bpratt

I'm doing our usual family trip to Kauai for Thanksgiving this year, and while we rent a condo in Poipu to stay in we also usually get a room at the Hyatt for a couple of days so the kids can do the "camp" thing and give us parents a break, my wife can hit the spa, etc.
Normally we can get a really good room rate, but for some reason this year the rates are $470 and up per night. Anyone have any idea what's going on? Is it because they are doing renovations and hence capacity is lower, or is there an event I don't know about during Thanksgiving week?
I guess I'll just use Hyatt points for the stay, but I'm still curious.

thanks for any suggestions,
bob

PS: any other changes since last November I should know about, from the Kauai locals on flyertalk?

ILuvParis

It's always a very popular place at Thanksgiving AND with renovations going on, the capacity is significantly reduced. I think that's all it is. Currently, it's very quiet there. No issue with getting a chair at the pool in any location. However, there has been a major fruit fly infestation on the island. It seems to be on the wane everywhere but the Grand Club.

Some great new restaurants on the island. Josselin's Tapas and Merriman's are not just good for Kauai, they would be excellent restaurants anywhere. Josselin's just may be my current favorite restaurant period!

bpratt

Didn't Josselin used to have another restaurant? I seem to remember his name from when I started coming to Kauai in the late 90's.

I guess this will be a good use of Hyatt points, anyway :-)

thanks,
Bob

ILuvParis

Yes, I understand it's the same person.

slippahs

Wirelessly posted (iPhone-ETOPS: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

One reason I've been avoiding Kauai is the body scanner at LIH (all lines feed to it). So that's one change. Sigh.

ILuvParis

People actually avoid going places that have a body scanner? Anyway, I was here in September and don't remember this. Or perhaps, for me, its significance is such that I don't remember it.

Regardless, can't you opt out and go for the touchy feelie thing instead?

slippahs

Wirelessly posted (iPhone-ETOPS: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

The scanner has been there since June, and yes, people do avoid destinations for this reason. Sadly, it'll only be a matter of time before I'll have to transit through LIH. I'd rather not be groped if I can avoid it.

beckoa

ugh... not happy about that

hope there's no plans for KOA...

ILuvParis

For whatever reason, I haven't gone through it yet (two trips since the summer).

Renard

Aren't the Hyatt prices there always stratospheric? l have noticed a lot of 'optimism' in general in Hawaii hotel prices in general. Evidently someone must be doing really well to be able to afford the rates. They obviously don't work with me.

azepine00

I suspect most people buy discounted packages (think costco, pleasant holidays etc) and now with reduced inventory due to remodeling there isn't much left to sell direct so they price it sky high...

bpratt

Last year over thanksgiving I was able to get $230-240 per night thru the hyatt web site. This year it's double that. Definitely something changed. The place I work is doing well, but not THAT well. :-)

Bob (in Poipu right now and it has been beautiful. Trying to see if united will have flights so we can extend our stay a bit.

AMA

Any practical ways to go between LIH & HNL to avoid the scanner? Does HNL require all traffic to be scanned? Haven't been over to Hawaii lately, but am planning/hoping to get over there early next year.

Mary2e

The hotel has over 300 fewer rooms available for sale due to the remodeling. It's about 60% of them. When I started looking at prices in Aug, they were $279, and by the time we went in early nov, the lowest rate was in the $450 range.

They are hoping to have some of th rooms in the Shipwreck wing before Christmas - like on the 23rd Prices should go back to normal then.

Re: the scanner. We weren't selected, but my hands were swabbed, my jar of salt was a cause of concern and there was something in my handbag they looked at. I don't know what, as I was so busy with the rest of the things happening

I have never ever ever seen such a thorough TSA check as the one in LIH. They're actually pleasant in HNL.

kingalien

Was just there for a weekend a couple weeks ago. Pretty quiet so I enjoyed my stay quite a bit.

As for the scanner, my return flight was on a Sunday night and two lanes were open, one regular and one scanner. I went for the regular line while the scanner line moved fast.