08/31/05-09/05/05 $223 via HW 4* The GOOD First, this is an EXCELLENT location on the Kaanapali strip. Close to the Whaler shopping area, without being so close that you get crowd noise. Second, Hyatt had the BEST pool and slide. My husband regressed to his childhood and went down the slide many many times. Third, the rooms were nice and had a lot of nice amenities like robes, actually useable shampoos and conditioners, in-room safe, hairdryer, mini-refrigerator (on request), and comfy down pillows and comforters. The bath towels were huge and they provided like six for just the two of us. The lanai was nice. It had a small table and two chairs for morning breakfasts listening to the ocean waves. Ahh... Mostly everyone on the staff was cordial and friendly. Wakeup calls went like this: "Good Morning, Ms. X. It is now 7:00AM and it will be 86 degrees today with warm breezes. Have a nice day, Ms. X." Wow. I was impressed. You get lei'd when you check in - women with orchid leis and men with shell leis. The staff at the front door were really friendly and particularly enjoy "talking story" with the mainlanders, like how much is gas in your part of the state? :) The guest services also recommended some great activities, like the Pacific Whale Foundation for a day trip to Molokini and Turtle Arches for snorkeling - special rate of $70 pp rather than the advertised $80 pp. I expected to have a full view of the parking lot, but was actually surprised to have a partial ocean view. At the Weeping Banyan, they had nice live music nightly. The grounds are really beautiful - with ample trees, flowers and birds on the property (from flamingos to swans to parrots to penguins!) Self-parking is free. The BAD Pool area could get crowded. The lawn chairs with individual shade covers were usually the first to go. The double lawn chairs with cozy shade covers for two were for rent $40 per day. Mandatory resort fee of $15 per day. This "buys" you a morning paper delivered to your door, one hour at the tennis court daily, and admittance to the Mauna Spa/Workout Facility (which was actually very nice with state of the art equipment, free ice cold water, air conditioning and towels). There were some other things listed as part of the resort fee, but i thought they were too lame to mention. Self-parking was limited. Only two lots - and the one near our rooms was quite a bit smaller than the other lot - so a lot of double parking going on. Luckily, no one ever blocked us in. We were able to find parking in either of the lots on most nights. (See below). The brunch at Swan Cafe was pricey $25 pp and didn't offer as much variety as I would have expected for that price. However, what they did offer was tasty. Not many places at the hotel to eat. And at the places that they did have, a lot of the same food was offered. After a few days, it gets really boring. It can get annoying to have to get in your car and drive to get some food. The UGLY Self-parking on Saturday nights sucked. Apparently, the Hyatt hosts a Saturday night only club at Spats and ALL the locals go there. AND they park in the self-parking lots. ARGH! We came back to the hotel one night and both lots were filled to capacity (and then some!) After being put on hold for more than five minutes by a hotel operator (the ONE employee experience we had that wasn't positive), we were told to go to valet and the parking would be comped. HOWEVER, come check out time, they still charged us for the valet parking that night. After some explaining, the charge was removed, but still. If we had done automatic check out, we would've been dinged. On the whole, we had a GREAT time. I had never used Hotwire before and only resorted to it after *almost* paying $350 per night at the Sheraton. So I think it was a great deal. We saved a lot of money without sacrificing the type of hotel we wanted. I would highly recommend staying at the Hyatt!
