qi s.
Yelp
We stayed at the Lilikoi Inn B&B for our first two nights on the big island as part of our island hop vacation. Wish we had more time as Shai and Trina were amazing hosts.
We stayed in the Torched Ginger room, the smallest of the three rooms, as it was the only one available. It was clean, comfortable, and well appointed. The bathroom is attached to the room.
Breakfast is served at 8am on the main lanai which has an amazing view of the Kona coast as well as the lush vegetation that covers the entire estate. Right outside the lanai is coffee crop from which Shai makes the kona coffee that is served at breakfast. The gourmet breakfast is quite a treat (believe me, that is actually an understatement). Shai used to run a restaurant when they lived in Berkeley. There are also some interesting activities around the house. Shai gave a talk about how he makes coffee. We also get to participate hands-on in coffee bean drying.
Beach towels and gear (chairs, boogie boards, etc) are provided. Shai gave excellent advice on sights to see, drives to take, and places to eat.
As the first reviewer pointed out, the place is hard to find. Do not trust google maps, the last few turns will take you to the wrong place. Instead, follow the instructions on the website exactly. Though the silver oak tree mentioned in the instructions is pretty hard to see at night. When you are going into the driveway, you should either come in from the right side (by making a right hand turn into the driveway), or if you are making a left hand turn on the highway, cut onto the driveway from the right side first. That first part of the driveway is very steep, you will almost certainly scratch the bottom of your bumper. Be careful coming out of the driveway as well, turn to the left first onto the highway, then turn right on the highway.
yelp currently has very few b&b reviews for hawaii. tripadvisor on the other hand has much better review coverage and density. hopefully this review will help get more yelp users to stay at the Lilikoi and write reviews. For the yelp travelers out there, when you are researching Hawaii b&b options, i recommend that in addition to looking at yelp reviews, also check out tripadvisor. go to tripadvisor, in the search box type in the island you are looking at, e.g. "island of hawaii". the first entry in the search result should be the main tripadvisor page for that island. click through to it. on it you should see fairly close to the top, a short list of the top b&b's on the island. click on the link "All XXX b&b's" to see all the b&b's - this list is extremely useful because it is sorted by rating. I found the lilikoi that way - lilikoi inn is currently the 4th top ranked b&b on the big island.