 |
| View From Our Room at the Grand Hyatt Kauai |
We spent our last morning at the Orchid swimming in the lagoon. We wished we had made plans to stay longer on the Big Island. We had a great time at the Orchid. It had good facilities, good breakfast buffet, a fine pool, fun and safe ‘hot tub’ for kids, lagoon where kids practiced surfing and accessible snorkeling, restaurant and café on the beach and turtles! And to boot, we had gotten a good deal. Oh well, now I know for next time.
The Hawaiian Air flight from Kona to Lihue on Kauai shouldn’t have taken long but I don’t believe there are any nonstop flights between the two airports. Therefore, what should have been a 30min flight and travel time turns into a 2-3 hour flight and travel time, via Honolulu. That is the downside of hopping between islands. You waste essentially half a day and have to deal with all the hassle of packing and renting/returning cars when you island hop. This too, now I know for next time. (It’s OK and worth it if you live in the Midwest or the East Coast and have to endure 10hr+ flight to get to Hawaii, but for many Californians, island hopping may not be the best option, especially if you know you will come back to Hawaii another time.)
We arrived in the late afternoon to Kauai and was struck by the vast difference in scenery. Whereas the Big Island was barren, brown, rocky and vast, Kauai is green, lush and more populated (nothing like Oahu or Maui).
This wasn’t our first time at the Grand Hyatt Kauai. Our whole family loves the hotel for its ambience, its extensive pool system and slide, keiki hula shows and the beach in front for access to surfing. We have a very strong preference for rooms in the Shipwreck Wing of the hotel. Unfortunately for us, the whole wing was closed for renovation. Major bummer! The room we ended up with was at the very opposite end of the hotel from our preferred location. We were not happy. This wasn’t what we had signed up for…I had called ahead to make sure we would be getting rooms in the Shipwreck Wing and so was very disappointed when we were told the timing of the construction had changed.
After a quick dip in the pool we all got ready for the keiki hula show at the Seaview Terrace. Our girls love watching kids hula. They can’t get enough of it. Lucky for us, we arrived on a Tuesday which was keiki hula day and we were going to get to see it again on Saturday. Perfect. As we ordered some light food for dinner at the Terrace, our server asked us for our room number. When he told him our room number, he quipped “You had a marathon getting here!” And he was right. My husband responded “Our room is at the absolute end of the hotel”. (To get a sense, the hotel sits on 50 acres with 602 guest rooms – it’s huge and spread out.) To which my older girl replied “No Daddy. There are two rooms next to us closer to the exit door.” Yes, that would make a difference!
Our stay just wasn’t going to be what we expected if we stayed put in the far corner of the property. So my husband spoke to the front desk and they were nice enough to switch us to a much better and closer room the next day. It still wasn’t a room in the Shipwreck Wing (couldn’t do much about that since the whole wing was under construction) but it was so much better than where we were initially assigned. It pays to speak up.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
No comments:
Post a Comment