Duke787

Not sure when the renovation was done but based on my stay there last week I can say the room I stayed in at least (2532) was renovated and up to date and based on my stay I have no reason to the think the rest of the hotel isn't in similar condition.

LASUA1K

Fyi, as a Diamond, I was offered breakfast room service for free breakfast. I accepted, no charges showed up. Front desk was fantastic. Room and hotel itself needs a major renovation.

RichardInSF

I'm back at this hotel for three nights and based on my earlier posts on this thread, I was last here 9 years ago.

I checked in and was given room keys. No longer necessary to put the key card in the lift to get to your floor. But when I opened the room door, I got a huge shock because I was looking at a room about 250 sqft in size which looked quite sad, especially given the stains on the carpet. It is no exaggeration to say that this was the worst room I had ever been assigned in all the years I've been staying at Hyatt.

So I called down to the front desk manager and she explained that all the better rooms were taken except for an upgrade to what sounded like the same type of room, only less tired.

After getting rather more emphatic, I was told that they had managed to move things around and assign me to what they called a "VIP suite" and I moved to that. It is a duplex suite on two levels with a living room (and guest lav) downstairs and a bedroom (with full bathroom) upstairs. It is a whole lot larger and in way better condition than the first room but still feels somehow dated. Nonetheless, I am happy with the change.

Service so far remains hit-and-miss but maybe it will improve as the stay goes on. Apparently, the Diamond breakfast is still available in any of the main floor restaurants. No one offered me vouchers, so either that policy has changed or there was another service failure. I'll find out which it is tomorrow morning.

skj

You probably know this by now, but no vouchers are necessary. I usually mention to the server (if they don't ask) that I'm a Diamond member. I get a check, sign it, and that's it. I haven't had a problem with it showing up on my bill, and even if it did, I'm confident it would be removed without issue.

LASUA1K

I was here a month ago, the rooms are in pretty bad shape, I checked in around midnight, the one thing I did enjoy, Diamond Breakfast was offered in the room, and accepted. No charge for room service.

RichardInSF

That might be worth doing. Just came back from the breakfast at Schula's. An important caveat is that even though breakfast is served until 11am, if you arrive after 10 (as I did), the only choice is the rather tired looking buffet -- the menu offerings are no longer available.

And indeed, no voucher is required.

Overall, I am not sure if I would stay here again or investigate non-Hyatt alternatives on a future visit.

Edited to add: Virtually no water pressure in the shower. I reported it and several hours later, they messaged back that engineering had "assured" them it had been fixed. There is still virtually no water pressure. Kind of representative of how this hotel works, I guess.

LASUA1K

Ya, I honestly won't stay again. I'll be in Houston next week and booked elsewhere. Breakfast in the room was a nice benefit though.

santhosh.kharvi

Typing this from the property right now. I have been here for about 2 months, 3-4 nights a week. This Hyatt Regency is not comparable to some of the other Regency properties I have stayed at.

No lounge is at the top of the list for that. As a Diamond, a nice quiet cocktail and hors d'oeuvres are a great benefit. I don't see a reason why this Hyatt doesn't have one.

The gym is also depressing - it does have a decent number of treadmills and ellipticals, but everything is compressed into a small space in the basement with no windows, feels very dungeon-like. By comparison, I stayed at the Hyatt in North Houston (about 25 mins away, room rate was half of the $330 I paid here) and their gym felt much better.

On the plus side, it is in downtown, close to work/Toyota Center etc. Convenient location. Breakfast is standard issue Hyatt. Einstein's is open all night, but their bagels aren't as good (I stay in NYC so Ess-A-Bagel and H&H are my benchmark). The staff is also friendly.

Net net, if there was another Hyatt closeby, I'd stay there and avoid this one. It's a 5 on 10 overall in my book.

Boraxo

Not defending the Hyatt, but not sure that there are any better options in downtown Houston. The Hilton, Crown Plaza and other chains are nothing special, the Four Seasons is a little more luxurious but still one of the worst in the chain and lacks the conveniences and perks (no coffee shop, no free breakfast).

Now if you venture outside the downtown core there are many options including St. Regis, Westin, etc.

ronbo83

IMO the Inn at the Ballpark is the best hotel downtown and the Magnolia is a close second. They may not be chains but are excellent hotels. Not to mention the Inn at the Ballpark is next to Vic and Anthony's which is again IMO the best steakhouse in TX.

I stay at the Hyatt downtown on occasion and it really is just above a Courtyard Marriott in quality. Not sure if it changed but we used to use full diamond breakfast amount at Einstein's which resulted in $48 of food and drinks. Plenty to share with many others. Will be there next month and will see if they still let us use diamond breakfast there.

Muerz

A JW Marriott is opening this summer, followed by a Marriott Marquis in two years. Hopefully those will up the competition...

spgplat21

Just finished a one night stay here and we were very pleased. I used a diamond suite upgrade that was expiring and we were giving a huge 2 level suite on the top 2 floors. I'm not sure if this is the standard suite upgrade, but I will definitely be back the next time I'm in Houston with a suite upgrade to use if it is.

The room wasn't modern, but the furnishings were all in good shape. We decided to have breakfast in the restaurant and it was pretty good. I would say it was about average for a Regency buffet breakfast; nothing spectacular, but nothing bad either.

The best part about the suite is that they stock the refrigerator in the room and there is a sign above it that it's all complimentary. There wasn't any liquor, but there were several sodas, water and two bottles of wine. There was also a Keurig machine with an assortment of coffees and teas.

The only real negative during our stay was the valet. It was a chaotic mess, but there was an event going and some nearby road closures so the chaos was somewhat understandable.

starlicious

Had a stay there recently and was unimpressed overall. Room was in the upper levels, but still a lot of noise from the lobby was audible. The bathroom had toothpaste, but no shower gel. Breakfast was a bit of a mess with the Shula's being severely undersized for a hotel of this size. I had to wait about 10 min to get a seat, which was a first for me. The breakfast was okay at max, with the made to order eggs as a bonus (if you have time), but the rest being very average if even below average.

PokerHammy

Funny, we each used the CC annual award for two rooms and both got xx27, on different floors. I asked if the rooms could be close by each other on the same floor, and the agent said it wasn't possible and that there's only one room on each floor for the type of room we reserved. It was fairly quiet and only for a night so I didn't mind it, but there was only a small shower (20" door??) right next to the toilet; not having a tub in the bathroom is a first for me at a Hyatt.

ETA: it was the opposite of quiet once the AC/heating started and would not stop, and could not be stopped - there was no OFF button!! It was hard to sleep through the noise, and the more I thought about it (in my sleeplessness) the more annoyed I got with the hotel treating award redeeming customers as second class. Perhaps we should've stayed at the Hyatt House instead.

InHoc

Just a word of warning to business travelers that like to have materials delivered to the hotel via FedEx or UPS. This hotel has an arrangement with the FedEx office in their lobby that receives ALL overnight packages and charges a fee to receive them. They wouldn't deliver mine to my room, but made me go into the office so I could sign a room charge for $30 to receive a box (that I had already paid about the same amount to FedEX to have shipped to the hotel in the first place).

Has anyone else experienced this charge or had luck bypassing it? I called and was told that was the arrangement they had with the FedEx office and they were contractually obligated to let that office charge a fee by weight to guests.