tiev

Just a quick look at the hyatt regency maui after being here for four days. Had 2 rooms booked on the regency club floor. Checking in took a while about 25 minutes. While checking in was able to look around the lobby, and the grounds are beautiful. Then once we got into the rooms, they had not been fully cleaned. Coffee cups were still half full from the previous guests, bathroom had not been wiped down. First call to housekeeping, they said they would be up in 30 mins. Forty five minutes later no housekeeping, so I call the front desk, and housekeeping is there in 5 minutes with a supervisor. They finish cleaning up the room, but no apology.
Then try to get lunch, and find out the only place to have lunch at hyatt is cafeteria style. There is no sit down restaurant, with waiter service. Then go to the regency club to see the regency concierge to make a dinner reservation. I find out there is no regency club concierge. I questioned why I was paying 500+ a night to stay on the regency club floor. When I was staying weekly at the Hyatt Regency in Rochester, there was always a regency club concierge, as well as when I was in the Hyatt in Cayman.
Next day I go out to the pool, fairly early as I am an early riser. I sit in a cabana overlooking the ocean, and within ten minutes an attendant comes over and asks if I have reserved this cabana. After talking to him for 5 minutes, I found out the cabana's are $30 a day. I almost fell over when I heard that. I am paying to stay at the hotel then must pay $30 to sit in a cabana. Granted there are other pool chairs which you do not have to pay for, but I was dumbfounded that you had to pay to sit in certain seats. I am starting to feel as if this hotel is trying to "nickel and dime" me.
Lastly the keys to my room, randomly stop working. I have had to go to the front desk four times to get my keys recoded and I have only been here 5 days. Hyatt needs to get this under control.
The only good thing is that if you are a hyatt gold passport member the $15 resort fee is waived. Overall I am disappointed with this hotel.

Mary2e

Wow - I'm truly surprised at this. When we were there (11/03) the concierges were plentiful, helpful & friendly. Our room was in pristine condition. We didn't pay for RC - we used stay certificates and as diamonds were upgraded to ocean front RC access rooms.

We've stayed at 3 resorts with RC floors (a 2 of them multiple times) and I don't have a complaint about a single one of them. As a matter of fact, the treatment is the incentive for me to maintain diamond status. We have started planning our vacations around resort locations.

Unless Maui, for some reason, has gone downhill & fast, I can't imagine what in the world happened during your stay.

As for the price of a cabana - consider this - at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, the beach concession charges $25 per day for an UMBRELLA and I think $20 per day for a plain old chair on the beach. I think charging for a reserved seat in a popular resort is fairly par for the course. In particular, I'm sure the hotel was pretty full because of the holiday and that may have been part of the reason for your dissatisfaction.

yyzgigi

I am wondering if there is just no concierge for your entire stay or just in the afternoon when you tried to find them? I have found in more than a few hotels, that they do not always have a staffed conceirge all day. They are easy to find in the morning and evening, but in the day it is sporatic.

Incidently when I stayed at the hotel a few years back I very much enjoyed it.

ezmonee

I noticed one thing EVERYWHERE I went.

"help wanted" signs. I asked a friend and was told that the unemployment in Maui was some insane 1.8% or something like that. The only applicants they are getting are the bottom of the barrel. Every major resort is "understaffed."

So I went to the activites desk at the Sheraton Maui and was told that "everyone here is working overtime" because of the island's staffing situation. So I asked the front desk if they were hiring as a joke and was told "yes, want to apply?"


Could this sitaution have contributed to the poor showing at the Hyatt?

Jim90068

A beach umbrella at the HR Maui is $25 a day as well. Total ripoff!!

I too was shocked that there was no sitdown restaurant for lunch there too. The overpriced cafeteria lunches are mediocre as well. There is poolside waitress service, but it is overpriced for lunch as well.

divaof travel

What a bunch of whiners. Nobody should expect Maui to be cheap. When compared to the other properties on this stretch of Kaanapali, the prices for lunch, cabanas, etc. are equivalent. And the facilities at the Hyatt are far superior to the others (Sheraton, Westin, etc.). The service is better too.

ALL of the properties on Kaanapali charge for a beach Cabana (if they offer one.) If you want to stay at Wailea, there may be some properties that provide this "free of charge" if you pay $150 more per night for your room.

The Hyatt Maui is the best hotel on the number one beach in Maui. If you can't afford it, stay at the Maui Islander and get your lunch at the grocery store.

kv99

I think we're focusing overly on the cabana charges here... there are some service issues that the OP brought up (the absence of concierges, lack of a clean room, lack of a real restaurant, etc.) that are definitely larger issues for this prime property. My stay at this hotel was less than exemplary too for many of the same reasons the OP mentions-- I had a good conversation with the assistant front desk manager before I left and was compensated very fairly for my inconveniences.

For this reason, I will try the hotel again when I am next in Maui.

turtlegirl

We were at the Maui Hyatt for 8 nights at the end of April into May and also had a few issues-mainly room cleanliness and noise. As an aside, we used elite stay certificates and upon check-in were told we were already "upgraded" to a partial ocean view in the Napili tower, but for $50 a night additional (very cheap compared to regular ocean view rates) we could choose to upgrade to an ocean view-they gave us keys to both-knowing full well we would not be happy with our "free upgrade." (I was under the impression,anyway,that with certificates you got the best available room, but they told me this is not the case) As we found out, any room on the outside of the Napili tower is a parking lot view-with a VERY partial ocean view. Of course the room they gave us the additional keys to, which would have cost us another $450, was right near the ocean-wonderful view, but we didn't want to pay an additional $450 for our stay on top of the $120 we were already going to have to pay for resort fees, so I went back down to the desk to ask about a compromise room-not right on the ocean but not overlooking the parking lot either. Meanwhile, Mr. Turtlegirl was leaving the ocean room, hoping I wasn't going to cave and pay the money for the view, when he saw that the white couch was badly stained as was the rug, so he was coming down to tell me definitely not to upgrade to that room. After being told there was nothing to be done, I asked for the manager and he gave me the keys to 2 rooms-one with 2 beds, non-smoking and one with a king on the smoking floor (we had requested non-smoking king). We ended up choosing the smoking king as there was no odor and the queen/double room lacked the sitting area of the couch and coffee table. A long story here, I know, but I like details...Our room was very nice, but you can tell that housekeeping has to whip through the rooms because all the lamps and mirrors were covered with dust (dirt, really) and the sliding glass door had major handprints. So that was one issue, but we lived with it. The other issue was noise-the hotel is very busy with functions including business functions and weddings and they set these up on the lawn next to the Napili tower with microphones and music blaring well after 10 p.m. It's actually enjoyable to hear as you're getting ready to go out to dinner, but when you come home and want to go to bed early to get up for Hana or Haleakala, and the music's still going it gets annoying. We did call down one night at about 10:15 and the music stopped shortly after. We did mention it upon check-out and received a $100 resort credit, which was very generous, imho. We loved the location and surroundings of the Hyatt and will definitely go back, but we would request an inside Lahaina tower, which seems the most quiet as the luau is on the outside of the tower. The Atrium tower has tile floors and is directly over the open air lobby so I imagine that would be noisy as well. btw, they DO charge for cabanas at the Fairmont Kea Lani and the Hyatt didn't waive the resort fees for us as regular GP members- I imagine they waive the fees for higher status levels and/or Regency Club rooms only.

Mary2e

Only diamonds get upgraded to the best available room at check in. The elite certificates are based on "run of the house" and usually mean the least expensive rooms. It doesn't surprice me they didn't want to do all that much for you, though they did offer somewhat of an upgrade. I've used them several times, and in all cases was upgraded to RC Ocean Front.

Considering they gave you a $100 credit on top of the fact you had an upgrade on the elite stay certificate, I think you did pretty well.

turtlegirl

I think we did pretty well, too, although from what I understand many have booked this hotel on Priceline for well under $200 and have been upgraded so they weren't giving us anything out of the ordinary...again, only 2 negatives were noise after 10 p.m. (I forgot to mention the drunks in the jacuzzi after midnight in addition to the microphone/music parties) and cleanliness...

Weatherboy

I just completed a stay at the Maui Hyatt, using GoldPoints to redeem for a free room. With Diamond status, I was upgraded to the best deluxe oceanview room on the Regency Club floor. I requested a suite, but they were sold out.

They initially charged me a Resort Fee but I mentioned that they typically waive it for Diamonds; the front desk clerk apologized and said that is correct, and went on to delete the fee from my folio.

I requested my Diamond Ammenity to be delivered as soon as possible. (I arrived around 5pm.) When it didn't arrive by 9pm, a call down to room service was necessary ...and it finally showed up around 10pm.

The resort is just as nice as ever and the service/food/shops haven't changed. However, the Swan Court is now closed for meals outside of breakfast. They're about to remodel that area and convert it into a high-end fish place. With the Swan Court closed for dinner, Spats is now open 7 days a week for dinner.

The Regency Club staff were extraordinarily friendly and outgoing. I sat outside on the lanais during snack times and they were gracious enough to provide table service of snacks/drinks. The free-flowing mai-tais at sunset were great from the lanai there...as were all snacks/drinks throughout the stay. The Regency Club staff were also very helpful with making reservations, recommendations, and providing tips for things we wanted to do.

As much as I enjoy that resort, I am strongly disliking the incredible traffic on the island. It took about 2 hours to get from the airport to the hotel on a Saturday afternoon (but only took about an hour to get back on a weekday afternoon.) I remember the "old days" (8-10 years ago) when a ride to/from the airport was a quick 30 minutes. Now I'm on the Big Island where I'm spoiled by no traffic I sure wish Hyatt would build something out here again with the Waikoloa resort now a Hilton...

Calvin

Just got back from a 7-night stay. 1 paid night, 5 FFNs, 1 GP 15k award night -- a nightmare for the front desk but they handled it graciously. Brought along our 3 kids, 4yr, 2yr, 6mo, and wanted to give an update on a couple areas.

Kid's pool - a.k.a. Keiki lagoon. This area used to be called the Napili pool. Shall I dare say that this area is awesome for kids 6 and under. It has a 20-ft waterslide, a sand play area, shooting water fountains, and the depth of the water is about 1 1/2 ft with a sand bottom. It is right alongside the main pool. We spent countless hours here, as our kids had a blast.

Son'z of Swan Court. This restaurant is in the Swan Court. It was recently remodeled and opened for business Sunday, Nov 20. We dined there that night. I had not been in the Swan Court before, so I don't know what they did to it. However, it is an upscale restaurant with entrees in the $30-40 range. We ordered the lamb and beef short ribs, and they were excellent. I found out that this restaurant is not a part of the hotel. Therefore, I didn't get any GP points for our $170 dinner.

Luau. We went to the Drums of the Pacific Luau. The food was OK, but the show was pretty good. Personally I wouldn't do it again, but it was fun for the kids (who were free). The downside is that Expedia! Fun now handles all activity bookings through the hotel, so even if you call their in-house extension x4727, it is directed to them. And, since they handle the bookings, I got the notorious asterisk on my hotel bill, so didn't get GP points for Hyatt's own luau, either.

All in all, it was a beautiful stay otherwise, the 2 beds included 1 queen, the hamper in the bathroom, the walk-in closet, the contemporary low-platform beds, the RC. Would love to go back again next year!

bbbb

When I went to the Luau I had one of the girls in the RC set it up. I picked the tickets up at the Luau window and it was all charged to my room with GP points earned.

mauld

I was there about 2 weeks ago for 2 nights (both FFN), and decided not to go for the Luau-- but was able to view the entire show (sans food) from the walkway next to the beach! They were also allowing people to stand near the entrance and watch it without charge.

PS- here are some pics:
http://www.snapfish.com/share/p=4512...=SYE/otsi=SALB

thesilb

Back from another 5 night trip to Maui...as usual service was totally amazing. Keo Hornbostel is gone from the property now, however we got some amazing advance service...I guess they knew we liked room 982 and were sorry they did not have it available. Bonnie at the front desk was nice enough to hold room 381 for us prior to arrival, and then they even offered to move us to 982 the next day.

We decided just to ride it out in 381, which has the basic same attributes as 982...it is a direct ocean-facing room right above the luau. In this case obviously lower...you get even louder waves, even louder luau music. If that's your thing. Your view, though, does have some palm trees in it so if you want the clear shot Lanai view, get up on 7 or above. Note that due to the design of the hotel the two suites on floor 3 are probably "the best" of the ocean suites in the hotel, because they have two FULL lanais (on the floors above this first level floor 3, you will have a full lanai facing either the pool or the parking lot...and your front ocean direct view will be a sliding glass door with no lanai). Therefore, if you have to choose a particular ocean suite, in my view the very best one in the hotel may be 379 - one balcony right over the pool with a slice of beach; the other balcony head-on to Lanai with a view to the luau. At this level, you have a direct view of the stage and can see all the performers/dancers (unlike on level 9 where you'll get sound but no visuals). You could literally camcorder the show from your balcony.

Other than that, business as usual. Complete hats off to Ken, Norm, Billy behind the sushi counter, host Jimmy and everyone in Cascade's. These people are downright incredible. Best sushi in the world, in my book.

Thanks Hyatt