I stayed at the Grand Hyatt KL several times and thought it is a great hotel. This time I decided to try out a couple of the new hotels, the Centric and the Park Hyatt, after reading all the “rave” reviews. For context, I am globalist and paid cash for the Centric, which I found out is relevant for my impression of the Centric vs people who used points. For my stay the Centric was about 490 MYR and Grand Hyatt was 640 MYR or 30% more (For points, it was 3.5k vs 9k or 2.5 x).

Let’s start with the goods.
The pre-arrival communication was impressive. They emailed me for my room preference, which I replied a quiet room with nice view. They quickly offered a couple of choices - high floor standard king room with a peaceful setting but no city view or Premier king with balcony with city view but can be “slightly noisy” at night due to street noise. The reason I requested a quiet room is because I don’t want connecting rooms or rooms directly facing the elevator lobby because people can be talking loudly coming off the elevators. So I asked for the premier balcony room.

Now the bad.
Oh boy, little did I know the “slightly noisy” is such an understatement! I have stayed at several hotels with ear plugs on the night stand (most recently Park Hyatt Seoul), but never had to use them until now! The noise from the motorbikes at night was just horrible and constant. I think it is probably because of the balcony door being not as soundproof as the glass walls. If I were to stay here again, I will definitely avoid those rooms.

The neutral.
I thought the breakfast was fine, definitely much better than the so called breakfast they offered in the States, but I won’t rave about it either.

Another reason I wanted to try this place out is because I thought it is a closer walk to the food street in Bukit Bintang. It is closer, but the walk is on uneven pavements whereas from the Grand Hyatt it is on a covered foot bridge.

The rooftop infinite pool is nice but the pool deck is small and cramped, and people were taking selfies left and right in the pool area.

The Gand Hyatt is charging less than US$40 more a night, with bigger rooms, much bigger and quieter pool area, nice and huge breakfast selection, the Grand club, and I usually get at least a Tower view room, I will definitely stay there over the Centric. But of course if you are using points then it is a different economics.