RTWSTARALLIANCE

Hello. I would assume on TG that coming in from BKK the right side of the plane would be best for Everest and out the left side. Please confirm.

If I can save myself from the scenic tourist plane and see Everest I will be one happy guy!

kyushuman

I stayed 7 nights at the Hyatt. 5 nights in standard room, 2 nights with club access. I would recommend it over the CP due to location, leisure facilities, and F&B--- though when I was looking, I saw rates at CP about half the price of the Hyatt. So if you are very price-sensitive, I'm sure the CP would be acceptable.
Breakfast is decent, service is good, though not as polished at, say, a big-city Hyatt. Rooms are dated but quite fine; get a room with Stupa view if possible. Really beautiful.
It's walking distance to the stupa and the restaurants that surround it, about a 10-minute walk, and it's signposted pretty well.
The highlight is that it has the best gym, best pool, and the largest/most beautiful grounds of any hotel in KTM (that's not saying too much, I realize!).
As for your flights--I read in more than one place that you shouldn't ever plan on having domestic flights on the same day as your international connection, because quite often domestic airports simply close due to weather. If it's a round-trip sightseeing flight to and from KTM I guess it'd be safer.

RTWSTARALLIANCE

Thank you. Will I am probably at the CP anyways. The Hyatt is not available and declared by hotel blackout. Heres hoping.

ckone501

Is this also valid for flights from/to Bangkok with TG?

RTWSTARALLIANCE

This is probably the only chain hotel I would stay at in KTM. My rate includes room, transfers from KTM and breakfast. I booked everything with the Hotel. That has been good and bad. Frustration reins supreme here.

I did not get a visa prior to arrival. Getting one on arrival is quick but the process is frustrating and you wonder if you are doing things right. They try to multi task and that makes things confusing. One person to take your money, another to issue your receipt, then you move onto visa entry onto your passport and then someone else to sign the sticker.

Upon exiting a sign board was present with the Hyatt logo. I was met then taken to a dated how about very dated car for transfer to the Hyatt. Check-in was fairly smooth after the agent realized I should be checked in on 6. After going to 6 tried to work with agent to confirm my tours, mountain flight and spa appointments. Here is where the frustration starts. The Hotel had me booked for four hours of spa treatments with a male attendent. Got that changed properly to two hours with a attendent that I had requested. With regret missed out on one of the treatments I was hoping for. The oil "eye" head massage. Knowing this I headed down to the travel desk on 3 to see what else might be messed up. Sure enough the desk stated they needed up to 45 minutes to arrange everything. I told them I would be down in 20 and they were prepared. My daylight was disappearing. The tour which is supposed to be $50 USD was a great value and saw the interesting sites.

My mountain flight is scheduled for tomorrow. I get it that there are numerous times they are delayed. I can stand probably 90 minutes of delay but have a flight back to BKK. The travel desk was pretty cool about this. I will leave at 6:45 AM for the aiport. The driver will wait for me. If delayed too much I will have them cancel the tickets and return them to the travel desk having not paid a cent. So I did not have to prepay which really is a comfort versus arguing out before leaving. The car will be ready for me to return to the airport again after getting a bite to eat.

I did have some stuff in the Lounge this evening. The presentations are very very limited and nothing like I just left at the Conrad BKK. No hot items. The Hotel was very nice to have given me a full plate of fruits, three glass jars containing cookies and a full bottle of wine.

HSIA is both wired and wireless with good speed. I did have to contact the business center to obtain a user name and password for access. The tv has a great number of channels nearing 100. That is darn good. The hvac is kinda weird and I have it on heat request to cool down the room. I noticed noise outside and find my windows above the home to lots of birds.

I used the last of my Diamond suite upgrade certs. Before arriving I knew had been put into a junior suite which would be a suite anywhere. Did make the request for Stupa view which I received. I started on a bad point but everything is now coming together. Please visit the Stupa near the Hotel. It really is something to behold. If they are nearly 2000 years old it must have been the birth of commercial shopping areas. Both the Stupa seen today were very commercial around. Regards from KTM.

RTWSTARALLIANCE

The Hotel aka travel desk booked me on Buddha Air. The ticket was $160 USD all in. The flight leaves from the domestic terminal so do not be alarmed with the procedures. If you do not like a pat down then you will miss this flight. Three times got the pat down.

Sounds like yesterdays flight was cxld so we all counted ourselves lucky. The flight left ontime and the fa was very professional. We were able to rotate and see out the cockpit for pictures. Watch your seating as the engine and wing block your views. Rows 4 and 5 are NOT preferred. We were all good about handing of cameras for the best pics. The stupa near the Hyatt and this flight made the whole trip worth it. After landing we all received a flight cert which reminded me of the ones off the Concorde. If I had to do the flight again I would book it on my first day and keep trying if cxld. No one said so but I had the feeling some may have been off the cxld flight.

RTWSTARALLIANCE

BTW. The driver I had from the Hyatt stayed at the airport. If my flight went on delay I wanted to make sure could return quickly to hotel. If cxld also wanted to get back soon.

RTWSTARALLIANCE

I flew back to BKK on TG in C (no F). Remember view of Everest in right side. View of Everest out left side. Had a great view of the mountains leaving. Also. If you really want to know which mountain cap is Everest do your research ahead of time. Looking at the entire range it will be to your extreme right set back. That makes actually seeing Everest a ?.

RTWSTARALLIANCE

I really did not understand what the heck Lonely Planet was talking about. I will make it simple. When checking in for your flight make sure and get a couple of those paper passenger name tags which go on luggage. Attach them to every and I mean every piece of luggage you intend to carry onboard. Upon clearing screening just before walking to the departure doors make sure and get every piece stamped. Every. Because about ten feet later a officer will check your boarding pass which also needs to be stamp by that same screening person and every piece you are going to carry onboard. If they are not stamped you will be directed to a table to the right to get the stamp affixed to these said items. From there you walk to the departure gates. Now nothing about this process is efficient. But you will make it onto your plane.

Also. Lonely Plant noted a departure tax upon leaving KTM. I asked twice at the Hyatt and said it was collected already when your tickets are issued. I did not have to pay another fee at KTM flying out. There is a domestic airport fee paid separate of ticket for mountain flight.

So this all raised another question. When you arrive after customs you will have three pieces. Your passport, visa receipt for paid on arrival and a departure slip. Keep that slip. It does not need another stamp on it. Somewhere in my research I was led to believe it should have. But the process on arrival at KTM is so should I say busy body that I even had to take a moment before heading towards customs to make sure I had all my stuff. And I am pretty good at keep track of stuff.

That will be my last post on KTM. Everyone enjoy your trip and go without hesitation. Keep an eye out for the politics of things. The people of Nepal were all happy and knowing life is not easy were very hospitable. They are certainly not a taking people. I found after my initial frustration things are pretty smooth but your must plan ahead.

yksmirk

Pro's:
-The facilities (especially the fitness room, spa area, and pool) are great for Kathmandu
-The grounds are very nice
-The view is nice

Con's:
-The staff is not at all competent and follow you around. They drill you as if you're an impostor everywhere you go (checking at the pool and fitness room to confirm your name with room number before you can enter). Even the gate guard grilled us.
-The location is not the best. If you want to eat outside the hotel it's at 10 min walk
-The rooms are only okay.
-Occasionally there will be loud parties held at the Hyatt or the surrounding areas booming really loud music
-I had difficulties with the internet. Spent 2 hours dealing with the operator waiting for the password before she told me that the system was down. The internet overall is not the fastest but okay for Kathmandu.

SanDiego1K

Summary
I recommend this hotel as a very comfortable place to stay in Kathmandu. Kathmandu is a much more interesting city than I anticipated, with a lot of sightseeing also in surrounding cities. Still, the city itself is very unattractive, traffic is thick and roads are bad. It was a welcome respite to return to the spacious grounds of the Hyatt each night. Service is not polished,but is well meaning and is much better in the Regency Lounge. We were well content with our stay, and would definitely stay here again should we return to Kathmandu.

Airport Arrival
Much has already been said about arrival at the airport. We paid attention and thus did not have any difficulty. Either download a visa form from online or get one onboard on your flight in. Bring one passport photo. Have the form filled out; an agent will staple the picture to the form at the visa desk.

All planes are met by a bus. Sit on the far side of the bus so that you can get off quickly at immigration. Look up for the signs, and head straight to the one for visa on arrival. They accept many currencies. Should you be using USD, it costs $25 per person. You are given a 14 day entry visa.

Follow signs and go to the lower floor to pick up luggage. Then head for the outside. If you did not book a car thru the hotel, no worries. There is a prepaid taxi stand inside. It's chaotic outside, with many people trying to see you taxi services.

Hotel
This is a large hotel on beautiful grounds with many services. A lot of attention was taken to use local motifs in the public areas of the hotel. Some of the Pritzkers are Buddhist. Although I can no longer find the article where I read it, I understand that a senior member of the family routinely visits Nepal and Tibet, and was committed to this project. The hotel opened in 2001. It has 280 rooms and suites.

We used points to book a suite. This hotel is a bargain at 5K points/night, so a suite is just 8K (for 3 day minimum stay). We had been in touch in advance and requested a stupa view suite. We had a spacious two room suite with the bathroom off the bedroom. It had a small dressing room, a separate toilet room, and a large shower separate from the tub. The dressing room and toilet room had very narrow doors, perhaps 60% of standard.

The suite had appealing decor, in light fresh colors. TVs were CRTs. We were given the following as diamonds:
- bottle of wine
- 3 containers of cookies
- box of chocolates in a nice handmade paper box stamped Kathmandu Hyatt

The lounge is large and attractive with both tables and comfortable seating areas. We had breakfast in the lounge the first morning. We then learned we could eat in the regular restaurant, so switched to it in order to get a full hot breakfast. It had some Indian/Nepalese choices which I enjoyed. I was able to get masala chai in both the lounge and the restaurant.

Evening offerings in the lounge were quite good. There were 3 or 4 choices in addition to cheeses, desserts, and raw vegetables. Service was very attentive. (Service was well meant in the restaurant, but far from polished.)

It is off season in Nepal, and the hotel was quite empty. Indians visit Nepal during the monsoon season. Western tourism picks up in August and then on thru the winter months. While it rained each day, we were fortunate and it had little impact on us.

Sightseeing
There is a travel desk in the lobby who can arrange sightseeing trips to suit you. 3 hours costs $70 and 7 hours costs $140. This includes a driver and guide in an air conditioned car. We found the places we saw absolutely fascinating,including an adjacent city that is a Unesco World Heritage site. It has a remarkable inner core, best seen by walking, with exraordinary carved wooden doors, windows and partial facades. Bhaktapur is extraordinary. And of course there is the Everest flight, already covered by rtwstaralliance and others.

This visit was much more than we anticipated, both thanks to the pleasant hotel and thanks to Kathmandu having so much more of significant interest to see than we expected.

RTWSTARALLIANCE

Glad to hear you enjoyed this. Another adventure in the books.

kyushuman

Thanks for such a great review. I completely agree with you--while the Hyatt isn't polished or ready for "prime time" in terms of really being a 5* hotel, it's also one of the most peaceful, friendly hotels I've been at--well-kept grounds, decent gym, friendly workers. Food was quite decent--much more geared toward the Indian crowd than Western, which is understandable (I was there around this time last year) given the more Indian customer base.
How about those pigeons? you don't mention their evening serenades. I can't imagine they've been moved out. That was the only thing that really bothered me about the place! I just turned up the A/C and usually couldn't hear them.....

Cheerfulflyer

I am thinking of taking my grandma for the first time to KTM and stay at the Hyatt. Would folks who have already done this kindly comment on how friendly (or not) are the flights and stay at Hyatt to elderly/folks with limited mobility. My grandma uses a walker to get herself around but we usually get a wheelchair when we travel. Specifically, I'd like to know if the flights involve a tarmac arrival with many steps to descend or is there a jetbridge? Are there elevators at Hyatt? How friendly are streets for her to move about in her walker/wheelchair?

Thanks in advance for your input!

SanDiego1K

I don't remember any jetbridges at Kathmandu. Once in the terminal, there is an elevator between the first and second floors. (You clear immigration on the 2nd and pick up luggage on the 1st.)

The hotel has an elevator. The hotel is quite new and built to western standards. I perceive the hotel as handicapped friendly.