You want to use Hyatt points at Disney World, but can’t decide if you should stay at which of the two Hyatt Regency Hotels- the Hyatt Regency Orlando vs. Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress? We’ve stayed at both so we can give you our honest review of which is better for your Disney Vacation.
Want to use points to stay at these hotels? Read our Hotel plan for WDW here.
Let’s break down is who is better by category
Location To Disney World
Winner: Grand Cypress
Quite a bit closer to the parks, Grand Cypress wins hands down. Orlando is 12 miles to magic kingdom while Grand Cypress is 7 miles. Grand Cypress also just feels closer as you are a 5 minute drive to Disney Springs.
Location if going to Disney and Universal
Winner: Orlando
It’s in between the two parks so that could be good if trying to see both in the same vacation. Universal is only 3 miles away from the hotel, so Harry Potter fans unite!
Globalist breakfast
Winner: Grand Cypress
This surprised me. As a Hyatt Globalist, I get free breakfast each morning of my stay at Hyatt Hotels. When I saw that Hyatt Regency Orlando had a Lounge, I thought for sure it would be the winner. But nothing beats the breakfast at the Lakehouse at the Grand Cypress. One is a small breakfast offering a standard items (think free breakfast at a hotel), while Lakehouse had a full buffet with an omelette bar, fruit bar, pastries, and my favorite- the pancake bar. When your whole job is the art of making pancakes, you make it to perfection. If It wasn’t free, I still think I would pay for it a few times during my stay. It was that good. To view the full menu click here.
Award AVAILABILITY
Winner: Orlando
Both hotels are large for sure, but Hyatt Regency Orlando is massive. We can usually find available rooms here using points, but not always at Grand Cypress.
Shuttle to parks
Winner: Neither
Don’t count on using the shuttles for transportation to the parks. We used the shuttle at Grand Cypress once but it only goes to two parks, leaves only a few times in the morning, and a returns only couple of times in the afternoon. You will need to depend on either your own car or Uber to get you to and from the parks. Orlando had a separate area for Uber/Lyft, which would be nice, but it was raining that morning and that was not great standing in the rain waiting for our ride.
Pool
Winner: Grand Cypress
The Grand Cypress pool is amazing. It can be chilly in the winter (they only heat one section) but kids and adults will love this pool, including the swim through grotto connecting the two main sections of the pool. There is lots of lounge chairs and space around the pool. Even during the winter months they have a large hot tub in the cave grotto to relax after 20,000 steps at the parks.
Rooms
Winner: Can’t go wrong!
Both hotels had clean, nice, large rooms. Slight edge on our rooms to Grand Cypress for our upgraded view and for less of a hike to get to our room, versus our long walk to our room at Hyatt Orlando.
Extra Fun
Winner: Grand Cypress
Even though both of these hotels obviously rely heavily on conferences, Grand Cypress also leans into a family resort vacation resort too. There was family activities each day but even better was the hotel mascot- a macaw named Merlot. It was fun for kids in the mornings to say hi to Merlot in the lobby.
Cost in points
Winner: Depends- check both when trying to book
While both have the same range of points needed to book a night, which nights are low season and which are peak vary between the two hotels. Make sure to check both hotels to see what the night total would be.
Both Orlando and Grand Cypress range between 12,000 points for off peak to 18,000 for peak nights for standard room.
Overall winner for Disney
If both are available, we would choose to stay at Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress.
Which hotel between Hyatt Regency Orlando vs. Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress is your winner?
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