Family Travel Unpacked: Make the Most of Travel With Kids

Grand Hyatt Scottsdale Recap & Mini Review

• Melissa Conn • Season 1 • Episode 44

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Get the quick highs and lows in this Grand Hyatt Scottsdale review + recap episode, all in less time that it takes to drink your morning coffee! Find out if this could be the right resort for your trip to Scottsdale with kids - and what might be the biggest drawback for many families.

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Amex Platinum Card for The Hotel Collection bookings: $300 statement credit, $100 property credit, breakfast for 2, guarantee 4pm late checkout, room upgrade

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Hey there, and welcome back to Family Travel Unpacked. I'm your host, Melissa, and in case you're new here, you can find tons of detailed destination guides, travel tips, hacks, and more on my website, thefamilyvoyage.com. And if you've been enjoying the show, be sure to hit follow wherever you're listening so you never miss an episode, and drop a five-star review while you're at it. It really helps other families find the show. So today is the first in a series of episodes that I'll be recording directly from the road. It's a little bit of a different format, but we'll try it and see how it works. You might also hear some extra background noise because I'm actually recording this from a hotel room in Anchorage, Alaska, and my son's here with me, getting ready for bed. But I wanted to take this opportunity to spend a few minutes together and tell you about our most recent trip, which was to the Grand Hyatt Scottsdale Resort. We just spent the weekend there with our immediate family, along with my brother-in-law, sister-in-law, and their three kids. And here's our quick take. First off, would we go back? Absolutely, in a heartbeat. We love Scottsdale, and this was a great resort to spend a weekend just hanging out and enjoying the desert scenery. I would say this destination is great for travelers of any age and stage. We went there with a large group that included five kids ranging from age four to 14, but I think it's just as good for adults because there are plenty of things to do without the kids. There's a large adults-only pool section, a beautiful spa, great fitness facilities, and plenty of adult activities. Now for a few highlights. First off, we love the scenery surrounding the resort. From our room, we had a beautiful view of the McDowell Mountains. Now, given the time of year and the jet lag that I was facing, I was up at sunrise every single day, but our extended balcony was the perfect place to watch the sunrise over the mountains and just relax and feel totally at peace and on a true vacation. The second highlight, and this is what my son shared, is the pool area is excellent. There's a large pool complex that's open to families that has several different saltwater pools, including one that has two volleyball nets set up, another one that has a zero entry with a sandy beach area, and then finally, there's a three-story water slide that's open to kids who are at least 42 inches tall. There's a completely separate adult pool complex that even has its own bar, and that seemed to be really fun. We didn't get to spend a lot of time there. But if you're visiting without the kids, you would definitely wanna check that out. Finally, another highlight is that there are tons of activities available, whether you're talking about kids or adults. We checked out everything from tie-dye in the kids club to a FIFA watch party and complimentary beer tasting for the adults. There was also a great firework show on Friday night. In terms of what we didn't love at the Grand Hyatt Scottsdale, I would say the biggest thing was the price of the food. It was really, really high. We're talking like $20 including tax and tip for a cocktail at a minimum, but some of them were even more. That said, we visited in June, and as of right now, Grand Hyatt Scottsdale is running their Kids Eat Free promotion for the summer. If you eat at either of their two sit-down restaurants for dinner, the kids' entrée is free with the purchase of an adult entrée. So that does help at least a little bit with the cost of food. but overall, if you're trying to stay on site for all of your meals, you can expect a pretty hefty bill at the end. And because self-parking runs around $32 a day, it's not like renting a car and driving off-site for your meals is necessarily gonna save you a ton of money in total. Now, one thing that did work in our favor is that I booked the hotel through my Amex Platinum card using the Fine Hotels Resort/The Hotel Collection benefit. This property is part of The Hotel Collection, which means that when I booked it, I got a $300 statement credit off the cost of the room. But in addition, I had a $100 on-property credit that comes as a benefit of using this program. At the time of our stay, American Express also had another promotion running that I had to opt into, which was a $75 statement credit if I spent $300 at a Hyatt from a selected list, which did include the Grand Hyatt Scottsdale. In total, we had $175 of property credit to work with, so that definitely helped to defray the cost of all of the food that we ate on site. As I mentioned at the top of the episode, we love Scottsdale, and we've spent a ton of time there, so I'll have a more complete episode about visiting Arizona or maybe just Phoenix with kids later on in the fall. And I'll talk more about Grand Hyatt Scottsdale in that episode so be sure to follow along. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Family Travel Unpacked. If you like the format, drop a comment and let me know. And while you're at it, leave a five-star review. Make sure you tune in next week when my son Jacob and I are gonna be talking all about our trip to Alaska that's going on right now. Safe travels!