Romer Waikiki Is a Hotel, a Hangout, and a Guidebook in One

Photo: Alex Bresler

Sidlo pulled out her phone and texted her friend, Justin, who works for a service called GoVibe that operates as a door-to-door luxury car rental agency. Fifteen minutes later, he pulled up to the hotel’s front entrance in a shiny silver BMW. My partner, Peter, filled out a quick app-based rental agreement, Justin handed us the keys, and like that, we were on our way.

Mayor Ramona has a lot of “friends.” That’s the term Sidlo, whose title at a more conventional hotel might read Experiential Marketing Manager, uses to describe the “mom-and-pop” businesses that Romer Waikīkī partners with to provide guests with experiences while benefiting the community.

GoVibe is one example. Guests can arrange rentals from the O’ahu-based car service through a QR code that’s printed on the back of every room key. The QR code also functions as a guidebook, offering suggestions for what to do and eat in the area. The Waikīkī Brewing Company is another friend of the hotel. With a storefront down the street from Romer Waikīkī, the brewing company provides the complimentary beer that’s doled out in the lobby every day around 4 PM, strategically coinciding with check-in.

Photo: Alex Bresler

More examples can be found in the hotel’s gift shop, which, at a glance, looks more like an art piece. Only upon close inspection does the display case in the lobby announce that the products behind the glass are available for purchase. Items range from bathing suits, to postcards, to body oils, to gilded metal bottle openers in the shape of the shaka, or Hawai’i’s hang loose symbol. According to Sidlo, the hotel has plans to build out its gift shop, if only as a way to spotlight even more local friends.

Some of the hotel’s partnerships are quieter, such as the park across the street that Romer Waikīkī adopted to give back to the neighborhood. Neighborhood values run deep at the hotel. It’s right there in the official name: Romer Waikīkī at The Ambassador. The Ambassador was an iconic if rundown O’ahu hotel that once occupied the space where Romer Waikīkī now stands, the sort of place where generations of locals might remember having their prom, Sidlo explains.

Photo: Alex Bresler

Today’s locals are as welcome at the hotel as guests. In addition to offering discounted rates for government employees and Kamaʻāinas, or Hawai’i residents, neighborhood folks can stop by the cafe, attend goings-on at the hotel, and treat its Waikīkī Swim and Social Club as a public pool. Cabanas and loungers are available for guests and non-guests alike to reserve.

It’s unclear after my two-night stay how many of the people I saw at the pool had rooms at the hotel. In the mornings, the pool area was relatively empty. It livened up in the afternoons, but even for a small space, it never felt crowded.

What crowd I did see was a pleasant mix of people that seems to be representative of the hotel’s everyone-welcome attitude: I saw twenty-something friends sipping frozen Aperol spritzes, a likely thirty-something couple enjoying private time in a cabana, a mom and her young daughter splayed out on loungers, and a mixed-age group of teens and pre-teens who appaeared to be siblings passing a football back and forth across the pool.

Photo: Alex Bresler

On our last evening at the hotel, while Peter and I sipped spicy margarita-inspired cocktails and ate lemongrass chicken and Thai basil tofu bowls that we’d ordered from the pool menu, what appeared to be a large local family stopped by for a sundown swim.

The inverse is also true. As much as Romer Waikīkī wants to bring the neighborhood to the hotel, it also connects guests with the world outside of the property. Our first night, on Mayor Ramona’s recommendation, Peter and I Ubered to Honolulu for dinner at the Lei Stand, a cocktail bar and restaurant in O’ahu’s Chinatown, which I might not have known existed otherwise. One of its menu items was called Ramona’s cheezy bread — a nod to the mayor’s favorite dish and the sort of reciprocal relationships the hotel is trying to build in the community.

Photo: Alex Bresler

Of course, Romer Waikīkī is, at its core, a hotel. It has the look of a hip renovated motel, a trend that’s been climbing in the hospitality world. The property is located between two relatively busy streets a short walk from one of O’ahu’s main shopping districts. While not directly on the water, a detail that I came to appreciate after spending two nights on busy Waikīkī Beach, it’s close enough to walk, and some of the rooms glimpse the ocean.

The rooms themselves are modern, comfortable, and clean, with floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors that open to private lanais, or balconies. The largest suite class has two bedrooms with two king beds. The family suite class sleeps five between a king bed and bunk beds.

Photo: Alex Bresler

Staying at the Romer Waikiki showed me a different side of the island than I expected after an otherwise beginner-surf-focused trip to O’ahu. But I think that’s the point. And with rates starting at $208 per night, I’d say it’s a pretty good deal considering that the hotel’s greatest amenity is providing insider access to the rest of O’ahu.

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