Jane X.'s Profile

There are basically 3 gyms in Hilo and most seem to go to Spencer's which I prefer as well.

Pros-
- good atmosphere here with all ages, all body types, all races, and all abilities
- classes are small (could be a con as I tend to sneak out if a class is hard LOL)
- lots of ellipticals
- sauna (although not that great)
- opens at 4am (I prefer working out really early)
- you can pay in cash (while I like getting points on my credit cards, I don't want gyms to get my credit card or checking information)
- right now a 3 month special for $99

Cons-
- no towels
- no AC (although they do a pretty good job with the fans in here)
- not the cleanest, but not that bad either
- unless there is a special, you cannot continue the 3 months for $99 deal (goes back to $40 a month unless you get something longer than a month); found it odd that Penn's is cheaper than Spencer's!
- not a lot of classes to choose from, but I'm not a class person anyway (I did hear good things about the instructors)
- like with Penn's they have the same bizarre abdominal machine and no other machines from what I saw that are the traditional sit down and have your upper body go up and down while holding down on bars or whatever

Ultimately I prefer Spencer's mainly due to the atmosphere here and selection of equipment. Although it is slightly farther than Penn's from me, I could do a lot of other errands since it is right in the heart of downtown.

I was a little disappointed with this place but I had really high expectations. Unless you are taking any of the classes downstairs, it would be on par with an older Bally's or older LA Fitness. I was thinking this would be like a Super LA Fitness.

Pros-
- air conditioning (this was the main reason why I considered joining since I am high maintenance)
- clean
- doesn't seem to get too crowded
- later hours than Spencer's
- good prices ($99 for 3 months and you can get the same price from what I heard after when the 3 months expire)
- didn't have the "meathead" crowd which I thought it would have
- they are the only gym in town that I know of that gives towels, but they are the little towels (not bath towels)

Cons-
- only 2 "good" ellipticals which always seemed to be taken
- there is only one abdominal machine (from what I remember) which isn't even a very good one
- no sauna or steam room (I heard it's coming but in no time soon....)
- no locker room (they keep your stuff in cubbies to the left of where you check in but unless you have them keep your stuff under the desk, it is a free for all....)
- didn't care for the layout of the gym

I decided to go with Spencer's which to my surprise costs more. Just didn't care for this gym.

I would give this 3.5 stars if I could. Very mixed review and read a similar review on http://apartmentrating...

I stayed here for a couple of weeks when I first moved to town and this place definitely has pros and cons. I also miss it.

Pros-
- the apartment sizes are very comfortable
- nice pool with ocean views (I enjoyed eating outside)
- rec room with a pool table
- very few kids in the building (quiet building)
- walking distance to downtown
- one of the only few buildings in town with mainly professional and retired people (opposed to section 8)
- pretty good upkeep

Cons-
- thin walls (I heard EVERYTHING next door)
- horrible parking lot with very narrow spaces 1/4 of which have these huge squared cement poles which I banged my car into 1 time
- you hear every single plane
- if you are on the side facing downtown you will hear traffic at all hours (trust me on this and I usually sleep through everything)
- the 11 minute dryers are a pain in the ass
- some sketchy people who hang out in the parking lot (probably from the lower income places across the highway)

Wouldn't be a bad place to buy a condo IMO if you do not face the highway. While their HOA is high, they include the electricity which is very, very high in HI. If I am here long term I would consider buying a condo here.

This is one of the few nice condos in town. If you are looking into buying in Hilo, most of the condos are dumps. This is one of the "upscale" ones. If in any mainland city this wouldn't be considered upscale at all, but by HI standards it is.

Gorgeous? Yes. Worth it in the long run? IMO no. Each time I have done this I have gotten car sick even after taking Bonine and doing all the other crap you are supposed to do. The Seven Pools are extremely overrated. There are other similar places much closer to town that are much less crowded!

Last time I did this I did the drive alone. If you choose to do this I suggest you go with a couple of people to alternate driving every couple of hours. This is not a road that as a driver you want to start looking around considering all the turns.

If you don't have that many days in Maui (meaning less than say 6 nights), I would skip it like a couple of us haters on here said and spend it on a beach. It does start to look the same after 1 hour...

I actually think the Big Island has similar routes that are safer, less crowded, and you can see a lot more in a much shorter drive.

If you have more than 6 nights in Maui, have never done this, and have other people with licenses with you I would do this once. It's just something to say you did.

As someone who frequently travels solo, I would not do this alone unless you are just doing part of the road.

I thought the onion rings were really good and I liked my salad as well. Could use more vegetarian options and more comfortable chairs though. Service was okay. Would go back to.

It took be awhile to get recommendations for a place in Hilo that wasn't at a nail salon for eyebrow waxing. I got a recommendation from a hair salon to go here and I was very happy with how my brows turned out for $15 :)

This will be my go to place to get waxing done every month. Patsy was very kind and friendly providing me with a ton of samples to try out too.

I started out with this bank by making a checking account over the phone back in CA. The customer service with them (a guy named Richardo) was really good and if I left a message, he called me back right away.

Once I came to Hilo I have used BOH inside the Safeway. They have Sunday hours, and the rest of the hours they are also really convenent. Again customer service here is really good. I let them convince me to move most of my money into a savings account (leaving a minimum inside my checking) when I really didn't want to until they basically said what the restrictions were (basically you cannot make more than 6 online transfers a month which is fine with me and that you need to leave a minimum of $300 into the account a month to avoid fees). .003 isn't much. Without saying too much I basically can can breakfast at Ken's 2x a month with the money I am earning now LOL. I mainly keep all my money into one account because I hate having a million accounts (as of right now I have 2 savings accounts, and 3 checking accounts not including a joint emergency account that I have with family).

I am writing this review in part so I can remember how much money to keep into my savings to avoid fees.

The only reason I joined this bank was due to them being found all over the state of Hawaii as well as being open on Sunday -mainland banks that I go to don't do that!

Cheapest milk I have seen in Hawaii- $.3.25 for  a half gallon of nonfat milk.

Nice workers, clean store, late hours, plenty of parking, a discount card, and 2 Red Boxes.

Their produce looks pretty good, but I stick to just getting crap at the farmer's market but for more traditional fruits (apples, strawberries, etc) I wouldn't hesitate to buy here.

Before I moved here, I have always wanted to check this place out. Like Brian said, it's behind an ice cream store! I finally decided to go in to check out their campgrounds. When I first opened the door (they lock this at 10:00 PM so there is security there), I was shocked by how pretty the grounds were! If you think the gardens and park on Banyan is gorgeous, wait until you see the grounds here. They really take great care of landscaping the place. I was not expecting that when I first arrived! A worker there was nice enough to show me a dorm, a private room, and showed me how the camping works. If you spend a week or more there it's $12.50 a night!

The dorm is a traditional dorm and I think there were 4 single beds in each one in a small room. They have single sex dorms and coed dorms (I will only do single sex dorms after sharing a coed one with a bunch of smelly Dutch guys who kept farting at night). The private rooms I bet are nicer than the hotels on Banyan Drive but that isn't saying much since those hotels are more or less really motels. I don't think the room had a T.V. though which could suck at night as things in Hilo towards the evening die down. The campgrounds were big enough for very large tents. Most of the people there actually had the huge ones. I didn't see any traditional small tents.
They are spaced apart too so you can have privacy. Love the fact that they have quiet hours at 10:00 PM.

I am a high maintenance female from Southern California and have always hated camping (in fairness, I did "real camping" in a cheap small tent and had no mattress pad only using a sleeping bag), but I feel I could do it here like how everyone else seemed to do it- You get a huge tent, stick an air mattress in it, have a ton of space for everything else! It's like a tree house but on the floor :)

I would love to stay here one day. If I had checked this place out before I moved here I would easily have stayed here.

I finally went to this place due to the hype on here (Yelp reviewers usually tend to give mom and pop places high scores just because they are mom and pop...). The worker there was friendly and I had 3 samples.I typically get traditional flavors but tried to be more exciting trying local flavors.  He probably would have let me had more. For $3.50 (I agree it was overprice I'm thinking $2.00 would be more reasonable) I had a traditional ice cream cone with mud pie. The ice cream was delicious. Last week I went to Walmart and bought some local Hawaiian brand of ice cream with the same flavor for $8.00 (Yes! $8.00 ice cream!) and there was hardly any fudge or Oreos in it. The mud pie flavor at HHIC has huge pieces of the cookie in it.

I love all the picnic tables outside. I spent this morning snorkeling and on the way back got myself an ice cream cone :) Great way to spend a Sunday.

Only con is the price.