Originally Posted by
SanDiego1K
For me, it is view versus no view. Carmel Highlands has a stunning view of the Big Sur coastline. We've always had a room with a great view there though I know there are rooms without a view. The Monterey Hyatt is more like a motel with long low buildings spread along a golf course. I've been there a couple times, have had a suite, but nothing interesting to see. I've stayed at the Monterey Hyatt for similar reasons to [MENTION=19379]saint[/MENTION] - a stay credit at an affordable rate. Otherwise, I have no interest in returning.
And saint, thanks for your excellent report. I feel very sad for the front desk employees having to deal with unreasonable guests.
Oh yeah there is NO comparison at all with Carmel Highlands vs. here. Still, I don't think I could justify spending $$$ (unless it was a great rate) or 30,000 points at Carmel Highlands unless I had an ocean view room. NO way I could justify spending that many points for a Garden view room at Highlands Inn. Yes, exactly, from the outside it looks like a motel with a golf course next to it. Nope, NOTHING interesting to see. I'd ok to burn a free night certificate or if you won't be in the room too long. Still, I was happily surprised the hard product was as nice as it was as the outside of the hotel looks really poor.
I did feel sorry for the hotel employee. That guest looked like one of those Bay Area snobs that was acting like she was paying $1,000 a night when she probably had a $150/night rate. Still, I think it would have went down better if the Hyatt employee better communicated the situation. She could have de-escalated the situation by not raising her voice. And then the guy started getting angry as well and just made the situation worse. Like the woman, I too wondering what would happen if we came back at 4 PM and it was still down how they would handle it? Instead of a "I don't know let's wait and see if it comes to that" answer they could have said, "We're really sorry. This has never happened to us before and NOT usual. We don't believe it will take long at all and .......". I think what made the lady so angry is they both looked like deer in the headlights and weren't giving calm collected answers and also were raising their voices too. Just fed the situation. That's why we decided to stay calm. Told them we would politely wait outside for 15 minutes. They both looked at one another like they couldn't believe how calm we were. And that de-escalated the situation and they both became calm and came in to get us 10 minutes later. Good outcome. If the system was still down 5 minutes later we would have just left our bags with them and came back later. Life is truly too short to be a jerk.
Originally Posted by
madderlake
Thanks for the review [MENTION=19379]saint[/MENTION]. What did you end up doing for lunch/dinner - anything nearby you can walk to or did you drive into town? The reviews on Google are horrible for this property right now... not sure why but your account of that woman at check-in sounds a lot like the complaints online!
We ended up going over to Pebble Beach to eat lunch. We drove over to Fisherman's Wharf. It's only around a 7 minute drive from the hotel to that area. There didn't seem like anything too exciting to eat in that area. We much preferred to go back to Pebble Beach with the amazing view there. All the restaurants are closed for indoor dining but you can call to make reservations for the restaurants -
https://www.pebblebeach.com/dining/. You can call the # and the receptionist has the reservations schedule for ALL of the restaurants including at the Spanish Inn so it makes it easy. We ended up eating at the Bench and Stillwater Bar and Grill and the food was really great.
You could probably walk to the Fisherman's Wharf area but it would take about 30 minutes. Driving to Pebble Beach is very close. They had bikes outside of the hotel. I think they usually allow you to use them free. I'm not sure with COVID if you can use them. We didn't ask but they had a lot of bikes out ready so maybe. That would be an easy bike ride to that area. The Aquarium was unfortunately closed.
I didn't read any reviews at all of the hotel including on this forum. We didn't plan to originally stay there but then we saw that with the Hyatt Promotion we would have gotten 2,500 for the first stay and then my wife was hitting her 10th different property so she got another Category 1-4 free night award and was also hitting her 30th night stay this year so another free Category 1-4 night so we figured it was worth going to.
Originally Posted by
beachfan
Thanks for the review.
I have a stay at Ventana in October and to augment it,debating between Highlands Inn (points, no rebate), Carmel Valley Ranch (points, no rebate) or here (chase free night awards).
I had decided on Highlands over CVR as the latter seemed family oriented with crowded pools (we do daily swims at resorts) But the Highland reviews have been mixed beyond the fabulous view.
it seems like the hard product, at least your suite, was nice, and the property is spread out, which I assume is better for social distancing.
Without restaurants open , it seems like the gap between highlands and here is narrower.
thanks for the review!
For what it's worth the pool was absolutely empty at Carmel Highlands Inn the 3 nights we were there. The pool was totally packed at Monterey HR both when we checked in and when we got home late afternoon and also when we checked out the following afternoon. If daily swims are important than I wouldn't pick Monterey for that. TONS of young kids. I read amazing things about CVR and will look to stay there on a future visit. I thought it was further from downtown Carmel but looking on Google maps it looks like 14 minutes vs. 11 minutes from Highland Inn.
Also, just as a footnote, my stay from yesterday already posted and even though they gave that $30 breakfast credit, we also got 500 points for the no breakfast.