Avoid at all costs.Having a vehicle to travel around the island was great. All of the other amenities that made this a campervan were not as advertised, and worse. (Unusable fridge, sinks/shower, roof fans and cockroaches).Initially, the host seemed kind and hospitable. He answered our questions and informed us on how to use the van and the amenities.Off the bat, he indicated that the refrigerator would not be able to operate normally, and that we would have to reserve the power to the cabin of the vehicle by turning the fridge on to reach a cold temp then off to save battery, using it only as a cooler. We were also informed to reserve power to the vehicle by limiting use of cabin lights and the water pump.
If the battery lost its charge, we would be without amenities unless the host was able to boost the lithium battery on the vehicle.
He also indicated that "Hawaii has bugs" and to use the Raid provided in the vehicle when needed.
Ok, these things seemed like quirks but we were willing to work with them.After night one we realized we couldn't have the fridge running long enough to store food in the cabin, since it was completely draining the battery. The fans were also a major draw on the battery life. We realized quickly that the amenities would not be usable as advertised.After night two, we noticed a few cockroaches around bedtime. We thought these were the "bugs of Hawaii" and this is just something we had to manage by not keeping food in the cabin at all. From this point on, we no longer ate in the van or stored food. We thought this would solve the roach problem, and it was only occurring due to food in the vehicle.On one of the nights, it rained. The roof fans automatically turned off, and then never turned back on, even when the rain stopped. We sent messages to our host with questions about this, and he indicated there was nothing he could do. We just waited for a dry enough day for the fans to reboot. Eventually, one rebooted and was usable. The other remained out-of-service for the remainder of the trip.We continued to see cockroaches in the vehicle, here and there around bedtime (sunset) each day. We were spraying or killing them with our hands, thinking this was pretty gross but what can be done about it. We figured they were near the fridge or sink area looking for food. We decided we'd have to say something about it when we returned the vehicle. Looking back, we were naive about this problem and should have mentioned it sooner to Outdoorsy.On night 5, we were getting frustrated and booked a stay at a tiny home in the north shore just to get a break from the van. It was great to sleep in a nice bed where we didn't have to stress about the buga, use a kitchen and shower, and have access to amenities. After this, we prepared for two more nights in the van before returning it.On the last night with the van, we stayed up outdoors past sunset at our parking spot (we didn't spend any leisure time in the vehicle at all during our trip). When we returned to the van around 10:30pm for one last sleep, we got to see how bad the cockroach problem really was in the vehicle. Large and small cockroaches were crawling on our clothes and backpacks, on the van couch, on the countertops, on the floor, in the vehicle cupholders at the front of the vehicle, and on the curtains near the bed and the wood paneling next to the bed. It was infested.Since we had been going to bed at sunset every evening, we didn't realize the full scope of the issue. It was so bad that we immediately booked a stay at a hotel and didn't sleep in the van for the last night, finally realizing how bad the cockroach issue truly was.The next day when we returned the vehicle, the host had many excuses about the issues we mentioned. He claimed to be ignorant about the cockroach issue (I think he was well aware, since he mentioned he intentionally doesn't keep items on the vehicle that are attractive to cockroaches such as cardboard or paper), and he said little about the other issues we had run into about being unable to use the amenities.He offered me $150 for the night we spent at the hotel and turned around to charge me $200 in damages for the non-working fan and the remote to operate the other fan (we advised him the remote fell behind the countertop, which he initially indicated wasn't a problem and that he has retrieved the remote from that spot in the past).Do not book with these people. They will take advantage of you. You will sleep amongst cockroaches. Avoid at all costs.
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