Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort & Spa — Hotel in Kauai

The property is large and impressive. Wonderful views. Lobby is gorgeous. Warmly greeted at front desk, with welcoming leis. Located near shops and restaurants, including many quality options directly on the property. Self park or valet is available.

We had a problem with our room the first night, as my wife has asthma and her breathing was impacted by something in the room. We went to the front desk the next morning and an older distinguished gentleman (we wish we had his name) took our concerns extremely seriously and said he would order an immediate deep cleaning of our room, including some sort of air cleaning machine used in hospitals. The next night and remainder of our stay were subsequently much improved. There was also a slight amount of mildew in the bottom corner of the shower, but that was minor. Overall, the room was nicely decorated and had a large balcony with a lovely view.

We were extremely unhappy with the Hyatt's pool protocol. It was a free-for-all, with no pool attendants to guide guests to open seating. Guests pick up their own towels and must find their own chairs. We looked throughout the multiple pools and seating areas and after 15 minutes had no luck in finding two chairs together. Many chairs had towels on them. Were they saved or vacant? A pool attendant would have been most helpful in knowing what chairs were actually available. During our search, we noticed many completely empty pool cabanas that had "reserved" signs posted on them. We finally found a cabana at the adult pool that was not posted with a "reserved" sign. My wife and I sat down and made ourselves comfortable. One minute later, like magic, a hotel employee suddenly appears and states we need to reserve a cabana. I explained this cabana did not have a "reserved" sign posted on it. He then pulls out a broken sign hidden in the folds of the cabana's curtains and says you need to pay for these. I tell him for $1250 a night, we ought to be able to find chairs at the pool. That's why we sat down here. Charge me whatever the fee is, we are not moving. $350 later we had a place to sit. What a hassle!

I later found out Hyatt rents out visitation of their pools for $100 a day, per person, to the general public (non-hotel guests). I will let the reader decide whether paying guests of the hotel should receive priority seating over non-guests.

The last day of our stay my wife had made reservations at the spa. Her 9:30AM spa visit went longer than expected and our checkout time of 11AM needed to be pushed back a bit. I called the front desk to let them know and the clerk tells me they could only provide us with a 20 minute extension. I said that seemed tight, but I could make it work. 30 seconds later, the same clerk calls me back and states belligerently that we needed to check out immediately. Housekeeping needed quick access, because the hotel had a VIP guest arriving who wanted our particular room. Annoyed, I tell the clerk you initially told me I had an additional 20 minutes to checkout and I am taking it. Keep in mind my wife is at the Hyatt's spa spending $600 while this nonsense is going on. In 35 years of travel, we have never been told a checkout extension could not be accommodated. Check-in time at the Hyatt is 4:00PM, by the way. 4 hours to prepare for the VIP? Ludicrous!

I get everything packed up and call the bellman to assist me with our bags. A wonderful fellow named Bennie came up and made a highly negative situation tolerable, by putting all our bags on his cart and expressing genuine concern, as I explained the rush to get my non-VIP derriere out of the room. He was quite gracious and said he would store our bags in a safe room off the lobby until my wife was done at the spa. I tipped him $20 for his efforts and then awaited my wife outside the lobby, on a persistently squeaky swing, overlooking the Hyatt's koi pond.

When my wife met up with me, we agreed this was our final time staying at a Hyatt. She did, however, rave about their spa.

We cannot...

I am very conflicted with this review. We stayed here in 2023 for our honeymoon and it was our favorite resort stay ever. Everything was perfect. The room, the pools, the grounds, the service... everything. I couldn't imagine a better stay!

However... we returned in 2025 for our two year anniversary and nearly every aspect of the resort has downgraded in quality to the point I would no longer recommend it.

Lets start with the room. We booked a king room with points. The default redemption room for points is a standard room (parking lot view) which is what we expected, however since I am an Explorist member, we were upgraded to a partial ocean view room. When we checked into the room we found that it was on the ground floor facing the pool and the only way to see the ocean was to step off the patio about 10 feet into the grass. There was no ocean view (partial or not) from the windows or patio itself, but since we booked a standard room, we couldnt complain about that too much. The real problem came from the cleanliness of the room. It was one of the farthest rooms away from the main lobby, and we got the impression that it wasn't booked very often. The reason being was from the amount of dust on every surface including the reusable water bottles they offer. The bed frame, tables, tv, lights, etc all had a thick layer of dust. We also noticed this was an ADA room because the bathroom had a tub with hand rails instead of a walk in shower which is typical for king rooms. This would have been fine, except for the fact that the tub was not cleanly whatsover. There was mold in between the tile grout and near the drain. The shower head itself was clean, but the hand sprayer was very musty and had black particles come out of it the first time we used it. The water pressure was so high it was uncomfortable and splashed outside of the tub everytime someone took a shower and left a pool of water all over the bathroom floor. We had to request extra towels daily in order to dry this up. The door from the room to the hallway had a large gap underneath and you could see light shining through at night. As forementioned, the room was on the ground floor and two different mornings we witnessed a small lizard enter the room. While I'm not too concerned about a lizard persay, this made us pretty worried about what other critters could make it through that gap when we weren't watching. Kauai is notorious for large bugs, so that put us on edge for the duration of the trip. It ended up being one the least cleanly rooms we've stayed in, and that's very concerning for the amount of money these rooms go for.

As for the rest of the hotel, things were also not as we had remembered. While this resort has some of the best pools we've ever experienced, they did not seem as clean as when we visited two years ago. There was lots of debris at the bottom of each pool so you had to watch where you stepped. We had also remembered the landscaping and plants being very healthy and lush, but this time around a lot of them looked rough and some spots were bare and torn out. Finally the biggest thing that differed from our last stay was how boring this resort gets after sundown. Unless you have a reservation at one of the main restaurants (Stevensons Library or Tidepools) everything is shut down around 6:30pm. There is nothing open near the pool areas for a drink or snack, neither are the two convenience stores located inside the hotel. If you need anything past 6:30pm, you must go offsite. We found this to be really strange and kind of a bummer. We did not remember this aspect on our last visit.

After two years of daydreaming about revisiting, our return trip was nothing like the first. This was once our favorite resort experience in the US, but everything was comparitively worse just two years later. We have had much better experiences at other, cheaper, Hawaiian hotels and I can no longer recommend staying here. We will likely...

This was one of the best vacations and best stays I've had anywhere in my 50 years of travel.

With my wife and two young teens; the boys loved the pools and the parrots. I don't know how close to capacity the hotel was, but it felt uncrowded (never had to look far for a lounge chair or wait for an elevator, meal, or valet). Everyone we interacted with was extremely easy going, friendly, and helpful. (Well, everyone who worked at the hotel--and most of the guests. :)) We had an ocean view, and if you can get that room, do--sleeping with the sound of the surf is the best thing ever, and if I had done nothing but sit on the balcony with a drink in my hand for the entire time, I would have come away happy.

This is my third trip to Hawaii but my first to Kauai, and I can't imagine going anywhere but here in the future. So... just what everyone else has said.

And now, I will nitpick because that's what I come to reviews to see :).

EXPENSE. Gosh everything is expensive. True of Kauai, add for Poipu, add for the Hyatt. There are good alternatives.

BREAKFAST. The breakfast buffet is reviewed as the best in Poipu, but (and again, for the cost, which was high) the quality was definitely not there. After two strikes, we tried the casual spot which also greatly disappointed (stale croissants, no jam). This was the biggest disappointment, since a good breakfast buffet can make a vacation, especially in Hawai'i. Plan to go off-property.

ROOM AGE: The room did not feel new. The chairs were a bit banged up, the wallpaper beginning to peel at a seam in the bathroom, and there was a bit of dinginess here and there. Some black dots on the bathroom ceiling were probably the start of mold? The tropical climate no doubt contributes to some of this. The washlet toilet an a newish giant TV were nice, and the overall design and space was excellent, but of the rooms we've stayed in over the last year, I would say this was one was showing its age a bit.

CLEANLINESS: The room generally felt clean. Honestly, we were in and out so often that we ended up not having it cleaned that often, but maids were quick to do some changeouts of towels and the like and were generally helpful. So I would generally put the room cleanliness as good. At 6 foot, I am was just tall enough to see the top of the frame in the WC, and I would be surprised if it had been dusted in the last year: there was a serious bunny colony on top. And spouse checked the "under" of the beds and there was a champagne cork (sadly not ours) and a napkin. But I guess if you don't take your white glove too high or too low.

BED: Often, next to cleanliness, the bed and shower are the most important bits for me. I came to this hotel from a cheap place in Waikiki the had nothing much going for it besides an outstanding bed. This one was fine, though it did feel like a downgrade. I will note that everyone has their own tastes--I am a big dude and like a fairly firm mattress. In any case, the bed was comfortable enough and I slept well.

SHOWER: As with the bed, nothing wrong here, but also not the "oooo" factor you may be expecting from a $1000+ a night room. Our $200 a night room in Vegas had a much nicer bathroom and shower, as have most other bathrooms we've stayed in. I've grown accustomed to a walk in shower (rather than stepping into a tub) both at home and at many of the hotels where we've stayed for vacation. So this is really just a matter of the age of the room rather than anything "wrong" with it. Water pressure is a bit anemic, but plenty of hot water and worked out fine.

So, if you are looking for negative, hopefully that will help calibrate expectations. But I will say, with those in mind, we still had a wonderful stay and would not hesitate to come back. Get reservations for Tidepools (twice, if you can)--it was the best meal we had...