The frustration with this property started long before the actual stay last week when the Hyatt Place at Charles de Gaulles airport in Paris started spamming my inbox multiple times trying to sell me “upgrade options” that I should get as a Globalist anyway: Late check out, breakfast, a better room. Actually- plenty of room upgrade options were available and offered for extra money but once we arrived, surprise surprise, of course we only got a stock standard room with views into the dead boring inner courtyard (think staring at other rooms on the opposite side), that was deemed available for us Globalists.

This makes me furious- it has a very “Accor” feel to it (happens to be France so maybe that’s it!). One email maybe but not multiple times, and adjust your spam for Globalists so it reflects their included perks. Sending multiple emails trying to peddle their breakfast which I get anyway is just a bad look and once you endure the disaster that this breakfast is- oh my gosh!

So, from the start: Location good if you want to stay right in the departure route from one of CDG’s runways (I personally did not mind at all checking my Flightradar app every two minutes or so to see which “exotic” European or African budget airline was roaring over our heads this time around [img]data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7[/img]). Close enough to the airport itself but the property has the audacity to fleece guests extra for the transfer bus which, of course, gets shoved into your throat at several occasions (“Have you booked your transfer?”). I assume that many guests have clued up that you can use Uber or Bolt from the terminals for about the same price as two people on their transfer bus, just way more convenient and with less waiting. As a result, their bus ran mostly near empty and they felt the need to constantly advertise this “service”. Likewise, parking is a rip off at a property like this out in the middle of nowhere and -strangely- the parking lot comes with a messy queue of mostly local taxis that spend seemingly all day trying to get one of the oddly publicly available Tesla superchargers that seemed to fit nowhere else than this €18 a day hotel parking lot. Head scratch… And forget about using the charging facility as a hotel guest unless you’re keen on waiting in line for at least an hour or two- good luck!

Property was the first Hyatt property in a very long time that did not allow Hyatt app check in but instead emailed you to try and get you to use a dodgy self-made property specific check in system which of course would not allow you any customisation as a loyalty member. Check in at the desk instead was close to pleasant despite the refusal for any Globalist upgrade or, heaven forbid, at least the standard thank you for your loyalty. Nope, nothing. At least our room was ready on early arrival but the property seemed half empty during our stay anyway which makes the lack of upgrade even more infuriating. Clearly one of those properties that wants the bookings through Hyatt but does not care to give back to its loyalty program.

The stingy management theme went through our entire stay. Staff ranged between disengaged and outright rude, the little grab and go store down at the lobby charged about three times as much as a local supermarket would (we checked, double wasn’t enough for this property’s greed) and the room was a pretty standard Hyatt Place room with a barely working aircon (the first of many in Europe- an ongoing and seemingly continent-wide issue) combined with a plastic Duvet and pillows as well as a horrible mattress topper that felt like made of rubber, presumingly to prevent spills and bodily liquids from soiling the way too soft mattress underneath. We did like the little robot cleaner in the hallway that did a better job than any of the human staff combined and appreciated the bar downstairs that had pretty nice local beers on tap for a quick wind down in the evening (though a free welcome drink wouldn’t have harmed).

The in room coffee maker, however, not only was a really weird model but essentially useless as no milk or at least powered creamer was provided. And we did not even bother to ask as we learnt the hard way that any requests are a waste of time: Housekeeping had decided to “forget” replenishing the toilet paper during the mid-stay clean which is a big oversight in itself, but when I tried to obtain another roll, oh my, did this expose how bad this property is being operated: First I tried downstairs at reception at 10pm and the usual disengaged staff told me they had to ask a colleague to bring one up- eyes roll. Said magic colleague of course never showed up so I called down an hour later at 11pm and was told it was yet to come. Another half hour, another call, this time at 11.30pm and I was told in an annoyed tone that the lady on the phone would “bring it up herself”. Over half an hour later, we decided to use some of our own handkerchiefs for business and went to bed. We’re talking toilet paper here so this could have been quite a disaster which might explain the rubber mattress topper 😬. But the best is yet to come: Around 1am in the night and roughly three hours after my initial pledge for toilet paper at reception, the phone suddenly my rang in our room, waking up in our sleep but I could not catch the phone in time. I had a suspicion and voila, a minute later it rang again (!!!) to tell us the long awaited toilet paper had arrived. In the morning we woke up to a beautiful display of toilet paper on our door handle which very clearly had a “Do not disturb sign” on it. Three hours for toilet paper and then waking you up during your sleep ignoring the DnD sign. Worst service in a very long time.


To finish off, the much advertised breakfast buffet which was totally overpriced but “luckily” included for us as Globalists, was a total disaster. The promised made to order omelettes did not exist as one would require able staff for such a service, the pre-made eggs and poultry sausages were god-awful and staff struggled cleaning up tables and replenishing basics like juice and cold milk for the cereal. After asking in my best French for some cold milk, I was offered hot milk instead by a trying but unfortunately unskilled kitchen helper while the supervisor (or similar) appeared towards the end of breakfast time and could not find anything more important than upping the pile of green apples and replenishing the bowls of which there were plenty, rather than refilling the milk. My partner made a game out of making it VERY obvious when things were empty (turning the milk jug upside down, rummaging through the tea selection looking for the flavour that he already knew wasn’t there etc. 😂 alas to no avail). We saw many other guests constantly searching for missing items or attempting to get the staff to help with any of it- and that included a lot of native French speakers so it wasn’t a language but rather a service problem. Again a total fail and like the toilet paper issue, so easy to fix with a bit of staff training and maybe not only employing the cheapest possible recent immigrants that management can find in order to pay a Euro or two less per hour.

Finally, just to compare: I understand that this is an airport property and no Park Hyatt. But we have stayed many times at similar Hyatt Place hotels and this one is exceptionally bad in comparison, especially as the room rates are more expensive than elsewhere: I am thinking of the one at DFW airport in Dallas TX which is also not a beauty but the transfer bus is free and staff always very friendly and welcoming or, much closer to Paris, the one at Frankfurt airport in Germany which has always been excellent, gives us the best available room every single time, a welcome drink on top, and actually has a yummy and well run breakfast. Again- zero excuses for this mess.