor apologized. We explained the reasons we were wanting to leave and she said we'd have to speak to her husband. She asked us to wait an hour until he returned from running errands and when we said we didn't want to she reluctantly gave us his phone number.

After getting him on the phone he promptly told me that they had reserved the room for us for quite awhile and that there wasn't anything he could do. I explained that his website was not representative of the actual product we were receiving mainly because there is no air conditioning. We discussed things for about two more minutes and he got extremely rude and then he told me that it was probably best that I dispute the charges with my credit card company. Seriously? I then asked if I should share my experience with Lonely Planet, the B&B associations and the local Chamber of Commerce and he actually said yes. To be fair, I can be a complete pain in the ass when I want to be...I know that and so does everybody that knows me...but Alan listened in on the entire conversation and will attest to the fact that I was actually being pleasant to this complete ass.

So, for the first time in almost 15 years of traveling the world together we walked out on a reservation. I have not ever been treated so poorly by a business owner in my life and will definitely be disputing the charges and writing a review on every website I can find. I know I shouldn't let him get to me...and I won't let it ruin our vacation...but there is no way I'm going to let this guy get the last word or any of my money.

We ended up finding a great local hotel with an oceanfront room for much less money. The people here at this hotel are so friendly and it is actually clean and well maintained. After checking-in we promptly headed to the hotel bar to have a drink to calm our nerves a bit. Here is me with a fruity cocktail:

When we left the hotel bar the waitress was so sweet she offered me all of the colors of the umbrellas since I was enjoying mine so much.

We then headed into the town and stopped at Cafe Pesto which our friend Claire recommended to us. Holy cow...it is by far the best all around meal I have had since I was in Durham at Nana's back in June. We sat at the bar in front of the open kitchen so had some fun chats with the staff. We will likely be back there for dinner tomorrow night it was that good.

So, after a crappy experience at that horrible inn we have ended up at a nice hotel and found a great place for drinks and another great place for drinks, food, and service.

All is well that ends well...