Steph C.
Yelp
After all that, I went back to the Hyatt Regency. I've had two kids since my first review, and I liked the place better this time around. It's still not a particularly nice hotel, but we had a pleasant four-night stay.
We went with my parents, my brother, and his family, and met up with some friends and family visiting from Korea. The Los Angeles contingent got three rooms on the 14th floor--none of them adjacent, as requested, but close enough that my parents could watch our kids on the baby monitor after bedtime, freeing us to go out for mai tais.
The rooms were fine, clean and spacious enough, and we had a great view of the water and Waikiki (also wedding music every night that ended at a reasonable hour). The hotel provided a crib for our two-year-old. His brother slept on the chaise lounge, which was perfectly bed-like for a four-year-old. The kids insisted on sleeping right next to each other and goofed off every night and every morning. They also wanted to play on the balcony, which was probably safe, but no thank you.
My mother is a Hyatt Globalist, so we all got access to the lounge, where we met up for a casual breakfast before starting each day. Basic food options, but good for the kids, who loaded up on store-bought mini croissants and bagels. There were also tons of shops and eateries around, including two ABC Stores on the hotel premises. My four-year-old got chocolate gelato at the Il Gelato cart we had to pass on our way to the elevators.
The Hyatt Regency is right across from the beach, and my husband and I spent the mornings there with our kids. We went to the pool to check out beach chairs, included in the hotel resort fee, and while we didn't use the pool this trip, I was gratified to see that it was in fact useable. (This was an improvement from our first visit, when every lounge chair was claimed by a towel or magazine, even while the pool was mostly empty.) We got towels through a machine accessible with our key card.
It was hard to mobilize our whole family, so we spent most of our trip within walking distance of the Hyatt Regency. I appreciated the central location and proximity to the beach, where my children had an absolute blast. When we wanted to roll out, valet service was friendly and reasonably fast. The hotel was otherwise pretty low service, but I didn't feel like we missed out. This is not the place I would choose for a child-free getaway, but it worked well for a family trip, especially with Globalist Grandma in the house.