Hyatt Regency Mission Bay Spa and Marina (San Diego) REVIEW - MASTER THREAD
Dec 14, 2009, 12:32 pm
#76
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: LAX
Posts: 10,912
Had two more stays there recently - what a great hotel - by far my favorite in SD area!
To comment on the "negatives" - closed RC means full breakfast and 2500 pts - that's one heck of a positive in my book.
Lower showerhead is sometimes a plus as one can take a shower without getting hair wet.
Parking - well even for $99+20 this is a steal for a property of this quality.
A much more questionable Sheraton La Jolla charges for parking as well.
To comment on the "negatives" - closed RC means full breakfast and 2500 pts - that's one heck of a positive in my book.
Lower showerhead is sometimes a plus as one can take a shower without getting hair wet.
Parking - well even for $99+20 this is a steal for a property of this quality.
A much more questionable Sheraton La Jolla charges for parking as well.
I stayed Friday night on a $99 LTO rate. There were good and bad points.
+ I was assigned a bay-facing room on the 17th floor of the tower. The morning view from the terrace was lovely. Really great.
+ The fitness center is a separate building that overlooks the boats in the bay. Plus, the pools are heated.
+ The desk agents were great, and did the work to process Costco certificates on a pre-paid rate.
- Parking was $20 for selfpark and $25 for valet. Mission Bay is far enough from things (except Sea World and the boats) that transit becomes useful.
- The Regency Club was closed again, with a sign until "early 2010."
- The room had only a shower. For some reason, the showerhead was only about 5'7" off the ground. I'm 6'1" and it was about even with my nose. There was no bench in the shower, either. I had to bend my back a little. Someone 6'5" would have real trouble.
+ I was assigned a bay-facing room on the 17th floor of the tower. The morning view from the terrace was lovely. Really great.
+ The fitness center is a separate building that overlooks the boats in the bay. Plus, the pools are heated.
+ The desk agents were great, and did the work to process Costco certificates on a pre-paid rate.
- Parking was $20 for selfpark and $25 for valet. Mission Bay is far enough from things (except Sea World and the boats) that transit becomes useful.
- The Regency Club was closed again, with a sign until "early 2010."
- The room had only a shower. For some reason, the showerhead was only about 5'7" off the ground. I'm 6'1" and it was about even with my nose. There was no bench in the shower, either. I had to bend my back a little. Someone 6'5" would have real trouble.
Dec 14, 2009, 1:43 pm
#77
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: OKC (Oklahoma City), Oklahoma
Programs: Marriott Gold; IHG Platinum; Insomnia Cookies
Posts: 514
I don't mean to say that the negatives equal the positives. It was a very nice evening overall. I'm not sure it's first for me in San Diego, but it's much closer to first than last.
I'm not a Diamond, so I don't get the 2500 points; in general, I would rather have the breakfast and points too.
I mentioned the parking because I didn't see it on the Hyatt page for the hotel, or with the rates, or on the factsheet. The hotel factsheets for Marriott hotels include parking and fees. Is there a place on Hyatt that lists that?
I'm not a Diamond, so I don't get the 2500 points; in general, I would rather have the breakfast and points too.
I mentioned the parking because I didn't see it on the Hyatt page for the hotel, or with the rates, or on the factsheet. The hotel factsheets for Marriott hotels include parking and fees. Is there a place on Hyatt that lists that?
Dec 14, 2009, 5:02 pm
#78
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: LAX
Posts: 10,912
Dec 14, 2009, 10:52 pm
#79
Join Date: May 2006
Location: BOS and ...
Programs: UA 2MM, AA 600k, DL 500k, Hyatt GP 1M, HH Gold, Rad. Gold, CP Gold, Miracle Fruit-su Club
Posts: 9,950
We didn't pay for self-parking over the Thanksgiving weekend. If we "snuck in" it was unwittingly. I didn't see a kiosk or gate.
Dec 17, 2009, 2:03 pm
#80
Join Date: Feb 2000
Posts: 952
I stayed here recently for the first time since the makeover---what a huge difference. I'm a diamond, used a upgrade since I had an extra, and found myself in a lovely suite. Service was great, too. Club is closed, but i did receive points/breakfast voucher.
Jan 3, 2010, 11:42 am
#81
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: HH Diamond, Marriott Gold, IHG Gold, Hyatt something
Posts: 33,544
I stayed here for 5 nights on the $129 prepaid dock suites deal. Since it was the day after Christmas, it was a little slow the first day.
Check in was easy. Free self parking for diamonds. Full breakfast for all three members. Only wired Internet free, though.
The Red Marlin restaurant was pretty good, but a bit pricey. About $50 a person before drinks, for dinner. Of course putting it on your room tab makes it easy to use the Costco Hyatt certs.
The diamond breakfast was good for the buffet or entree, and includes the taxes and tip.
The fish place past the Einsteins was good. I liked the shrimp platter the most. They take credit cards, and may be in the Entertainment book, as the most expensive item on the menu, lobster, said no coupons.
The downsides to the room were the amount of lights that make it through the blinds, and how easily you can hear people walking upstairs, and the cleaning carts going by.
The staff here were very helpful, and checkout was great, with the bill being exactly right! That's amazing unto itself.
Check in was easy. Free self parking for diamonds. Full breakfast for all three members. Only wired Internet free, though.
The Red Marlin restaurant was pretty good, but a bit pricey. About $50 a person before drinks, for dinner. Of course putting it on your room tab makes it easy to use the Costco Hyatt certs.
The diamond breakfast was good for the buffet or entree, and includes the taxes and tip.
The fish place past the Einsteins was good. I liked the shrimp platter the most. They take credit cards, and may be in the Entertainment book, as the most expensive item on the menu, lobster, said no coupons.
The downsides to the room were the amount of lights that make it through the blinds, and how easily you can hear people walking upstairs, and the cleaning carts going by.
The staff here were very helpful, and checkout was great, with the bill being exactly right! That's amazing unto itself.
Jan 3, 2010, 12:43 pm
#82
Ambassador: World of Hyatt
Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: San Diego,CA
Posts: 10,092
I stayed here for 5 nights on the $129 prepaid dock suites deal. Since it was the day after Christmas, it was a little slow the first day.
Check in was easy. Free self parking for diamonds. Full breakfast for all three members. Only wired Internet free, though.
The Red Marlin restaurant was pretty good, but a bit pricey. About $50 a person before drinks, for dinner. Of course putting it on your room tab makes it easy to use the Costco Hyatt certs.
The diamond breakfast was good for the buffet or entree, and includes the taxes and tip.
The fish place past the Einsteins was good. I liked the shrimp platter the most. They take credit cards, and may be in the Entertainment book, as the most expensive item on the menu, lobster, said no coupons.
The downsides to the room were the amount of lights that make it through the blinds, and how easily you can hear people walking upstairs, and the cleaning carts going by.
The staff here were very helpful, and checkout was great, with the bill being exactly right! That's amazing unto itself.
Check in was easy. Free self parking for diamonds. Full breakfast for all three members. Only wired Internet free, though.
The Red Marlin restaurant was pretty good, but a bit pricey. About $50 a person before drinks, for dinner. Of course putting it on your room tab makes it easy to use the Costco Hyatt certs.
The diamond breakfast was good for the buffet or entree, and includes the taxes and tip.
The fish place past the Einsteins was good. I liked the shrimp platter the most. They take credit cards, and may be in the Entertainment book, as the most expensive item on the menu, lobster, said no coupons.
The downsides to the room were the amount of lights that make it through the blinds, and how easily you can hear people walking upstairs, and the cleaning carts going by.
The staff here were very helpful, and checkout was great, with the bill being exactly right! That's amazing unto itself.
Agree Red Marlin is very good and with the gift checks a great deal when considering any fine dining in the city of San Diego value wise
Jan 3, 2010, 2:04 pm
#83
Join Date: May 2006
Location: BOS and ...
Programs: UA 2MM, AA 600k, DL 500k, Hyatt GP 1M, HH Gold, Rad. Gold, CP Gold, Miracle Fruit-su Club
Posts: 9,950
Jan 3, 2010, 2:25 pm
#84
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: HH Diamond, Marriott Gold, IHG Gold, Hyatt something
Posts: 33,544
Spoke with the hotel parking is not included for Diamonds Be interested who said that at the hotel otherwise I should get a refund
Agree Red Marlin is very good and with the gift checks a great deal when considering any fine dining in the city of San Diego value wise
Agree Red Marlin is very good and with the gift checks a great deal when considering any fine dining in the city of San Diego value wise
The Chef's menu in the Red Marlin for dinner is decent, getting you a salad or soup and dessert as well for under $40.
Jan 3, 2010, 3:02 pm
#85
Join Date: May 2006
Location: BOS and ...
Programs: UA 2MM, AA 600k, DL 500k, Hyatt GP 1M, HH Gold, Rad. Gold, CP Gold, Miracle Fruit-su Club
Posts: 9,950
Jan 4, 2010, 8:43 pm
#87
Join Date: Jul 2009
Programs: HH: Diamond, WofH: Globalist, UA: 1k, Longterm member only post when I have something new to ask/say
Posts: 165
Not a great stay...
Stayed here for a week over Christmas. Used a Diamond electronic upgrade certificate. Asked, on check-in, and in the reservation notes, for a quiet room on a high floor away from elevators/ice machines (have a light sleeping two year old). Was assigned to a suite on the second floor of a three floor building with a room directly opposite the entrance to the health club. There was a ton of noise as people approached and left the health club, and we got to hear a lot of chit-chat about the equipment, the gates, cursing due to keys that didn't work and so on. Also lots of corridor noise, and noise from the floor above us, and the balcony to the suites have easily climbable bars and I have two children who seem to aspire to be monkeys. After three days of disturbed sleep, we asked to move to a quieter room ~ our only option was to move to a regular room in the tower, and pay for a second adjoining room since none of the corner suites were available in the tower. As a 'concession' since I was no longer able to use the suite upgrade, they charged me only 50% of what I was paying for the first room, for the second room. On returning to the new rooms (they moved our stuff since the new rooms were not available until the afternoon) on the 9th floor after a day out at Seaworld, we discovered, late at night, that one of them shared a wall with the elevator - associated shuddering of furniture, and elevator groans and dings audible through the wall. Next day, asked again for a quiet room, as originally requested in the reservation notes and on check-in. Assigned two new rooms on the 19th floor, and assured they were away from the elevator - same deal as before, not available until the afternoon, but they would move our stuff. Off out for a day at the zoo, and returned to discover the new 19th floor rooms were actually opposite the elevator. So no longer sharing a wall, but still hearing all the dings and corridor chat. Too late to move, no more rooms available. The following day, asked for a manager and was finally assigned a quiet corner suite (using the upgrade). So for the last two nights of seven, we finally got that quiet room we'd requested. And it was very nice.
Some other notes. The breakfast staff in the Red Marlin restaurant were quite shameless about insisting, even after being told we were using Diamond certificates and being offered those certificates, on first bringing a check with the amount we would have been spending circled "so you know what the total is" - in other words, so you know what to tip them. We tipped them $10 a day (two adults, two kids under five, breakfast in the region of $60 and I always leave waiters something when using certificates because there is invariably cereal, crumbs etc. under our table) however, I really felt these waiters went above and beyond in extracting their tips - during our seven breakfasts, we heard at least a couple of other tables trying to figure out why their AAA or whatever coupons said "tax and tip included" but the waiters were making it clear they expected a tip on the total.
I thought the quality of the breakfasts was pretty poor - they put the "hot" dishes into Le Creuset cast iron pots, (a) these don't keep the food properly warm, and (b) every breakfast one hapless guest dropped a lid with a loud clang, surprised by how heavy the cast iron was. If you ordered from the menu, the food arrived hot and the quality was much better (scrambled eggs on the buffet always tasted like they were made from egg liquid and were cold & clumpy, eggs benedict from the menu were consistently excellent, hot and perfectly cooked). In the seven days we were there, there were only very minor changes in the buffet ~ on Christmas day they had smoked salmon as a choice, and on other days the hot gooey dish was sometimes French toast, sometimes waffles, sometimes blintzes.
Summary:
Breakfasts: In general, this hotel was on the very low end of Hyatt hotel breakfasts. Mediocre food and pushy waiters. Not a great experience.
Rooms: I thought the suites were a bit dated, and as others have noted, the old metal blinds don't keep the morning sun out. The rooms in the towers have blackout fabric, and so the room darkens properly. I think the bars on the balconies in the suites are an accident waiting to happen for families with kids who climb.
Front desk staff: Unlike the earlier poster, I was charged for parking for the two days we had a car, $20 a day, and was told this was the rate at check-in. The check-in person knew I was Diamond (gave me the breakfast coupons). In general, I found the check-in staff pleasant but unacceptably clueless about what a quiet room was (seriously, FOUR room moves in week?) and not very quick - long lines were the norm and when I checked out, the check-out person disappeared into the back without explanation and didn't come back, making the entire line behind me irritated. Another guest asked the doorman, and he also disappeared. When someone else came out, he said the first person had gone to take a telephone call.
Pools: These were great, the slides were excellent, and the one day we used them, the life guard on duty went above and beyond in signaling me about which slide my elder child was coming down so I could catch her.
Housekeeping: No complaints, as expected. However, we did leave a t-shirt and a shoe behind during the four room changes. Shoe returned, t-shirt not.
Overall: We visit SD regularly - I wouldn't choose to stay here again. There are other good options.
Some other notes. The breakfast staff in the Red Marlin restaurant were quite shameless about insisting, even after being told we were using Diamond certificates and being offered those certificates, on first bringing a check with the amount we would have been spending circled "so you know what the total is" - in other words, so you know what to tip them. We tipped them $10 a day (two adults, two kids under five, breakfast in the region of $60 and I always leave waiters something when using certificates because there is invariably cereal, crumbs etc. under our table) however, I really felt these waiters went above and beyond in extracting their tips - during our seven breakfasts, we heard at least a couple of other tables trying to figure out why their AAA or whatever coupons said "tax and tip included" but the waiters were making it clear they expected a tip on the total.
I thought the quality of the breakfasts was pretty poor - they put the "hot" dishes into Le Creuset cast iron pots, (a) these don't keep the food properly warm, and (b) every breakfast one hapless guest dropped a lid with a loud clang, surprised by how heavy the cast iron was. If you ordered from the menu, the food arrived hot and the quality was much better (scrambled eggs on the buffet always tasted like they were made from egg liquid and were cold & clumpy, eggs benedict from the menu were consistently excellent, hot and perfectly cooked). In the seven days we were there, there were only very minor changes in the buffet ~ on Christmas day they had smoked salmon as a choice, and on other days the hot gooey dish was sometimes French toast, sometimes waffles, sometimes blintzes.
Summary:
Breakfasts: In general, this hotel was on the very low end of Hyatt hotel breakfasts. Mediocre food and pushy waiters. Not a great experience.
Rooms: I thought the suites were a bit dated, and as others have noted, the old metal blinds don't keep the morning sun out. The rooms in the towers have blackout fabric, and so the room darkens properly. I think the bars on the balconies in the suites are an accident waiting to happen for families with kids who climb.
Front desk staff: Unlike the earlier poster, I was charged for parking for the two days we had a car, $20 a day, and was told this was the rate at check-in. The check-in person knew I was Diamond (gave me the breakfast coupons). In general, I found the check-in staff pleasant but unacceptably clueless about what a quiet room was (seriously, FOUR room moves in week?) and not very quick - long lines were the norm and when I checked out, the check-out person disappeared into the back without explanation and didn't come back, making the entire line behind me irritated. Another guest asked the doorman, and he also disappeared. When someone else came out, he said the first person had gone to take a telephone call.
Pools: These were great, the slides were excellent, and the one day we used them, the life guard on duty went above and beyond in signaling me about which slide my elder child was coming down so I could catch her.
Housekeeping: No complaints, as expected. However, we did leave a t-shirt and a shoe behind during the four room changes. Shoe returned, t-shirt not.
Overall: We visit SD regularly - I wouldn't choose to stay here again. There are other good options.
Jan 4, 2010, 9:43 pm
#88
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: HH Diamond, Marriott Gold, IHG Gold, Hyatt something
Posts: 33,544
The certs clearly said that tax and gratuity were included. So when they brought the bills, I just wrote "Diamond certificate" on the total line. If the tip is included, it's included. No need to spend any more money.
I'm not sure if I spotted you or not. I saw someone a couple of times in the restaurant. Kind of a tall guy with spikey blond hair, with two smallish kids.
I'm not sure about the parking. I had booked their Suite specials, but it didn't indicate anything about parking. I just inquired when checking in that it was a complimentary. I parked in front of the suites (not the garage).
I was in the other wing on the second floor, above the Einstein Bagels.
I'm not sure if I spotted you or not. I saw someone a couple of times in the restaurant. Kind of a tall guy with spikey blond hair, with two smallish kids.
I'm not sure about the parking. I had booked their Suite specials, but it didn't indicate anything about parking. I just inquired when checking in that it was a complimentary. I parked in front of the suites (not the garage).
I was in the other wing on the second floor, above the Einstein Bagels.
Jan 4, 2010, 10:06 pm
#89
Join Date: May 2006
Location: BOS and ...
Programs: UA 2MM, AA 600k, DL 500k, Hyatt GP 1M, HH Gold, Rad. Gold, CP Gold, Miracle Fruit-su Club
Posts: 9,950
We parked freely beside the suites. Just as a tip, if I'd encountered a restricted lot, I'd have gone around to the lagoon (not marina) side by where they often set up the tent, and parked there. It's always been free, now that I think of it.
Jan 4, 2010, 10:15 pm
#90
Join Date: May 2009
Location: YLW
Posts: 34
We were there Dec 22-24 in one of the Marina suites, and while we enjoyed our stay, "quiet" is not a word I would use to describe the hotel. Our suite was 2nd from the end next to the loading dock, and one morning a uniform truck pulled up at 8am and began running something that was really loud. The second morning we were woken by a couple of really loud sea lions out on the docks.
We paid to park in front of the suites, although I never saw anybody checking for tags in the lot, and I saw quite a few without tags. I had great service from both the front desk and the concierge desk, and had no complaints about housekeeping.
I will add that we stayed at 5 Hyatts on this trip, and Mission Bay was one of only 2 to post the points properly.
We paid to park in front of the suites, although I never saw anybody checking for tags in the lot, and I saw quite a few without tags. I had great service from both the front desk and the concierge desk, and had no complaints about housekeeping.
I will add that we stayed at 5 Hyatts on this trip, and Mission Bay was one of only 2 to post the points properly.