February 26, 2025

Our Favorite Family Hotel Stays with Points

Pam

Booking Award Travel, Family Trips

Today we’re talking all about some of our favorite family hotel stays with points.  There are a few repeats in this list as we tend to create FOMO with each other when we talk about our favorite stays!

 

Alex’s Favorites

Hyatt Ziva Cancun (all-inclusive): all the food, drinks, and treats they could want! Two beaches to choose from, large pools, great activity club that runs games and entertainment at the pools make this a place my boys would pick to return to every year!
 
 
family at Hyatt Ziva Cancun

We will definitely be back at the Hyatt Ziva Cancun!

 
 
Hyatt Regency Lost Pines: a great escape into nature for the kids. Lots of outdoor activities are available. Some are free and others you have to pay extra for, like horseback riding, archery, and fishing. There is a large pool complete with a waterslide and lazy river. Plus movie nights on the lawn and s’mores! What’s not to love?
 
 
lazy river pool Hyatt Regency lost pines

This one makes Alex and Jess’s list for family-friendly hotels.

 
 
Hyatt Regency Amsterdam: it’s nothing overly fancy, but it’s perfectly practical and a nice place to stay. Standard rooms sleep two adults and one kid, which is great because three-person occupancy rooms are harder to find in Europe. The hotel is super-close to a metro station, which provides easy access to the central station and navigating the city. There is a regency club here and globalists can enjoy a breakfast buffet in the hotel restaurant. 
 

Jess’s Favorites

Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach is a Category 6 hotel so rooms are 21K-29K points/night.  It’s across the street from the beach, and beach toys, chairs, and umbrellas are included with award stays. It may also have the very best Globalist breakfast!

Andaz Costa Rica is a Category 7 hotel, so award stays run 25-35K points/night (but this is increasing to a Category 8 in March 2025).  This resort has great pools for kids and a great beach for family fun. You can even see monkeys from the balconies and take a water taxi to the beach club. Molly says this is one of her favorite hotels and she’s been there often!

The Grand Hyatt Kauai is another favorite of Jess and her entire family. It keeps calling to them to return (and return they do). It’s located on the beach in Poipu, which is beautiful, though the surf is too rough for swimming.  However, it makes up for that with many pools, a waterslide, a large lagoon, and beautiful grounds.  

 

Hotel swimming area

Jess loves to use her points to stay at the Grand Hyatt in Kauai.

 

The Kimpton Seafire was a hit with Jess and Molly at 70K IHG points/night.  It was also a steal because the cash rates usually run around $1,000 a night! It is a beachfront property and kids 5 and under eat free. There is a fun happy hour each night complete with juice boxes and fruit snacks for the kids. A children’s splash pad and camp make it a hit with kiddos! It is also a great couple’s retreat if you want to leave the kids home.

 

Kimpton Seafire Grand Cayman pool view

The beautiful Kimpton Seafire view.

 

Megan’s Favorites

Grand Hyatt Scottsdale

We all loved the Grand Hyatt Scottsdale. My girls rank it higher than Hyatt Regency Maui, which is a big compliment! The hotel, including the pool area, was recently renovated and is so beautiful. The girls especially loved the water slide and sandy beach entry to the pool.

The front desk even gave them each a small gift bag that included a cactus stuffed animal, a booklet all about the different types of cactus, and a bag of prickly pear-flavored cotton candy. This location is great for other fun activities. We took a day trip to Tucson to visit Saguaro National Park and take in the Tucson Rodeo.  

 

Grand Hyatt Scottsdale

 

Hyatt Regency Tamaya

The Hyatt Regency Tamaya in New Mexico is probably the closest thing you can get to a dude ranch on Hyatt points, and it’s only a category 4! This hotel is located on the Santa Ana Reservation and has beautiful Southwestern/Native American feel in keeping with the local area.
 
Many free activities include pueblo bread baking, nightly s’mores, Native American jewelry making, and storytelling. There is also a horse stable on the property where you can reserve (paid) horseback trail rides. We only had two nights here, but the girls already can’t wait to return. 
 
 

Hyatt Regency Tamaya horse trail ride.

 

Traci’s Favorites

Andaz Bali (Bali, Indonesia):  The rooms were huge and beautiful, the grounds were serene and gorgeous, and the kids loved the pool and the beach. And the breakfasts were amazing.  The kids also loved participating in one of the cultural activities offered by the hotel staff, where they learned how to write in Balinese on palm leaves—Henry even went to it twice.  They also have an outdoor lounge with chessboards, and you can order specialty coffees, tea, and juices for free anytime.  And there’s a kids’ club, if your kids are younger than mine are.  This is one of our favorite family hotel stays with points, ever.

 

Andaz Bali

 
Hyatt Regency Hill Country Resort & Spa (San Antonio, TX):  This property has just completed a huge renovation, so it’s looking better than ever now.  What did we love?  The lazy river, movie nights on the lawn, a water slide, and time spent roasting marshmallows in the fire pit.  We also went for a night swim and played soccer on the lawn.  What more can you say?  This hotel is perfect for little kids all the way up to teenagers.  (Or even just adults who are kids at heart. Yes, I did go on the water slide.)
 
 

The lobby is gorgeous!

 
 
Hotel Maalot (Rome, Italy):  This is one of the SLH properties that has gone from partnering with World of Hyatt to partnering with Hilton, so even though we booked our stay through Hyatt, you can still book it through Hilton now.  The artwork throughout the hotel is really fun and quirky, which my teenagers found amusing.  The breakfasts were great, and there were free snacks and drinks in the fridge, which is the quickest way to a teenager’s heart.  And it’s just steps from the Trevi Fountain and all of central Rome.
 
 
 
 
Il Tornabuoni (Florence, Italy):  This hotel is in the Hyatt Unbound Collection.  We had a huge two-bedroom, two-bathroom suite and the hotel was really pretty. The kids loved being in the middle of Florence, close to all the sights (and close to all the gelato).
 
 
 
 
Holiday Inn Express & Suites Dickinson, North Dakota:  We stayed here on our epic 6,000-mile road trip from Houston to Banff and back a few years ago and booked this hotel as a surprise to the kids because of one feature:  an indoor/outdoor water slide.  The pool is indoors and the entrance to the water slide is indoors, but part of the water slide goes out of the building through the wall, curves, and then comes back in to end in the pool.  They thought this was amazing.  They also love the cinnamon rolls at Holiday Inn Expresses, so that was the other big draw.
 
Lews Castle Hotel (Stornoway, Scotland): This isn’t bookable with points but you could use the Capital One purchase eraser to reduce your out-of-pocket costs.  The hotel is in Stornoway, Scotland, on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, and it’s a castle where you can book hotel nights, which is why this stands out as a family favorite for us.  Our two-bedroom, two-bathroom room was huge and pretty and even came with board games. (We played the UK version of Monopoly one rainy day.) It had a washing machine and a fantastic view of the harbor. We could see the CalMac ferry to Ullapool docked right in front of us!  And what kid doesn’t want to stay in a castle on an island in Scotland?
 
 
 
 
 

Claire’s Favorite

 
The Hyatt Regency Newport Beach feels like a hidden gem of a Hyatt with plenty of points availability at any given time. At only 12k-18k points per night, it is so affordable.
 
It has three pools (one with a water slide), sand volleyball, lawn games, bikes to borrow (free of charge), and a par-three executive golf course. The golf course is free if you bring your own clubs, or you can rent clubs for a small fee. It’s close to great shopping, restaurants, and my favorite—the beach! The grounds are stunning, with pretty walking paths, flowers, plumeria trees, and twinkly lights. 
 
 

Hyatt Regency Newport Beach – Hyatt site credit.

 

Bottom Line

These are some of our favorite family hotel stays with points—some are more budget-friendly, and some are luxury hotels. Each of them has allowed our team members to create wonderful family memories without breaking the bank. Leave your favorite family hotel stays in the comments to inspire our readers and each of us!

 

Related Posts

A Grand Stay at the Grand Hyatt Kauai

Reader Success Story:  Hyatt Ziva Cancun

Friday Family Vacation: Albuquerque

Family Hotels in Europe

Family at Hyatt Regency Maui

Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities. American Express is a Travel Mom Squad advertiser, but we always show the best public offer even when we don’t earn a commission. Terms Apply. 

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