Trip Motivation
We have family who live on Oahu and love to mix our family-focused trips with some fun just-us family adventure and resort time. It had been several years (decades!) since I’d visited Kauai and the Hyatt there was often mentioned on travel groups that I follow as a fave. For more on other island highlights, see here and here
Kauai: The Garden Isle
Kauai is nicknamed the “Garden Island” for a reason and is so green and gorgeous. Many movies are filmed here and it is gorgeous. The contrast of the mountain to the sea is very dramatic and the island as a whole has a weird mix of rural life of locals and extravagant resorts. It gets the most rain of all the islands and is a spectacular place to visit. Many people often combine Kauai with Oahu. I think 3 days is the perfect amount of time to spend here.
Flying: HNL to LIH
For the short inter-island flight from Oahu to Kauai, we flew Southwest. The cost per person RT was $120. We used travel funds from past trips and American Express benefits to reduce our total cost to $70 total for all 4 of us. The American Express Business Platinum (and a few others) come with a flight benefit. Typically, this is meant for flight extras and not actual flight costs, there is a small loophole where flights less than $100 can trigger the credit. Alternate options for this flight would be using Southwest points. You can earn these from Southwest Credit Cards or by transferring Chase points using the Chase portal.
Hotel Stay
We stayed at the Grand Hyatt Kauai for 3 nights. This hotel is on the south side of the island about 40 minutes from the airport. We rented a car and used points to get free parking at the resort. In Kauai, the north and south side generally have the fancy resort hotels with Lihue by the airport having cheaper basic options. This hotel is not cheap. Prices were going for $850 a night when we stayed. But we didn’t pay that, we used points and free night awards! Hyatt points cost 30k/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.
Getting Around Lihue
I highly recommend a car for this trip unless you really want to take a taxi to a resort/condo and live at the resort/beach. We always use costco travel for our car rentals (with our chase sapphire reserve for extra insurance) There’s a lot to see on the island. On this trip, we decided to save the North shore for a future visit and mixed some exploring of waterfalls, hikes, and viewpoints, and a good amount of hotel
Day 1- Arrival, Wailua Falls, and Kuilau Ridge Hike
We spent the first half of the day loosely following the path for the East side of the island set out in this shaka guide itinerary. After getting our car, we drove to Wailua falls for a gorgeous viewpoint. Absolutely beautiful. We then drove to Konohiki seafood for some plate lunches and ate by the beach at Lydgate park. Ben went for a run (crazy!) while the kids played at an epic playground nearby. So fun!
In the afternoon, we continued a drive a little farther north towards Kuilau ridge hike, a 3.6-mile out-and-back trail near Kapaʻa, Kaua’i. This trail was very muddy but pretty easy overall and the views were gorgeous. (When I say muddy, I mean muddy. Definitely recommend kids be at least 6 or so and wear real shoes!)
Hotel Check-in
We checked in after a full day around 4pm. As globalist members, we had access to the club lounge which had included breakfast, daytime snacks, evening hors d’oeuvres, and evening desserts. This is a perk that is offered to those who book rooms with club access or those with globalist status. We did breakfast here daily (fruit, pastries, eggs, etc), snacks (cookies, granola bars), and even managed to put together some dinner from the evening menus. (kalua pork nachos, teriyaki sticks, noodles, mac and cheese). Plus desserts and drinks at other times in the day. We would stop by multiple times 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 food at the resort is very pricey. Even in soft drinks alone, we probably saved $50! For dinner on our first night, we drove 10 minutes to the town of Koloa and ate some pizzas at Kauai Island Brewing. They have a nice patio space and it was definitely a lot cheaper than eating on-site
Day 2: All-Day at the Resort and Poipu Beach
In the morning, the hotel fitness center had a group walk and we walked to nearby Poipu beach and back. We decided we wanted to go back in the afternoon to hang out with the turtles and swim. We stopped by the lounge for breakfast and then spent some time at the pools! Prior to our stay, I emailed the general manager ahead of time and told them it was my birthday and they gifted us blow-up tubes and wine!! Winning! The hotel pools were amazing! A lazy river, slide, and 4 gorgeous pools! We packed goggles and dive sticks and had a blast. My favorite kind of vacations involve pina coladas and sitter-vising. Virgin with cherries for the littles. We make a point to save time for pool and hotel time when we get pricier resort stays. No point in paying big bucks if you leave all day. The kids enjoyed the included activities at the hotel. The hotel had hula and lei making classes and other fun cultural events.
Poipu Beach
In the afternoon, we headed back to poipu beach. There was a very small playground here and some food options nearby. Many people recommended the puka hot dog store. We went to Brennecke’s which was delicious but we had a sour experience that wasn’t their fault, but mine. I asked about happy hour specials and they said they had a Taco Tuesday special and we were excited and ordered 4 sets. It was delicious but we got the bill and turns out there wasn’t a special price, it was just special that they had it. lol. We definitely should have made the kids get kid’s menu items instead of $35 tacos! I feel like maybe the server should have said something but maybe it’s not unusual for tourists to drop $200 on lunch. We ate dinner at the club because we were grumpy about spending so much money at lunch ha!
Day 3- Waimea Canyon State Park
On this day, we drove out to explore Waimea Canyon. We used this shaka guide itinerary as a rough plan. From our hotel in Poipu, it was about an hour drive to the first lookout. Our kids read their kindles in the backseat and Ben and I chatted about life and enjoyed the views. I really take for granted how lucky we are to have such great kids who are used to long car rides (we’ve trained them well! ha!)
We did 2 hikes: 1 short and easy and 1 that was long and muddy (again!) Our first hike, the Iliau nature loop, had some great views and giant rocks for climbing! At the next lookout, we paid the parking fee (really a visitor fee) and enjoyed seeing the wide expanse. The views were absolutely gorgeous. The parking fee was good for all parking lots in the park. We then accidentally did a big hard hike. I thought the trail was <1 mile but we got turned around and ended up on a 2 hour hike new spur to canyon trail. Multiple slips and frustrating spots. One thing that stood out to us about this day was that all the views felt very similar and the long hike payoff didn’t quite have the same effect since we could have also just driven to a similar spot.
Kokee Lunch
We stopped at the Kokee lodge for lunch. Note that there aren’t a lot of food spots once you’re deep in the park so pack food or plan to stop here. We had a pork loco moco and kalua pork plate. Very delicious. We also bought some corn to feed chickens. So fun! We tried to go to the next lookout but it was pretty foggy. I read that you can wait but we decided to come back another trip.
After a fun day, we headed back to the hotel. We stopped by the Kauai cookie factory store. It was more of a distribution center than a store but really cute. We had some samples and bought some cookies for Oahu relatives. We also made a quick stop in Hanapepe at the swinging bridge. We then went back to the hotel for more pool time and a balcony view of the resort luau! For dinner, we drove back to the Koloa area, and ate at La Spezia. This was a fantastic Italian restaurant. Best meal of the week. Highly recommend it.
Last Day: More Pool Time and Lihue Stops
We spent the morning at the pool. It was really so much fun going down the slides and relaxing in our tubes. I felt like we were at a Mexico all-inclusive with all my cares floating away. The hotel asked us to check-out of our room at noon. Although the hotel offered us a temporary other room until 4p, we decided to head to Lihue for lunch and one more beach instead. We ate at Hamura saimin which is a very local staple. It was a little rough and not the best or gourmet by any means but carries a lot of nostalgic feels. Saimin is a very local cuisine and meant to be not fancy.
Final Thoughts
We had a great time exploring Kauai’s natural beauty and enjoying resort amenities. Our kids enjoyed the hotel activities and pool time. In the future, we’ll return to do more hikes and north shore exploration!
