If you want to relax and rejuvenate on your Hawaii vacation, there’s nothing better than a visit to one of its top spas — especially when you can just roll out of bed and walk a few steps to experience the nirvana of a Hawaiian lomilomi or heated lava rock massage. Locally sourced ingredients like sugar, honey, ginger, coffee and cacao make body wraps and facials delectable, too. Here are our favorite hotels with excellent spas on Kauai, from the South Shore to the East Side and North Shore.
TIP: Most hotels have a 4pm check-in. Ask for an early check-in.
If they can’t accommodate, they will let you store your bags so you can head to the beach!
Ko’a Kea Hotel & Resort
This was the last hotel on Kaua‘i to reopen after 1992’s Hurricane ‘Iniki, but it was worth the 17-year wait. A sleek and chic metamorphosis of a former oceanfront motel, Ko‘a Kea (“White Coral”) remains a luxuriously seren oasis in popular Po‘ipu. The 121 rooms (book an ocean view if you can) lie a short walk from a small cove that’s swimmable in high tide, with sandy beaches a longer but still easy walk away. The spa is on the small side, but has an expert staff with a gift for facials, especially those using the locally sourced red clay; dining options are exquisite and discreet, too.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Enjoy a complimentary mai tai at the daily Tiki Torch ritual at sunset, preferably after a Hawaiian-inspired spa treatment or couple’s massage in one of two outdoor seaside cabanas. Be sure to make reservations for Red Salt, the upscale dinner restaurant known for artful presentations and sophisticated tropical touches. If you’re staying in a suite, the spa staff can draw you a bath infused with island flora.
Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort & Spa
This 52-acre bluffside compound above Keoneloa Beach (Shipwreck Beach) in Poipu may be the largest on the island with 605 rooms, but it hosts many garden nooks where you can enjoy the sweeping ocean views in relative tranquility. It also boasts lively gathering places. Kids of all ages will enjoy the best pool complex on the island — including a lazy river, 1.5-acre saltwater lagoon with its own beach, multiple tiers and a 150-foot water slide — while grownups will appreciate the modern island fare and spirits at Tidepools.
The quieter expanse and expertise of Anara Spa draw patrons from all over the island, as does the 18-hole championship Poipu Bay Golf Course next door. Good to know: With such a big footprint, the resort makes serious efforts to reduce its carbon emissions. Some highlights are the hydroponic garden which produces 600 lbs of lettuce for the restaurant and events, and the effort to eliminate single use plastics by providing reusable water bottles for guests and easy access to refill stations throughout the resort.
HIGHLIGHTS
- At lushly landscaped Anara Spa, opt for a pohaku (warm stone) massage or the customized organic facial with a volcanic rock foot scrub. Couples may splurge on the massage treatment in the outdoor garden hale.
The Lodge at Kukui‘ula
Tucked into the most exclusive community of vacation residences on the Garden Island, the Lodge at Kukui’ula offers 38 bungalows, cottages and villas with one to four bedrooms, spa-like bathrooms with outdoor showers, lavishly stocked kitchens and spacious indoor and outdoor Iiving areas. Only guests and residents have access to the amenities of the Club at Kukui’ula, including an 18-Hole Tom Weiskopf–designed golf course, the exceptional spa and fitness center, adventure guides, 10-acre hillside farm and lake, two restaurants, saltwater ocean-view pools, a kids’ club, and more; the sandy cove of Kukui‘ula lies downhill. The gracious staff will go out of their way to make your vacation perfect.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Surrounded by lava rock walls for privacy, the airy, indoor-outdoor treatment rooms of Hi‘ilani Spa and its private lap pool are worth seeking out for “serenity now” moments. All treatments are customized, often using organic ingredients from the spa’s own garden, and include a “wet” ritual involving hot and cold plunge pools, steam room, sauna and outdoor showers.
Waipouli Beach Resort
One of the newer vacation condominium resorts on the island, Waipouli Beach Resort & Spa encompasses one- and two-bedroom units with high-end kitchens and luxurious finishes of granite, marble and exotic woods. Some of the privately owned units are managed by Outrigger Hotels & Resorts or Castle Resorts (both recommended) and some by smaller property management companies or off-island owners. The central heated river pool, which includes three sandy-bottomed whirlpools, traverses 2 acres with connecting water flumes.
Oasis by the Beach restaurant and Spa by the Sea day spa are destinations unto themselves; the spa also rents beach cruiser bikes to take advantage of the paved shoreline path along the property.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Body wraps and facials incorporate tropical ingredients like papaya, noni, kukui nut, pineapple, sea salt and coconut milk, while some treatments also make use of a waterfall-like Vichy shower; add on a half-hour relaxing bath with sea salts in a giant Japanese soaking tub. Book two treatments, and you can order a catered lunch from Oasis in between them.
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