Hotels and Resorts

When you travel anywhere, especially to Hawaii, there are always several choices to make regarding where you stay. The choices can be narrowed down greatly by the amount of money you are willing to spend on your accommodations and what you expect to get out of those accommodations.
When my wife and I went to Maui we chose to stay in a resort hotel (the Hyatt Regency) for several different reasons. The first was the location and comfort. We found that several regular hotels would not guarantee the type of room we would get when we made our reservation. My wife and I don't smoke and I'm 6'2" tall. I wanted a non-smoking room with a king size bed and the hotels wouldn't guarantee the availability of such a room even though I made our reservations months in advance and was paying for the room in advance.

The photo above is of one of the restuarants at the Hyatt Regency resort on Maui where we stayed.

That's what made us look into the resort hotels. They were double the cost of what a "regular" hotel would be but I was promised and received the type of room I wanted. Most people don't spend a lot of time in their hotel rooms when on vacation and we were just like everyone else but I wanted what I wanted so I paid for it.

I can say that you definitely get what you pay for. The only negative thing I can say about the Hyatt Resort was the price. Everything else was beyond our expectations. Staying at a resort gives you access to several restaurants and bars, the Hyatt had five restuarants and even more bars. It was also very nice to be able to just charge it to the room. The Hyatt has it's own ocean front spa which is something my wife and I both enjoyed greatly. The service was impeccable no matter where you were on the resort or what employee you talked to. From the landscapers to the spa employees, everyone was there to make sure you were happy. The views were spectacular and the rooms were clean and nice.

The photo above is from our lanai looking out at the pool and ocean. This truely was a fantastic view and well worth the extra cost just because my wife and I sat on the lanai having coffee (Kona coffee supplied by the resort) every morning and we would sit out again just before going to bed and listen to the ocean and watch the moon reflect off of the waves.

This photo was taken from outside our room looking down into the open air lobby of the hotel.

If you plan on spending a lot of time around your hotel I would definitely recommend checking out one of the many resort hotels. I am biased towards the Hyatt just because it was such a nice place and we were treated like royalty and believe me, we are far from royalty!

One more thing, If you are going to Hawaii for a relaxing vacation you should give some very serious consideration to flying first class. Again, it is more expensive than coach (about twice as much) but the difference between the two is night and day. Our longest leg of the flight was about eight and a half hours with the return trip an overnight flight. First class made all the difference in the world for sleeping and comfort.