A great resort

100   Recommended
Room 4315 , Oversized Ocean View Delu...
August 13, 2018 by

 Map | 3 Reviews | 100% Recommended
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Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach
 Map | 3 Reviews | 100% Recommended

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Room 4315

Oversized Ocean View Delu...

Liked:
Location
Service
Food
Amenities
Room
Stats
Room
Oversized Ocean View Deluxe

I spent two nights at the HR Huntington Beach Resort as my wife had to be in town for business. Figured we might as well see what it's like at peak season. 

Summer is in full swing in Huntington Beach, so the airport and beach were very busy. On top of that, we visited for two weekend days. I booked two nights on a Privé rate, which guaranteed a room upgrade (cleared within 24h of booking), $100 F&B credit, welcome amenity and free breakfast. On top of that, I'm a Globalist. 

Check In

Checkin was fast and efficient, even with the 100% occupancy and insane weekend crowds. The WoH line had a friendly staffer working. We walked up at 11 AM, so they didn't have a room ready yet, but she gave us a pool key so we could grab a drink at the pool while they stored our bag. Checked for a potential upgrade past our upgraded room but the hotel was 100% occupied; the Hyatt app backed this up. 

Room

Room 4315 is a nice ocean-viewing room with a view of the pool. It's perfectly adequate; I'm guessing the non-'oversized' rooms have less of a separate living and bedroom area, but it's a basic, large hotel room. Nothing spectacular, nothing particularly bad either. We were very close to the (small!) Regency Club, and 4th floor rooms have the nicest views. As a tradeoff, some bottom floor rooms have a patio with fire pit, a nice touch. 

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As I mentioned, upon early arrival the room wasn't ready: We were called at 12:04 (impressive!) that our room was ready, and they even ran someone up to deliver the welcome amenity, which was a half-bottle of wine with two glasses. The minibar is empty save for two bottles of (free) water. 

We were a bit concerned about noise from the pool but honestly, the soundproofing is so fantastic that you can't hear a thing. I'd be a bit more concerned for the rooms / suites next to the beach, as you'd be on top of the PCH which is a loud, busy street. 

Service

Service here was good. It has the usual slightly creepy forced friendliness of resort employees, but there were also several people that seemed like they really enjoyed their work. 

Room service was fast — very fast! — and friendly. Decent selection of items on the room service menu that come from the better restaurant on the grounds (Watertable) and a great booze selection, but a 10 PM cutoff time is a bit too bad. 

Housekeeping was so-so. They did turn the room around quickly, but left a lot of glasses and empty bottles and such around. A bit odd. 

Down at the beach, some beachy dudes help guests out by bringing out chairs, umbrellas and giving you beach-appropriate towels. They're super nice and during a power outage were even bringing people's heavier stuff up the stairs, all lit up with glowsticks and flashlights. A very professional, friendly operation. 

 

Dining

The resort has a few options for dining: the poolside bar and restaurant, a place called Pete's Sunset Grille, a pizza restaurant (that delivers in the resort) called Tower 15 and Watertable, the main restaurant near the lobby. 

We sampled a few things from the pool restaurant, the Sunset Grille and Watertable;

Pool Restaurant 

We sampled a few snacks and a Caesar salad and double burger at the pool restaurant (as well as some drinks :)) — they were absolutely fine. The burger was a nice smashed-style burger with well melted cheese and came with a nice wedge of pickle and watermelon and a bag of chips. The Caesar was fine.

Sunset Grille

Out of all the restaurants, perhaps the most mediocre; we had a poké and fish tacos, which were OK. If I'd have to pick a spot for lunch I'd probably stick to the poolside place. It's possible we just didn't order the right thing, but it didn't satisfy. 

Watertable

This one I was more excited about, and it didn't disappoint. We dined on fried squash blossoms, seared scallops, a NY Strip steak and some excellent Chateauneuf du Pape. A good restaurant by any standard, and a delight to have in the resort. Note that even on weekends, we found there's no need to reserve a table at Watertable... we called up to reserve a table and was told it wasn't necessary (they made the reservation anyway). Nice décor, fire pit outside, all around really quite nice. Plenty of options and well prepared food. 

Regency Club

On the 4th floor and near the elevators you can also 'dine' at the Regency Club. The spread is good; around 5 they put out an honor bar with liquor, wine (Canvas, heh) and beers and various snacks with a hot option. The food was decent (some kind of waffle fry with hot dog hot option, kind of strange) and the booze great. The Club never got busy, with the notable exception of breakfast...

Breakfast

I believe, but did not confirm, that Globalist entitles you to breakfast at the Club here and not more than that. My Privé rate, according to the front desk, also entitled me to Watertable breakfast, which is quite a bit nicer. While the spread for breakfast at the Regency Club was huge (we wandered in to print off some shipping labels), the Club turns into an absolute zoo. I feel for the staff; kids were having cereal throwing fights, food was being spilled everywhere, and it was just jam-packed with families fighting over the food. Total anarchy.

We were very grateful and pleased to eat breakfast at Watertable, which offers a nice buffet but also à la carte options from eggs benedict to açai bowls and avocado toast. They'll have anything you could possibly want. 

Location

This location is fantastic. I'm one to skip out on a pool when you have a beach so close, and the walkway across the PCH makes going to the beach a breeze. You can have chairs and parasols set up, as I mentioned, but we just hung out at the beach on a towel and it was fantastic. 

We used our first night to rent 2 beach cruisers to pedal over to Newport Beach and get dinner there. It was a real adventure; the lady at Toes On The Nose warned us that it was 'crazy' out there, and indeed on a Saturday there's droves of people wandering, running, biking and otherwise flying through the beachside bike path. Fun in a crazy kind of way. 

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That being said, on the way back we realized our cruisers had no lights on them. They did affix some reflectors, but combined with a beachside power outage, we were biking through the dark, in the smoke from hundreds of beach bonfires, with people drunkely wandering on the bike path. Fun times? 

With the shuttle to Huntington Beach proper and both the piers so close, it's a great location. The resort has almost everything you could need, but also makes it convenient and easy to get out and around even if you arrive without a car as we did. 

Overall

This is a great resort. It's not often that you find a resort that can cater to families with kids and regular couples / visitors alike, and make you feel well catered to even with full occupancy and a convention happening, but the HR Huntington Beach did. No real lapses in service, beautiful grounds and plenty of activities and access to wonderful bits of SoCal. 

High season prices are rather high; I'd probably visit again when it is slightly less busy as the beaches will be a bit less crowded and the value for money would be tremendous. But I wasn't displeased to spend the high summer rate at all; I'd say I got my money's worth. 

Globalist + Privé

Globalist recognition wasn't very apparent; my room key didn't work to open the Club doors at first — it took two round trips to the front desk to fix this. No upgrade was proactively offered and otherwise no acknowledgement of status was made. This is fine with me, but others might consider it lacking?

In terms of tangible Globalist benefits, they delivered: very early room availability when checking in early, resort fees waived, and a nice room offered. 

That being said, the Privé rate was the real value here. We ended up with a larger room, breakfast in the restaurant with all charges waived, including tip — except for our two mimosas, which I find utterly reasonable — $100 to spend and a welcome amenity. I'd always get a Privé rate for the breakfast alone. 

Two enthusiastic thumbs up! 

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