BHH - I just saw this bump. It looks like a lot of Texas villages were missing thier idiots, and they have all ended up at Hill Country. (Well, almost all of them.)

This makes the much maligned service at Chesapeake Bay look like PH Tokyo.

Does anybody have a more recent report?

We're thinking of going to the San Antonio area this spring. Has anyone been there recently? Any comments about either the Hill Country or the Wild Oak Ranch? Thanks, Robert

We were at Hill Country last weekend for a wonderful wedding on the grounds. While I (unfortunately) can't comment on the RC situation, I can tell you that renovations appear to be complete at the property for the moment. We had no trouble with our checking in/out. Staff were very attentive during the wedding festivities as well - escorting us where we needed to be, etc. Lazy river was wonderful on a beautiful sunny day. Reports from the bachelor party were that the golf was fantastic. I also unfortunately can't comment on the spa, sorry, wish I could! Only suggestion I have if you are not an elite expecting an upgrade is to be sure to request a room that's not on the driveway, as folks started checking out fairly early on Sunday morning which was a little noisy. Otherwise, we very much enjoyed our trip!

Thanks for the update!
 

Welcome back to ME!!! We just moved back into our house in Boulder, so we are up for a Denver / Boulder / Hyatt DTC do whenever!

Our first trip is to use up all of our FFN this month, so we are heading to Hill Country. Do we know if the RC is open?

Any help is great!

Hyatt Regency San Antonio - Hill Country
 

Likely spending sometime at the Hyatt Regency San Antonio - Hill Country resort. Anyone stay here recently? How are the facilities, the service, the Regency Club, etc? How do they treat diamonds?

Thanks.

We just completed a two night stay at the Hill Country resort. We've stayed at this resort two times before, and were not particularly impressed with this third stay. Nothing "went wrong," but nothing was memorable either...

I can't quite capture it, but something just "didn't seem right" -- the front desk staff seemed kind of put out when I asked for the Diamond upgrade and amenity ("oh, your GP# wasn't in the system" :rolleyes: -- they told this to the Diamond guy in front of me too.)...when I asked for a razor, the front desk agent said "oh, I'm out, but you can call housekeeping." why don't you offer to call housekeeping? In addition, the RC staff seemed kind of mechanical.

I'll admit that the whole Diamond recognition incident left me with a sour taste in my mouth (and that these are small things that don't merit a complaint), but they were enough to make me think about staying at the Westin La Cantera the next time I'm in SA.

On a somewhat related note -- Does Hyatt plop a lot of out of area staff at this location for training or something? The front desk staff and some others just don't seem to have the positive attitude I've experienced at other Hyatt hotels.

New Hyatt San Antonio
 

Did a FT search but could not find any current info on this.

Spent much of last week at Hyatts in Texas. Several employees at the Hyatt Regency San Antonio (on the Riverwalk) told me that a new Hyatt is being built less than a mile away (by the Convention Center). The current 600 room plus Hyatt is a franchise property so either the Hyatt Corporation or someone else is building the new 1,000 room property that should open in early 2008. I was told that the franchise tried to stop Hyatt from building another property located so close but were unable to do so. Sounds like this might be a good destination city for Hyatt Hopping in the future! The Hyatt Resort in Hill Country is only a 30 minute drive from San Antonio and the new Hyatt Lone Pine Resort 20 miles South of Austin should be opening this June. That will be 5 Hyatts within a 90 minute drive.

Sounds like a solid idea, Convention market is growing, partly due to Katrina and New Orleans unfortunately...

Not to mention the Alamo Dome/AT&T Center demand plus masses of tourists ( lots of VFR traffic from Germany ;) ) visiting the area. Even United is building a mini hub...

Yeah, United is building a mini-hub for Toyota (non-stop RJ's to interesting places like TUL, OKC, etc.)

We are considering booking for the weekend of Aug 18th-20th (Fri-Sun) and have a few questions.

I still can't tell from doing a search if the RC is open on the weekends?

I'm looking at a pretty good FHR rate that will upgrade to a club room if available. Does anyone know how busy this place gets in Aug?? Assuming the RC is open on the weekend, is it worth it to book the RC or just hope for the upgrade? The only RC I've been to is the one in the Grand Hyatt in Taipei and that one had good food and drinks and would be worth it.

Finally, we are visiting friends in San Antonio. If they came to the property to see us, can they use the resort facilities with us or will there be a charge (there will be a 6 year old who I think will enjoy the river/pool/beach).

Thanks in advance for the help!!

dunno 'bout Hyatt hopping, as my experience has been that
convention area in San Antone is almost never cheap...
LOTS of convention traffic, expensive on weekends, etc.

We have stayed at this hotel a number of times, (it's our faster free nights hotel of choice as we live in Houston.)

I have not been the the RC at this hotel, however have had free breakfast coupons every stay which have been very nice in the place downstairs, especially on Sunday with the big buffett. My daughter loves the place, though the staff is a bit touchy and certainly doesn't live up to other high end resorts. For example I had to have a big fight with the front desk manager to get a power strip as there was one free plug in the room.

On one trip we were upgraded to a nice suite, on the next trip we were not.

As for location, it's great if you are going to Seaworld, otherwise it's in the middle of nowhere.

Scott

Hill Country GM wins GM of the Year
 

I get the Hill Country newsletter. Inside there is an article:

Thomas D. Smith has been awarded the Donald M. Pritzker Award for Excellence as Hyatt GM of the Year.

11 of 124 US-based were nominated.

He has been there just over a year.

He won for several levels of consideration -- guest comments, meeting planner recommendations, employee surveys and financial well-being.

More than 24 years with Hyatt.

Started at Kansas City Hyatt Crown Center as a corporate management trainee

(I wonder where he went to university???)

Before Hill Country, he was GM of Hyatt DFW

He was GM of Hyatt Tampa for 3 years

He has had various management positions in Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, Minneapolis, Lexington, St. John, and Kansas City

Hill Country wins Sales Team of the Year
 

Out of 216 Hotel and Resorts, 42 properties fall into 501 rooms or less

10 were nominated

Tim Meyer is Director of Sales
LeAnn Benavidez is former Associate Director of Sales, now promoted to Director of Sales at Grand Hyatt Seattle

Selected by a group of senior-level directors from HQ

I stayed at this exceptional property recently. While everything was fine during the stay, my credit card was charged an additional $250 for spa services I never used. When I called about the charge, they couldn't explain it other than to say someone using my name was in the spa. Pretty hard to do when you are traveling alone! The charge was removed.