Hyatt Centric Waikiki vs. Hyatt Regency Waikiki

I recently stayed at the Hyatt Centric Waikiki and Hyatt Regency Waikiki on another awesome trip to Oahu, my favorite island, and want to share my assessments, which may help you choose on your next trip if the pricing for both is similar, as it was for us. The purpose of our trip was primarily to requalify for Hyatt Globalist under their double elite night promotion, and we were fortunate to hang out with family and friends who were after the same goal. We stayed at Hyatt Centric for 4 nights and Hyatt Regency for 7 nights, both on the Healthcare Friends & Family rate (which does earn elite nights and points), and I applied my Amex Offers and Chase Offers to them.

TL;DR: I preferred the Hyatt Regency Waikiki primarily for the unbeatable ocean views along with the lanai and ability to feel the ocean breeze. Hyatt Centric Waikiki was overall more modern, convenient, and efficient, but the lack of lanais and open windows were dealbreakers.

Hyatt Centric Waikiki – Ocean View Suite

Hyatt Centric Waikiki is located just off Kuhio Ave in the heart of Waikiki. In terms of shopping and dining, it has one of the best locations in Waikiki, no contest. However, in my opinion, it’s not really worth choosing just for that as most of Waikiki is pretty easily walkable/bikeable anyways.

Hyatt Centric has a very modern decor and ambiance from the lobby to the room designs. The ground floor is not the official reception of the hotel; reception is on the third floor. However, you can access your room via the elevator directly from the ground floor, completely bypassing the lobby every time. This makes it very efficient to get to/from your room and pop out onto the street quickly. However, the penthouse level (21st floor) requires a separate elevator, so if you have a room on that floor, you’d have to switch elevators on the 20th floor.

We got an Ocean View Suite 1 King Bed on the 19th floor here, which is the highest level upgrade and is considered a Premium Suite (I did not use any Suite Upgrade Awards). The room I got was ADA-compliant since it was the only type of Ocean Suite they had left. I told the manager I felt bad about taking it in case someone who needed it showed up later, and he said not to worry because they had other types of ADA rooms and suites available. The ADA type room does not have the gorgeous soaking tub that you’ll see in other photos online, but that’s not a big deal to me anyways. Interestingly, oceanview rooms are smaller in size than city or mountain view rooms. I guess that’s the trade-off. None of the rooms have a lanai (balcony), and you cannot open the windows. The windows were floor-to-ceiling, but they were pretty dirty. 😄

I should also mention that “oceanview” at the Hyatt Centric means a fairly small sliver of a view of the ocean from your room due to its more inland location from the beach. The view of Diamond Head is also obstructed.

Due to the pandemic, Globalist breakfast was cancelled, so we received 500 points per day as a courtesy instead. This was not a dealbreaker for me either as I preferred to eat musubis from the Iyasume Musubi downstairs every morning anyways. And Marukame Udon is across the street. And Mitsuwa next door. There is cheap (and expensive) food aplenty in Waikiki, so don’t worry about the loss of breakfast. It’ll probably be back soon so this paragraph will be outdated by the time you read this, anyways. 😄

Globalists get one free cabana rental, which I never used, because the pool (on the reception floor) wasn’t really that enticing to me. It was very modern and beautifully designed, but there were no views from there, and the pool is extremely shallow (like 1 foot). I didn’t see the point of spending any time there when there was the rest of Waikiki and island to enjoy.

Hyatt Centric offers a number of amenities, including free rentals of bodyboards, GoPros, beach chairs, and–get this–betta fish. Yes, that’s right. You can have a little betta fish pet in your room for the duration of your stay. They have three betta fish available for your enjoyment, named Sashimi, Ikaika, and Manapua, and they provide the food and instructions on how to feed it (3-4 pellets once a day). I did it just for fun and was able to choose Sashimi. It was quite amusing. Random, but fun. And no, I don’t know what would happen if you accidentally killed the fish.

None of the other activities on the list were available during my stay (yoga, smores, and whatever “salt & savory” is).

Hyatt Regency Waikiki – Family Ocean Suite

Hyatt Regency Waikiki is a beachfront property with incredible views. It’s also a huge hotel, with two towers, only one of which in operation during our stay. I was told that they were running only the top half of the floors in that tower, so approximately 25% capacity at that time (I heard it’s been getting a lot busier lately though). The hotel itself is generally older and probably in need of some renovations, but has that old tropical feel with water features (waterfalls) in the atrium. The ground floor consists of shops, most of which were closed or pretty quiet during our stay. The reception is on the second floor, and the Regency Lounge (closed during our stay), pools, and restaurant called SHOR are on the third floor. There is a guest laundromat on the fourth floor.

We used a Suite Upgrade Award for our stay in anticipation of many Globalists staying at this hotel at the same time. The award books into a Family Ocean Suite, with possible paid upgrades from that. The Family Ocean Suite is literally two rooms with the connector opened between them, so you actually have two doors and two room numbers (the same key is programmed to open both doors), and two of everything else (two bathrooms, lanais, fridges, coffee machines, TVs, etc). Hyatt’s “Work From Hyatt” program, which offered a free connecting room, was exactly the same as this Family Ocean Suite, just with slightly different furniture (permanent beds and desks in both rooms). In general, the furniture was pretty basic and uninspiring, unlike the Hyatt Centric.

One of the rooms of the suites was designed like a living room. The desk and bed were removed and replaced with a large comfy sofa and coffee table. It also had a Murphy bed (a bed built in to the wall), which you can bring down at night and put back up during the day. This is a unique and defining feature and is probably why this is called a Family Suite, as the two rooms can be completely separated and soundproofed, and the extra bed comes in handy for children.

We enjoyed working in this suite since P2 and I had tons of Zoom work calls, so we would each have our own soundproofed room to work in during the day, even though only one room had a desk. Note: since the connector between the rooms has two doors, if you close one, it is unable to be opened from the other side. So if you get locked out of half the room, you’d need to exit your room and re-enter with your key through the other front door to re-open the door. We had to do this many times, haha.

The views were amazing from our 33rd floor suite. Both of our rooms had a lanai with a small table and chairs to enjoy the panoramic ocean view and a great view of Diamond Head. We saw breathtaking sunsets from this room and also beautiful rainbows over the ocean in the morning.

Due to the pandemic, the Regency Lounge was closed, but breakfast was still served by SHOR for Globalists every morning. This consisted of a sandwich of some sort with a different type of protein each day OR a plate of protein with eggs and potatoes. Either way, the sides were yogurt, granola, fruit, and juice. Tea and coffee were self-serve. You would call down ahead of time to let them know whether you wanted the sandwich or the plate and your beverage of choice. Then you would go down to pick it up in 10-15 minutes. The breakfasts would be packaged into paper bags with your name on it, and you’d just grab and go. Typically we would bring the breakfast back to the room to eat on the lanai.

As a replacement for the lounge happy hour, we were offered two free drinks per night from 4-7 pm at SHOR. The main bartender, Cal, was super awesome and nice. We’d usually get our drinks every evening and sit on the patio by the pool in front of the firepits.

Regency had a lot of similar amenities as Centric, including the GoPro and beach chairs. It did not offer free bodyboards or a pet fish, but it did offer a $4 per person Biki credit. 😄

Detailed Comparison

• Regency’s view is SIGNIFICANTLY better than Centric’s, being a taller building right on the shore. It has a full ocean view without obstructions, and particularly an incredible view from the upper floors. This is a huge deal to me. I knew this difference going in, which is why I booked Centric first and for a shorter period.
• Regency has lanais with large sliding glass doors for a floor-to-ceiling unobstructed view. Centric has no lanais. Though Centric has floor-to-ceiling windows, you can’t open the windows, so you can’t even feel the ocean breeze on your skin. 🙁
• Centric is much more simple and convenient as a hotel…just go straight up from the ground floor to your floor. No hassle or fuss. Regency feels like a maze and you have to go up escalators, turn a corner, and walk a bit to the elevator to get to your room. Higher class hotels usually have this two-part system to get to your room, and I usually don’t mind, but it definitely was more convenient to just pop up and down and access the street quickly at the Centric. When you just want a quick musubi snack, it’s not an ordeal.
• It was never busy during our stay since the hotel was operating at a very limited capacity, but I’ve heard from friends that when the hotel is operating at capacity, you likely have to wait in line for the elevator, which makes it even more inefficient to go up/down from your room.
• The highest premium upgrade, Ocean View Suite, at Centric is like 30-40% smaller than the Family Ocean Suite at Regency, but it’s newer and much more modern, whereas Regency is getting old. In addition, at the Centric, the suite is not fully divided between the living room and bedroom, so there’s no privacy or soundproofing if someone’s on the phone.
• Regency did not give me a premium suite like Centric did but offered me the Penthouse Suite for $50 more per night. Not a bad deal, but I didn’t really need it and the Family Suite was good enough for our co-working purposes.
• The Regency suite is literally just 2 connecting rooms (2 room numbers, 2 doors) with some different furniture to make it more “suite-like”. But that works out perfectly for co-working and is probably more desirable for families. Since it is 2 connecting rooms, it has 2 of everything: 2 bathrooms, 2 lanais, 2 TVs, 1 or 2 beds in each room (actual bed or Murphy bed), 2 fridges, 2 free water bottles in each room (4 total), etc etc.
• Speaking of water bottles, the Regency water bottle is blue while the Centric one is orange. Same manufacturer/design (straw type). You have to fill them yourself at the water stations on certain floors.
• The Regency suite has 2 bathrooms since it is 2 rooms. One of my bathrooms at Regency was an ADA-compliant non-bathtub bathroom. The non-tub ADA shower is actually pretty nice for washing snorkel gear and getting sand out. Nothing too fancy about the bathrooms at either hotel. It was actually pretty dim at Centric. I got an ADA bathroom at Centric too; the regular suites have a nicer soaking tub, but the bathroom has no windows so it’s nothing special.
• Both hotels have Toto Japanese bidets. Yes, this is very important. Let me know if you Ctrl+F’ed to search this post for “Toto” or “Japanese toilet”. The Toto is not available in every room type at Centric, though.
• The bathroom amenities at Regency are larger and are Na Ho’ola Spa (Hyatt Regency spa) brand with coco mango scent. At Centric it’s a private label brand. The Regency body lotion is much creamier than Centric’s.
• Centric uses quality Drybar hair dryers and Regency uses some crappy Conair. At least one of my friends really cares about this.
• Regency has crappy plastic q-tips, but Centric has the higher quality paper ones. Yes, I really judge a hotel by this.
• There was free breakfast and 2 free evening drinks for Globalists at Regency, but no food available at Centric (500 points per night instead). This wasn’t a big deal as I got musubis every morning or went out for all the amazing food Oahu has to offer.
• The “pool” at Centric is just a foot pool like 1 foot deep with lounge chairs in the pool. Regency has a real pool. The hot tub is bigger at Centric than Regency, though. But Regency has views from the pools, whereas Centric does not.
• Overall the lobby at Centric is really modern and hip to hang out in, but nobody hangs out there since you can go straight to your room from the street, bypassing the lobby (3rd floor) completely. The gym and pool are also on the 3rd floor connected to the lobby. After checking in, there was almost no reason for me to ever go to the lobby again, it was actually inconvenient to go there. On the contrary, Regency’s 3rd floor pool deck was pretty basic but was a great place to meet friends and hang out.
• There is higher security at Centric than Regency; you need your keycard to use the elevators at Centric, whereas it was not needed for the Regency elevators.
• Both hotels have text concierge service so you can request stuff anytime. Regency’s response time is significantly slower, sometimes 30-60 min compared to Centric’s 5-10 min.
• Regency has yukatas available on request. I didn’t ask Centric if they had that. Funny story, I requested yukatas at Regency via text concierge, and they delivered regular bathrobes. They did bring actual yukatas on the second try though.
• Regency has free reusable tote bags, Centric does not.
• Chromecast on the TVs at both hotels. I couldn’t get it to work at Centric though.
• Free chairs and towels at both hotels, but only Centric has free boogie boards.
• Both hotels have free GoPros, Centric has free betta fish pets.
• Regency has free in-house slippers, Centric did not (probably can request, but I didn’t try).
• The in-room coffee and tea at Regency are better. At Centric it was only Keurig and pods.
• Regency comes with $4 per person Biki bikesharing credit – that’s equivalent to one 30-min ride. Centric doesn’t have this. I had actually purchased a 1 month Biki plan for $15 already (unlimited 30-min rides), but I showed Regency the receipt and they gave us $8 credit.
• Both hotels had free parking for Globalists even on a paid stay. This was a pandemic special, so do ask in advance if it’s still in effect during your stay.
• I received a welcome amenity of a box of chocolate macadamia nuts from Regency; from Centric I received a towel heart on the bed, balloons, and some small chocolate squares from Astor Chocolate.
• Regency has a laundromat on the 4th floor. $3 wash, $3 dry, need to buy soap separately too (or bring your own). Centric doesn’t have a laundromat, but they offer free packets of Tide detergent. So I got a Tide packet during my stay at Centric and didn’t use it, and discovered Regency had a laundromat, and fortunately had brought over the packet from Centric, so I used that.

Overall, we enjoyed both hotels, but going forward, I would always book Hyatt Regency simply for the superior views and lanais. Even though the hotel is not as modern and doesn’t scream out “luxury,” the views make up for it.