Hyatt Regency Aruba Suite On Points — Huge Value, Just Do Not Sleep Past 9 A.M.

The Hyatt Regency Aruba on points is a great value, especially for a Globalist member with confirmed suite upgrade to Cayena Suite. You get a lot more space and breakfast for the family at a lovely beach resort, as well as waived resort fee (also waived for everyone just staying on points). And, at high season – I booked over New Year’s – rates can be four figures. It’s a category 7 property (25,000 – 35,000 points per night).

The property is on a great beach with great pools and lovely grounds, but it’s busy and the kind of place where you do have to reserve pool and beach chairs.

• Beach and pool chairs can be booked up to 90 days out. You lose them if you don’t appear by 9 a.m. the morning of your reservation.

• If you don’t pre-book the strategy for chairs is to show up at 9:05 a.m. to claim the drops.

• But make sure you get email confirmation of your reservation – the system can glitch and your reservation might not have gone through!

The hotel has a casino but it’s more like what you’d find on a cruise ship than something massive like Atlantis or Baha Mar.

Overall this is an excellent beach location with good pools, good Globalist economics on points. Overall I found the food to be mostly very good, with a few exceptions. The biggest one was the variance in pizza, of all things. There’s a pizza truck by the pool and it’s really excellent.

So I actually ordered pizza for lunch through room service one day ‘surely their pizza is ok’ not thinking that it’s coming from a different oven. It was the worst attempt at pizza I’ve tried in years. Other than that, I enjoyed everything I ate at the hotel.

People complain that there’s no longer a club lounge, with the space turning into a restaurant. Some miss the free flowing champagne, while others prefer the restaurant breakfast.

Check-in was chaos with 8 parties arriving ahead of me off a cancelled Delta flight. But otherwise the lobby was pleasant throughout the stay.

The schpiel for globalists during check-in was “oh, you used points so you don’t have to worry about the resort fee. Specialty coffees aren’t part of the complimentary restaurant breakfast.”

The suite itself was great. It was directly above where the club lounge used to be, that’s being turned into a restaurant. Ostensibly there was going to be some construction during the day but we never heard any. It wasn’t the best view room at the resort but it was still nice, and the size of the room was exactly what we needed for the four of you – couldn’t beat the value at the peak New Year’s period.

Suite Living Room

Suite Kitchenette

Suite Kitchenette

Suite Balcony

View from Suite Balcony

View of Slide From Suite Balcony

Suite Bedroom

Suite Bedroom

Suite Bathroom

There were a number of issues, however.

• Power outlets by the bedside did not work. Telephones in the room didn’t work properly.

• Room service was supposed to take “30-40 minutes” and took 90 the first night. After an hour I called and was told “it’s leaving the kitchen in 1-2 minutes.” Often they didn’t show up when they were supposed to open, or the phone just rang.

• Sofa bed had dirty sheets from a previous guest. My baby needed to go to sleep, so I went to the desk and asked to wait for them there rather than having someone knock at the door. They refused, saying they’d only deliver to the room, so I waited outside the room.

I asked to speak to a manager about various issues with the property. No one ever followed up.

Also know going in that this is very much a classic ‘resort factory’ albeit a nice one. You’ll want to book beach and pool chairs in advance, there are both free and premium options. But you’ll still need to claim chairs by 9 a.m. or they are forfeit. So if you don’t reserve in advance, show up at 9:05 a.m. for access to chairs that haven’t been claimed.

Adult Pool

Family Pool

Family Pool and Slide From Suite Balcony

Since we were on property at a peak time I made reservations in advance at the kids club for my daughter. Given the time change for us (2 hours ahead of home) we didn’t get up early, went to breakfast, and weren’t at kids club for start of the session. I got a message that her spot was cancelled for not showing up within 15 minutes of start time, which we hadn’t been told in advance. I replied right away that we were on the way, and there wasn’t any pushback.

I spent money mostly on food, and less than 25% of the spend showed up as qualifying for points-earning, but my Hyatt concierge adjusted it.

We were on property just after the New Year and in the early hours of the morning of the 3rd we were woken by the sound of explosions. My wife asked, “why are there still fireworks?” and I said “I think the U.S. is invading Venezuela.”

Aruba is just off the Venezuelan coast and I’d considered cancelling the trip because I expected something to happen, and it turns out that’s more or less when it was happening, but I do assume the sounds were fireworks because the beach at the Hyatt in Aruba is a distance from where the reported strikes were (though not everything may have been reported). So it probably was just fireworks.

Still, it was surreal to be there. Guests were concerned because flights that day were all cancelled. No one was getting in or out. Everything resumed the next day, more or less, but people were arriving and there was still a backlog of guests trying to leave.