In short: Great stay, on-spot Globalist recognition and benefits, welcome upgrade and beautiful property. Would stay again in a heartbeat.










Pros:

• Awesome cabana/bungalow concept spread across 23 acres
• Free self parking near your room (love!)
• Beautiful grounds, well kept, great vibe at the pool and restaurant
• Staff at front desk, valet, bell, and housekeeping all superb
• Upgrade to 1 bedroom Cattle Track Suite, with a great family-friendly layout
• Midsize and nicely equipped modern gym
• Delicious and creative breakfast options (albeit some smaller portions)
• Tasteful live music at the bar/restaurant in the evenings
• Great location near restaurants, high end mall, Shake Shack, etc.

Cons:

• Literally only 1 standard TSU suite on the entire property — and it’s not even a real suite
• Insulting “free” snacks in the room: just 1 bag of chips. (Either embrace the Andaz standard or don’t even bother!)
• Grumpy front of house restaurant team

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Location: The Andaz is located on the Paradise Valley (north/East) side of Camelback Mountain. It’s about 25 min to the airport in no traffic. There are ample restaurants nearby. Our favorite for a date night was the Fat Ox for modern Italian food.

Arrival: We checked in for a 2 night stay with kids. Arrival team was laid back and friendly. They informed me of my benefits and offered us a welcome glass of wine or beer. Valet Steve let us follow him in his golf cart to our bungalow on the backside of the property. There was ample self parking (yay!). I much prefer the convenience to drive and park my own car instead of relying on someone else to do it / fetch it.) We parked just a few steps from our room.

Property: The hotel is made up of low slung bungalows spread across 23 manicured acres. Fireplaces, fountains, water features, hammocks, and a couple pools are there to explore on the winding paved walking paths. I appreciated the attention to detail like the raked rocks, and beautiful landscaping. Even though the resort is in a relatively busy area of Scottsdale you would never know it as it is so peaceful.

Upgrade: I was not able to use a TSU. The only standard “suite” is a junior suite (without a door, so not a real suite) called Harper House. And yes, there is only one on the entire property. Gratefully, My Hyatt Concierge was able to work her magic to get us into a Cattle Track 1 bedroom suite. It was perfect for our family.

Room: Prior to the renovation, the Andaz had only 3 suites — a junior suite (Harper House) and 2 two bedroom premium suites (Girard House, right by the main pool and restaurant, and Anders House, at the edge of the property past the spa). They combined a few single rooms to create a handful of Cattle Track Suites. Given their former lives as two individual rooms, these new suites are great: 2 full bathrooms, two patios, two entrances, sizable living space and bedroom with a door. With three tiny kids, we were able to put pack n plays in the bathrooms, a tent in the living room and still have some space for the grown ups — with our own entrance and patio to boot. The living area also had a pull out couch sectional, which we did not use. Definitely one of the better set ups for families that we’ve enjoyed in our global travels. I did enquire about an upgrade to a 2 bedroom, and even though it was empty during our entire stay, there was no openness to upgrade this Globalist (without me forking over $500/night). That would have definitely put the stay over the top!

In our suite, the furniture was eclectic vintage modern and had a great vibe. There are no tubs, only showers. The bathrooms both have skylights, so during afternoon nap time, I stuffed some pillows in there for darkness. At night, the lighting in the rooms was relatively dim. There was a Nespresso machine and cream/sugar, an empty fridge too in the living room for stuff, and the minibar was in the bedroom. Speaking of minibar, this Andaz has got to be the stingiest I’ve ever seen with free snacks. What was once a brand standard is now a “do the bare minimum” unfortunately: the only complimentary snack was a very unappetizing small bag of BBQ chips and a couple of sodas. Seriously?

Our AC unit didn’t work great, so when the temps dropped we were freezing all night. To their credit, the engineering team was all over this ... twice. Super nice guys. We were out when they came the first night, and they left a little card providing a status report. I LOVED this and wish other hotels did the same. The engineer the second night got it working and all was good.

F&B: We enjoyed the Globalist “anything off the menu” breakfast. Like the best Andaz properties, this one had a creative breakfast menu like blue corn pancakes, energy bowls, and Nutella French toast. I pasted a picture of the menu below.

The staff at the restaurant varied from minimally friendly to grumpy. There seemed to be some disharmony along the waitstaff, which was a bit off-putting. I loved the open kitchen concept, and all the chefs would wave and smile if you looked in. There’s a high top “chefs table” too which would be a fun dinner for a small group.

We didn’t get the chance to circle back for any other meals or drinks, but it looked popular. In the evening they had a band outdoors (be warned if you have a bungalow near the pool and restaurant).

Pool: They had two pools and one at the spa. Really great heated pools with interesting things to float on! Neither were terribly deep. Service at the pool was ok but not terribly proactive.



Service: Overall, service was super strong at the Andaz. Generally the team was friendly and responsive. Despite the few small service misses during our stay, we were incredibly grateful for the team there. The Operations Manager texted me on the second day we were there to check-in and was very helpful over text.



Gym: Great little fitness center, although small for a resort this size. It had almost all that you could want (except a flat bench press). I really liked the garage door windows that you could open up on a warm day! At 6-7:30am I was generally the only one there. A few people trickled in around 7-7:30.



Overall: We really enjoyed our stay. The room upgrade “made” the stay, without a doubt, and the beautiful grounds, delicious breakfast, self-parking and friendly staff definitely make this a 4.3-4.5/5 stay. The gap to a 5/5 was just the kind of stuff that would put it right at the top like other Hyatts — more thoughtful snacks, the most generous Globalist room upgrades, and consistently proactive service in every area.