Grand Hyatt Kauai Beachfront Resort Water Playground - Source: Hyatt
The grounds and views are amazing. As you walk into the lobby you see through a huge open area to the ocean. Hard to believe it is real. The rooms, pools, grounds and amenities are all great. The biggest downside of the place is its sheer size. It can take a significant amount of time to walk to your room. Even with the multiple elevator banks on each floor it can take a while to get to one.
We stayed New Years week of 2019 and the place was at 100% of capacity. Generally that wasn't an issue though you did want to get down early for pool chairs. Also housekeeping was pretty basic, mostly making the beds and taking out the garbage in the cans. They are nice enough to provide Nesspresso coffee makers in the room with pods upon arrival, but housekeeping would not replace the pods unless you called them. They were very nice and rushed them to your room, but 4 days in a row, it was never done during the regular room clean.
## Hotel Restaurants
### Seaview Terrace Restaurant
The Seaview Terrace restaurant on the back deck provides a great view of the ocean and wonderful ambiance. The food is decent and a bit pricy. Service was somewhat slow on the one night we ate there.
### Ilima Terrace
We had breakfast at Ilima Terrace once day. While the main buffet is very expensive ($39), the a la carte menu is a bit cheaper (e.g., $21 for avacado toast) and the kids (5-12) pay their age for the main buffet, so it is a great deal to get kids the buffet and the adults can get a la carte if they aren't very hungry. There is also an unadvertised option to get just the cold buffet which if you like fruit or lox can get a reasonable deal. The service was great and the food was pretty good.
## Amenities
### Gym
The Grand Hyatt had a nice gym next to the Spa. Be warned it is a fairly far walk from some parts of the hotel, but you can think of that as a warm up. The gym was split into largely a weight room and cardio room. The weight room had plenty of dumbbells to do your own workout (I use MoveWith and ClassPass Go for audio workouts at hotels) along with a few machines and other necessities. The cardio room had various pieces of equipment plus four Peletons. I used the Peletons a few times. Not sure I would buy one or subscribe, but very nice to do a class at a hotel.
### Kids Club
We only used the kids club one day but it seemed great. It is $125 for the "day" and $125 for the evening for the first kid and half off for each additional kid. Note that there is an hour between the day and the night session but if you book both (such as for a long hike) they will keep the child through. They provide lunch during the day session and dinner during the evening. Staff was very friendly. Also, they allow kids starting at 3 which is fairly rare among hotel kids clubs.
### Laundry
There is a laundry room at the bottom of each elevator bank. The laundry is free and even the detergent pods are included. We used it a few times.
### Water
Yes, water is an amenity here. There is a filtered chilled water machine next to each elevator on each floor, one near the front door, one in the pool area and probably a bunch more that I didn't notice. They also give you two reusable water bottles per room (you can ask the front desk for extra).
## Location
The Grand Hyatt is in Poipu on the south side of the island.
### Walk to Public Beach
The grounds a very nice. There are also great walking paths leading from the west side of the resort toward Brennecke's and Poipu beaches (even if multiple concierges didn't know about them). Note that they turn to dirt with some rolling hills (if you have a stroller, it should be rugged) and then spits you out on Pee Rd, a quiet side street heading to the beach. Probably about a 45 min walk. The hotel has its own beach so this isn't really necessary, but a nice walk.
Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort & Spa
1571 Poipu Rd
Koloa, HI 96756
(808) 742-1234
Dave DAVE'S ADVENTURES Hotel USA Hyatt Travel Hawaii Kauai
