The Andaz Maui Wailea is one of my favorite hotels for a variety of reasons. I appreciate the close proximity to the U.S. mainland, beach access, breakfast and contemporary rooms. This review is of my third time visiting this property since it opened in 2013, with my first two stays being in an Andaz Suite and Ocean View King, respectively. I booked my stay using 25,000 Hyatt points per night, totaling 125,000 points over the course of 5 nights, which I mostly transferred over from Chase Ultimate Rewards.
Check-in
We arrived around 2pm after checking out of the Hyatt Regency on the other side of Maui. When we arrived, our room was ready and we were told that we had been upgraded from a Garden View Queen to an Ocean View King. I had called the hotel front office about a week before arriving to let them know we would be celebrating our anniversary with them for the third year in a row and would greatly appreciate it if they had an ocean view king available as an upgrade. I find it beneficial to be specific with they type of room you want (within reason, they don’t give away suites very often). This strategy has worked every time for me and they are pretty good at meeting expectations. I did however, have an odd check-out experience this time around, which I wrote about here.
Ocean View King Room
The thing that I appreciate about this particular room type at the Andaz is its great use of space, minimalistic design, but it still feels like a luxury hotel. Our room was bright, clean and it felt like we had come back home. My only complaint (as many have pointed out) is the impractical patio furniture. The chairs are pretty uncomfortable and it makes it difficult to enjoy the outdoor space. Beside that, the beds are comfortable, the room is functional and it has a great view. I could elaborate a bit more, but I’ll get out of the way and let the pictures talk.
Breakfast
Some may call me crazy, but I think the Andaz may just be my favorite hotel breakfast, even over the Park Hyatt Paris and New York. During my first visit, you could literally oder ANYTHING on or off the menu and it was all included in the Diamond Breakfast perk. I remember in 2014 having a conversation with the chef about the fish they would be serving for lunch. (It was freshly caught tuna I believe.) A few minutes later, he brings me about a half pound of tuna sashimi. It was excellent. The days of “anything you want” are long gone, but the breakfast still has a great variety of hot options and fresh fruit. The coffee is also really great. They used to do a killer pour-over coffee, but management put an end to that.
Final Thoughts on the Andaz
The only thing stopping me from going back to this property is not having free breakfast as an Explorist member. I can look past the games they play with award availability and even their attitude toward elites, but missing out on those Nutella muffins and chocolate chip coconut pancakes is enough to make me move on down the road. There are a lot of things to love about this hotel though. It has the best hotel beach on Maui in my opinion and the pools are great as well. Valet parking is kind of a pain (unless you’re Globalist status or have mad money to drop), but you can find ways around that if you look around flyertalk enough. Overall, this is still one of the best places to stay on Maui and certainly the best Hyatt.
Have you been to the Andaz Maui Wailea before? What are your thoughts?
*Header photo credit: Unsplash.com
