Back in March we met up with another family to hang out at Disney World for the weekend. We decided to stay at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress Resort in Orlando and wanted to share our thoughts since it is a property that many traveling families will likely consider when heading to Disney. In Part 1 of the review I covered the room, an overview of the property, their transportation options to Disney, and the on-site dining options. In this post I will look at some of the many amenities, the Regency Club, the process of getting Disney tickets through them, and how you can do it too.

The Pools:

This hotel has very solid water offerings for families! There is a 1/2 acre free flowing lagoon pool, twelve waterfalls, two whirlpools, a water slide, splash zone, and more. It is fresh off a pretty substantial renovation and it looks great! It was a bit cold while we were there in early March, but it was warm enough for us to play in one of the heated pools for a little bit. If we were there in the summer we could easily spend a ton of time taking advantage of all the pools and water features.

In addition to the pools there is a sandy beach area for the kids to play in as well. This backs up to a small lake that is not for swimming.

Other Outdoor Amenities:

Accompanying the large amount of pools and water activities, the resort has plenty of activities on dry land. Some of those include bike rentals, a rock wall, and a golf course.

Regency Club:

The hotel has a Regency Club with both indoor and outdoor seating areas. You can book a Regency Club room for additional dollars or points, or get access by having Diamond status with Hyatt. Many Regency Clubs in the US aren’t overly amazing, but this one was actually one of the better ones.

As shown in the photo below, the Regency Club is open from 6:30AM – 9:00AM for breakfast.  It is closed from 3PM – 5PM in the afternoon.  From 5PM – 9PM there are evening snacks served.

The evening spread was pretty decent with one hot dish, many appetizers, sushi, wraps, bruschetta, and more.

We didn’t have any problem getting seats, but it did get pretty busy at peak times.

There were plenty of breakfast options to keep us happy for the few days we were there.

Buying Disney Tickets Through the Hotel:

Thanks to a very lucrative MyPoints.com and OpenSky promo in 2012, I had a good amount of Hyatt gift certificates to use.  While much of this hotel stay was already paid for via a certificate I won at a charity auction, I decided to charge Disney tickets to the room and pay for them via those Hyatt certificates.  I wasn’t 100% sure it would work, but it did.  There was a small fee to do this – I think about $3 per ticket, but it was well worth it in our case as the bulk of our Disney ticket expense was covered via the Hyatt certificates I had on hand.

Normally I like to buy my tickets via a discount link to UnderCoverTourist from the MouseSavers newsletter, but they don’t really discount tickets of less than three days anyway.  In my case it was a no-brainer to use the certificates to significantly reduce the cost of the weekend.  It also allowed us to go straight to the gate at Disney instead of having to get tickets (though that wouldn’t have added too much time).

You Can Do it Too:

This is a Category 5 property that is fresh off a renovation.  It seems to be common for rates to be between $200 – $300 per night, so it isn’t “cheap”, but if you plan to take advantage of the many resort features it isn’t horrible.  Of course it is a much better value if you can use points and not have the out of pocket cost.  It would require 18,000 Gold Passport points or Ultimate Reward points transferred in 1:1 via cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred or Ink Plus® Business Card.  This is a hotel that would be worth using your two free nights that come with the Hyatt Credit Card (make a reservation on Hyatt.com and you may get an offer for a $100 statement credit on top of the two free nights) if visiting a Category 6 isn’t in your plans.  Using points would save you from the $25 daily resort fee.  If the rates are closer to $300 I would strongly consider using points, otherwise it would come down to looking at my budget and points balance and making a call.

Overall Impressions:

If all you want is a hotel close to Disney with a clean bed to sleep in at night, this is probably not the place for you.  If you want a Hyatt resort property where you can take advantage of using points or your elite benefits, this may be the place for you.  We very much enjoyed the Regency Club and they do have some high quality outdoor amenities.  It is very much not a Disney property.  It is more of a large resort that wants you to spend several days of your vacation on-site enjoying their amenities and activities.  When we were there we saw a few other families, but far more convention goers than families.  If you don’t value the activities they have on the property, or you want to be closer to Disney, you will be better served elsewhere.  We enjoyed our stay for the most part, and I do like the property, but we will probably do our next Disney-centered vacation back on Disney property while Little C is still little.

Have you stayed at this property before?  What are your thoughts?

Disclosure: I do receive a commission if you are approved for a credit card using one of my affiliate links.  As always, your support is very much appreciated!

One of the ways to my heart is absolutely through my stomach, so part of my devotion to Hyatt’s elite status program is due to the generosity of their breakfast benefit. If you have Diamond status, it is full breakfast for every registered guest in the room if there is no lounge open. With some hotels this even means almost unlimited room service breakfast. It is a tremendous benefit for my family and it is available 365 days a year.

Diamond room service breakfast at Park Hyatt Chicago

Marriott, on the other hand, took a different approach with feeding their elite guests. Previously the benefit only applied on weekdays and at participating JW Marriott hotels, Autograph Collection, Renaissance Hotels, and Marriott Hotels & Resorts (not available at resort locations). My understanding is it was just guaranteed to be a continental breakfast for up to two – though of course some hotels are a bit more generous than that. Regardless, that is a lot of restrictions for my tastes.

The good news for Marriott Gold and Platinum elites is that according to a press release I received, weekends are now fair game for free breakfast!

“Beginning June 22^nd, Marriott Rewards Gold and Platinum Elite members and a guest will receive complimentary continental breakfast* seven days a week at participating JW Marriott®, Autograph Collection® , Renaissance® and Marriott® Hotels in the U.S. and Canada. Any time the lounge is closed, Gold and Platinum Elite members will have a choice of continental breakfast for two in the hotels’ restaurant or 750 points**. As always, outside the U.S. and Canada, they’ll receive free continental breakfast daily at participating hotels.”

Since many families travel on the weekends, I’m happy to see this improvement to the program. I wish they would at least provide the benefit to all registered guests in the room (including children), but breakfast for two seven days a week is better than breakfast for none.

Admittedly, my experience with Marriott elite status was limited to a several month challenge I had last year with Marriott Platinum (top tier) status, and I have not had status with Marriott since. For those of you with Marriott elite status, what do you think? Does this impact your view of Marriott’s elite status benefits or make it worth more to attain or retain status?

I know this is a miles and points blog, but sometimes when tragedy strikes – especially tragedy that has a large impact on children and families, I can’t help but to make mention of it here.  Even though it is a bit “off topic”, it seems wrong not to.  Pretending that everyone only cares about elite qualifying miles or credit card sign-up bonuses regardless of what else is going on just doesn’t sit well with me.

So in light of yesterday’s devastating tornadoes in Oklahoma I wanted to devote a little coverage to how to help.

Red Cross:

Donate online or text REDCROSS to 90999 to give $10 to American Red Cross Disaster Relief, which helps people affected by disasters such as hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, wildfires and tornadoes.

They will also accept your Delta, United, or US Airways miles. 

Salvation Army:

Donate online or text STORM to 80888 to give $10 to Salvation Army.

They will also accept your United or Delta miles.

United Way of Central Oklahoma Tornado Relief:

Donate online and “fund dollars will be distributed without administrative fees to United Way Partner Agencies working on the tornado relief efforts.”

Oklahoma Baptist Disaster Relief:

Donate online and “every penny goes toward disaster relief and helping victims.”

There are countless of other agencies that are also helping as we speak, so feel free to add any you know of in the comments section.  While I could care less about earning points right now, you could choose to use a card that earns bonus points on charity donations if you have one.  If you have a card that earns bonus points on cell phone bill expenses then presumably the donations made via text would earn bonus points via that route.

No matter how or why you do it, if you feel compelled to help then there are many ways to do so.  Thanks to everyone who takes the time to do their part regardless of how you do it.