Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort & Spa (Kauai)

Poipu's garden grand resort

★★★★★📍 Poipu, Kauai$$$$

Designed in the late 1980s to evoke 1920s territorial Hawaii — low rooflines, courtyards, koi ponds, and open-air lobbies framing the sea — the Grand Hyatt Kauai has aged into the island's grande dame, its 602 rooms dispersed so generously through gardens that the resort feels like grounds first and hotel second. Poipu's south-shore location is Kauai's sunniest, a hedge against the island's famous (and northerly) rain.

The water story is the draw: five acres of pools descend toward the ocean — tiered freshwater lagoons, a meandering river pool with waterslides and grottos, whirlpools in hidden gardens — ending at the signature saltwater lagoon, an acre-plus of gentle, swimmable ocean water above Shipwreck Beach (whose surf itself is better admired than swum). Anara Spa's 45,000 square feet of open-air treatment gardens stand among Hawaii's finest; the oceanfront luau, Tidepools' thatched-hut dining over koi lagoons, and the adjacent Poipu Bay golf course (longtime PGA Grand Slam host) fill the evenings and mornings.

From the resort, Poipu's snorkel coves and honu-dotted beaches are minutes away; Waimea Canyon and the west-side Na Pali boat harbors sit within easy reach, making it the ideal south-shore base. Booked directly through Hyatt.