Trip motivation
We have family who live on Oahu and love to mix our trips with some fun resort time. Because we’ve previously explored the area, we mostly stayed at the resort for this trip. For more info on how we traveled there, see here
Hotel
We stayed at the Hyatt Regency Maui. This hotel is on the west side of the island which is about 40 minutes from the airport. We took a Lyft. There are tons of hotels in this area. This hotel is not cheap. Prices were going for $650 a night when we stayed. But we didn’t pay that, we used points! Hyatt points cost 25k/night. You can earn Hyatt points from Hyatt stays, the Hyatt credit card and chase points which can be transferred to Hyatt. Learn more about points here.
In addition to the free stay from points, we have Hyatt globalist status which gave us some cool perks. We got off to a great start when we checked in and they greeted the kids with stuffed whale toys.
The hotel was gorgeous. There was a beach nearby and giant pool areas with a kids area and multiple waterslides.
We spent most of our time playing at the hotel pools. The kids also enjoyed the included activities at the hotel. The hotel had penguins, swans, hula and lei making classes. In non-covid times, they also have a kids club where you can drop the kids off for some adult time. In addition to the Hyatt pools, we also visited the neighboring hotel, the residence club which is the timeshare portion of the hotel. We didn’t take any tours this time, but did enjoy the multiple pools and pool bar next door!
Hyatt Regency Club
This is a perk that is offered to those who book rooms with club access or those with globalist status. There is a lounge with a patio that offers a place to work or relax. And most importantly, it came with free food. We did breakfast here (fruit, pastries, eggs, etc), snacks (cookies, granola bars), and even managed to put together some dinner from the hor dourves menu in the evening. (poke, noodles, mac and cheese). Plus desserts and drinks. We would stop by multiple times a day to grab some drinks and snacks to take to the pool. This is definitely a huge benefit. If you’re paying for an upgrade, you’d have to calculate if it was worth it but note that we didn’t buy breakfast and drinks or food at the resort. That is super expensive. Even in soft drinks alone, we probably saved $50
Food and Drinks
We saw a lot of people bringing in their own food and drink from grocery stores. We didn’t have a car so we couldn’t stock up but we did buy some beer and snacks at the grocery store on-site. We also ate a lot of meals at the Regency club because prices were so expensive around the restaurant. I can’t speak to how good the food is for the most part but the Sushi restaurant and Steakhouse get good reviews. Entrees were about $40-$60/person. For lunches, we enjoyed grabbing food from the pool bars both at the Hyatt hotel bar and the next door residence club bar. Entrees at these places were $15-20 and included basics like salads, burgers, sushi.
For a late lunch one day, we walked over to Whaler’s village (about 20 minutes). We stopped at the beach about halfway so the walk didn’t feel as long. This area has shopping and restaurants and is generally more affordable. We went to happy hour at Monkeypod Kitchen for pizzas and beer, our two favorite things
Final Thoughts
Its always hard to judge if a hotel is worth the money if we didn’t spend the money. (We stayed on points) It was definitely worth the points and we loved it. Something I would suggest is to mix up your Maui stay with a cheaper accommodation on days when you’ll be adventuring around Maui and then spend just a few days at the Hyatt really enjoying the pools and resort life.
