Hey everyone! Last week I spent a full 7 nights in Maui with my sweet husband. Oh, it was such a magical trip and Maui is just beautiful… a taste of the beach and mountains. I’m going to share a couple other posts about our Maui trip on the blog in the next couple of weeks. Today I’m going to share a post about the Hyatt Maui Resort. This resort has a little of everything… including penguins!
Hyatt Hotel Room & Grounds
We stayed at the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and we couldn’t have picked a better resort to stay at. The grounds were beautiful, top notch beach, lots of dining options and we really enjoyed the Regency Club Upgrade (more on that later).
We received real floral lei’s open checking into the resort. This resort is family friendly (we saw LOTS of kids, all ages!) and it’s also popular for just couples. Brian and I are talking about a return trip in a couple of years with our kids, it was that great!
The Hyatt has an open air atrium, which I had never seen before. The climate is just that nice in Hawaii. There are a lot of open air restaurants, hallways, etc. It rained only once (shortly) when we were in Maui and after it cleared up we saw so many beautiful rainbows.
Around the atrium/lobby, the Hyatt had all kinds of lush gardens and the lighting was perfect for photo opps. They had out some really impressive birds, koi, seating that faced the beach, etc. It was a space where you could mingle, explore or just relax.
We saw these little pineapples growing inside the lobby.
We purchased a King bedroom with a balcony facing the ocean. Here is the view from our room.
Dining at the Hyatt
Inside the Hyatt is Honolulu Coffee, which a few people highly recommended to me. This cup of coffee cost me $7, though! It is made with Kona coffee, which is really rare (1% of the coffee grown) and is only offered at Honolulu Coffee. They pride themselves on “farm to cup”.
The Hyatt had a really nice poolside outdoor restaurant called Umalu. We got food here quite often. I got the shrimp tacos and tater tots in the photo above. Delicious!
Ululani’s Hawaiian Shave Ice is also at the Hyatt and they have a lot of different flavors and toppings to pick from. I got the creamy Sno Cap topping on this one.
Animals on the Grounds at the Hyatt
Our first afternoon and evening, we spent some time exploring the grounds at the Hyatt Resort. There are so many animals, birds mixed in with waterscapes, waterfalls, bridges, etc. It is a fashion bloggers dream come true for photo opps (ha!) and I had Brian snap a photo of me each day and I’ll be sharing some of those outfits on my Thursday Fashion Files this week.
I wouldn’t have thought I’d see penguins in Hawaii… but, there they were! The Hyatt has these penguins out all the time (they each had their own little house, too!) and do daily feedings at 8:30 a.m.
They had this sign up by the penguins and it was interesting to know Oreo was the oldest and that two of them are twins.
I saw this Momma Duck and her three babies when we were coming back from the beach one day. So, so sweet!
Regency Club at the Hyatt
The Regency Club is an extra cost, but it is so, so worth it! Lisa from Coast to Coast (see her post HERE) stayed at this exact Hyatt in Maui last summer and she suggested it to me. It will save you so much money, because they have food out at breakfast, lunch, dinner and they even had a dessert time shortly after dinner. We went down here everyday except for one day for breakfast and we saved so much money by doing that. They have a soda machine, cappuccino maker and more. In the evening they had a little window where you could order a cocktail, we only did that the first night. The photo above shows one of my breakfast plates.
This was my plate during the dinner time our first night. I had a caesar salad, pasta and a tomato salad. I went back for another plate after this one! Ha!
We went down for the desserts a couple of times and I was so excited that one evening they had chocolate covered strawberries! Every evening before bed we would go down there and get a drink from the fountain to take back to our room.
Beach Cabana
They Hyatt offers several different beach cabanas and we rented one several months before the trip. Ours included two padded beds, fan, a cooler, a fruit tray and bar/food service. It was really relaxing and this was our favorite day! I read Slightly South of Simple, which is the first book in the Peachtree Bluff series. I highly recommend it! I plan to read the other two books in the series soon. I brought my Cultivate What Matters planner along and wrote out my July and Summer goals. And, I went in the ocean a few times, too! 🙂 Perfect day!
Can you tell I’m living the best life here? Yes, yes, I am!!!
This is the fruit tray that was included in the cost of the cabana.
Beach Day Bed
After we had realized we enjoyed the cabana so much, we decided to go a cheaper route and rent a beach day bed one day and a pool day bed another day. These were really nice as well, but they did not cover you from the sun as much and our legs go really hot in them! Just an excuse to get out in the water, though. 🙂 They had drink/food service to these as well. The Hyatt also had free lounge chairs along the pool, and I believe they had a waiter/waitress for those as well, but people would put their towels on them SO early in the day. It was next to impossible to get one and we liked that these day beds offered a little more shade (my husband burns really easy!).
We ordered the pork nachos with queso! YUMMMMM!!!
This beach day bed was the last one they had left (we ordered it 2 days before) and it wasn’t on the best part of the beach. But, it was still really nice! Apparently they sell out pretty quickly and you can order them online, so if you want to do this… I suggest doing it before you even leave for your trip!
Pool Day Bed
We rented a pool day bed one day and it was a nice and relaxing day. The drink in the above photo was my favorite drink on their menu, the Chocolate Relapse. Yum!! Mai tai’s are really big in Hawaii and they top them with the dark rum, so I suggest getting one of those if you’re in Maui.
Restaurants Nearby
Starbucks
If you’re addicted to Starbucks, you’re in luck… if you walk 10 minutes along the beach walk, you can find a Starbucks right on the beach at the Marriott hotel. We did this one morning and I drank my Starbucks with the best view ever!
Monkeypod
If you walk on the walkway next to the beach for 10-15 minutes, you’ll come upon Whaler’s Village which has numerous high end shops (Lilly Pulitzer, Rolex, Lululemon, etc.) and some popular restaurants. Monkeypod was our absolute favorite of the 3 restaurants in Whaler’s Village. The photo above shows their signature Mai Tai drink, which had a foamy rich topping! Yum! We had their shrimp and shroom potstickers, which it seemed every restaurant had some sort of potsticker on the appetizer menu. These were our fave potstickers from the trip, though!
Monkeypod offers a lot of seafood dishes (fresh catch of the day!) and pizza. I got the Margherita pizza and Brian got a pizza with lobster and shrooms (it was a $29 pizza for one!!). I’m not a big seafood person, so I was glad they have pizza. I do enjoy shrimps and scallops, though. I saw a lot of shrimp in Maui, but scallops not so much (I don’t think scallops are in their waters, though). Then we finished dinner with their creamy strawberry pie. It was very good! They have some other flavors of pie to choose from (such as banana).
Hula Grill
We made dinner reservations at the Hula Grill, which is also in Whaler’s Village.
Hula Grill had Shrimp, Scallop and Lobster potstickers! Yum! I got a shrimp pasta dish for my main meal (sorry, no photo!) and then we shared a pineapple upside down cake for dessert. It was really good! You’ll eat A LOT of pineapple (and banana!) while in Maui.
Leilani’s
We had reservations to eat at Leilani’s one night during the week, but when our Sunset Dinner Sail had to be moved to another night (high surf), we decided to stop in. Unfortunately, it was before dinner, so we had just drinks and an appetizer. They serve an appetizer menu a couple of hours before they start their dinner menu.
Brian got a tropical drink and I got a white wine. We had coconut shrimp with a curry sauce. It was really good, but I hope we can have dinner there next time we’re in Maui!
Well, that tops off the first post of our Maui trip! Oh, do I wish I could go back right now. I’ll be sharing a couple of other posts soon (probably one next week and one the week after).
