Aventine

That IC sounds horrible. I wonder if the KE owners' wife also goes around there and writes down lighting fixtures to be turned off or down at night to save energy (aka money)! She did that at GH Incheon. The lighting at night there looks like a submarine on battle alert.

Aventine

GH Kuala Lumpur

Very spacious with a partial view of the Petronas towers. Food suitable for a light dinner with decent selection of drinks. Staff are friendly and attentive. GC Breakfast has an egg menu but hotel is generous enough to let you have breakfast at Thirty8.

GH Jakarta
I found a pubic hair here and never went back. This lounge also gets very busy and noisy with expats. The hotel is an older one and the lounge isn't anything to write home about. Hygiene is a big issue in Indonesia.

HR Osaka
Recently built and very new. Cavernous with plenty of tables and seats with an Osaka Bay view. Delicious pastries and enough selection to make a filling breakfast and dinner from. Omelettes made to order. Tempura shrimp skewers, potstickers and a lot more at dinner.

Loved their cookies selection from between breakfast and dinner. Not the most ideally located Hyatt but a wonderful lounge to enjoy.

HR Jeju
A cramped, small lounge with way too many guests during the peak summer and holiday periods. Offerings are as sparse as the lounge. Very basic continental items with one hot serving tray of powdered eggs that gets overrun very quickly. Poor quality pre packaged breads. Not even good for grabbing water as the fridges are guarded by attendants.

MarkOK

HR Grand Cypress and HR Lake Tahoe also have free wine/beer....

For me, Clubs are very nice for longer stays when I am working for part/all of the stay. Access to printers is a huge benefit, as is quick/easy breakfast, light snacks, and at some locations a very nice evening outlay that can serve quick and easy evening meal needs (assuming I eat a decent lunch). I worked out of GH Buckhead for about 6 hours a day for a week and a half over the summer pretty much from the lounge and it was very comfortable (nice desk, printers, good espresso machine, and those chewy nutty bars they have were great! The only issue is that location doesn't have a bathroom attached to the lounge). So, for some of my stays, a club is a HUGE factor in choosing that hotel.

If I am on just a pleasure stay,I would prefer a restaurant breakfast anyways since I have the time and most GH/HR Hyatt restaurants serve great breakfasts. Similarly, if I am on a short stay, I never seem to make it to the club anyways other than for breakfast. So, I like that some don't have clubs so that I can get a restaurant breakfast benefit instead.

As for improvements, it is usually location specific, but to generalize:
1. A few clubs lock up after a given hour -- this is an big annoyance if I get in late and want to grab a couple waters. Not sure why all clubs can't be kept accessible.
2. Clubs without service on weekends (but may still be accessed) should make a better effort to restock water/drinks still. I've seen fridges get cleared by 8PM on Friday night and not restocked until the Sunday evening person gets in at 5.
3. Hot food offerings at many locations are severely lacking at breakfast. Always makes me (and more so the wife) sad when there is no hot eggs/sausage (or the like) and severely reduces our valuation of the given club. Though, I understand eggs don't have a shelf-life and only work when there is sufficient turnover, a small pot with sausage links/patties can usually be kept warm all morning without real compromise.

CIT85

Quality of Regency Clubs in the US are usually slightly better than Executive Lounges at Marriott/Sheraton/Hilton, smoked salmon being a major factor. I actually told the GM at HR Etoile in Paris that their RC needs to have smoked salmon to be on par with US RC.

I specifically like to have access to Perrier or S. Pelligrino in the RC/GC.

I was disappointed that HR Dallas, Houston, Newport Beach, John Wayne Airport, Orange County/Anaheim, and Monterey do not have RC. I commented this fact to a lady at HR Dallas when they were doing promotional event, she had room service deliver 4 bottles of Perrier to my room later that afternoon.

Monterey RC used to be very good before it was closed many years ago. The hotel gave out a coffee/tea card which allows you to get coffee and tea at the Market anytime in lieu of RC.

HR Dongguan RC has decent food and beverages. You can also order from a limited menu in the evening small dishes.

HR Hangzhou RC is very good, nice selection of food and beverages and looks out at West Lake.

GH Beijing has one of the best GC I have ever been to. Wide selection of drinks and fruit juices, large selection of food in the evening (more than enough to serve as dinner), and menu of 4 different items to order from. GH Shanghai is a disappointment compared to GH Bejing.

GH Berlin GC is good, but gets very crowded with limited seating in the evening. Lounge attendants are kept busy restocking everything, especially food and wines in the evening.

sch_flyer

The best US RC I've been to is at the Hyatt Regency Guam (technically still US!) - they serve a full breakfast with multiple hot and cold options, and dinner-worthy spread for evening cocktails with free alcohol. And the outdoor balcony offered the best views of sunsets on the island - made even better by free flowing wine. If only it wasn't so far to get to from the mainland!

jameswes

I'm totally with you on that. I don't know exactly why, but I love a bottle of sparkling water.

Aventine

Bonus if they have lemon or slices of lime for a twist!

frogss29

In all the Hyatt clubs we have been to, it is not so much the food offerings that encourage us to come back .
It is the staff.
Hyatt Regency Maui stands out as a winner in our book.
Same with Hyatt Regency Waikiki.
Both Club staff make us feel valued and special. And they do the same thing with all their guests, not just us.
LOVE Grand Hyatt Hong Kong.......but that is probably because the food etc is amazing. Staff are good, too
Hyatt Regency Churchill London leaves us cold and unimpressed.......so much so, that we wont go there anymore.

777 global mile hound

Appreciate enthusiastic feedback of the good and the bad .The have a solid service culture I'd like to see Andaz Maui get under their belt better

I agree many of the team members are good at both Hyatts in Hawaii
Grand Hyatt Hong Kong has vastly improved in my most recent stay compared to years ago pre-renovation.
I hadn't been there since the hotel was renovated.It looked great and the team as you state quite impressive.
Added to that the outstanding guest service manager previously of Park Hyatt Sydney fame is there doing a great job and I met the GM who I had the pleasure of meeting a prince of a fellow.
The Italian restaurant had one of the best bowls of minestrone soup I've ever had in and out of Italy in my lifetime and the bread they bake in ovens is simply getting me heavier just thinking about it
As you walk in the door of the restaurant and smell the bread baking it is simply setting one up for a carb overdose.The bread was sensational I didn't want my meal I just wanted to eat loaves of bread lol
Why can't Hyatt do food and baking like that in the US? Management kindly arranged for me to meet the chef and no surprise he is a true Italian!

As for HR Churchill. I really like the hotel and they have a fantastic guest services manager if you ever decide to give it a try again I will share with you my contact.She is amazing
The service culture is more formal sedated and low key in London as it is throughout Europe to a fair degree.I deeply respect and appreciate it as I have gotten older.
I didn't get in my 20s
I've always felt the property still makes Hyatt proud even with the somewhat dated facility.I'm always very comfortable there and they go out of their way to make me happy
I'm back there in the New Year though I do have my slight criticisms for the hotel.Montagu once the pride of London has fallen in the consistency of food quality one day good next day bad
They lost some of their best team members in and out of the kitchen and its unknown what the experience will be once you are seated
Must admit though I also now stay in other hotels due to the slippage I love their location and they have always been serious about trying to deliver high quality levels of service as possible
For myself as a guest actions and commitment always speaks louder than the success or a failure of a stay.The world is not perfect in or out of hotels

AirbusFan2B

777 global mile hound

The topic is Executive Lounge feedback despite the off topic conversations that happen when we are passionate about Hyatt
What's working, not working.In decades Hyatt has never once issued a survey (at least to me) to see if Clubs are satisfying their elite members and paying guest who buy up unless one compliments or complains
The consistency,,variety and quality of what they were decades ago in some markets is vastly changed for the better and the worse.
For example I know almost totally avoid all Hiltons with Club lounges in the US as quality has slipped.
Overseasin select markets they knock it out of the ball park with outstanding choices that let the guest have it their way to optimize and minimize or maximize the experience
I wanted to bring as much information to share the good the bad and what some of the cutbacks which has affected my personal business and perhaps that of others
Gathering others perspectives from seasoned fellow Hyatt travelers helps to see if my own thoughts aligns with others generally

Denver HR Adrian is a class act! Good to know he is still with the company
Thanks for the post!

CloudCoder

I think of a club as a downgrade. If two properties are equal, and one has a club ... then I'm going to chose the one WITHOUT the club, every time. The reason is the quality of the breakfast. A Globalist restaurant breakfast is far superior to a club breakfast, in every case.

Yet one nice thing about a club is the availability of drinks (non-alcoholic: I never imbibe). It seems to me that the real sweet spot would be a hotel with no club, but with a place for Globalists to get drinks. The HR North Dallas seems to do it right: no club, restaurant breakfast, and Globalists get a generous allowance of items from the small store adjacent to the front desk. Or HR Santa Clara: club is closed on weekends, but the room is actually open and you can get drinks from the fridge. Or HR Bloomington MN ... same deal (club is closed on certain days, yet it's open and you can get drinks). When I say "drinks" I mean bottled water, soft drinks, etc. I recognize that free booze is a big draw for some people, but it's absolutely meaningless to me (and if I had my druthers, None of my Hyatt spend would go toward subsidizing free booze for others).

There are a VERY few clubs where the concierge service is amazing. HR Minneapolis comes to mind. Some clubs offer a fabulous view. HR St. Louis at the Arch and HR New Orleans.

If I could make ONE improvement in the club structure: on days when the club is crowded, I wish the front desk would give Globalists the option to have breakfast in the restaurant. It helps the guest and it helps the club. BTW, on crowded days, I wonder if ALL those folks are Globalists? Or did they get club access by some other way? In more than a few instances, the Globalist club breakfast benefit was completely unavailable (depleted items, no place to sit, etc.) due to overcrowding.

Overall, the single biggest benefit of the club (to me) is bottled non-alcoholic drinks. As far as I'm concerned, Hyatt could supply them in the room for far less cost and bother, and I'd be equally happy.

txhyattlvr

We, too tend to avoid the clubs as we strongly prefer the Globalist breakfast benefit.

In terms of the clubs themselves, quality, etc., like with most things the issue is probably economic.

Particularly in the US, I strongly suspect that **VERY** few people these days actually pay extra for club access. The vast majority are getting the club "for free" through some kind of perk/benefit (Globalist/Explorist). This is why Hilton is basically phasing out clubs in North America (they deny it, but they are). Hyatt obviously sees a loyalty issue and continues to build new clubs at new HR's and GH's, but is anyone else really doing that? Ritz Carlton has amazing clubs, but they also don't give access away...

IMHO, unless people are actually willing to pay extra, you'll continue to see club quality decline...

777 global mile hound

Good Post and interesting
Ritz Carlton does do a great job
Great memories of Ritz Carlton Battery Park Club which made me leave Andaz Wall Street or stay less frequently.
It wasn't much more expensive on weekends and the room and food and beverage room standard/brand maintenance was vastly superior
I too find myself avoiding clubs over the past yeares and looking for a hotel restaurant instead in or out of the hotel as quality and experience have declined in some markets
When a club is well run with a small variety of high quality items I am still delighted to use the club for ease and get back to work productivity or leisure

I'd like to add club access isn’t truly free for Globalists any more than breakfast is or that free nigh you redeem.Yes they say and it is a reward for your loyalty/business
However you slice and dice it its built into the cost of the room
Ritz Carlton team members are empowered to fix guest service failures up to thousands of dollars per guest per stay to make things right.
To offer that brand standard you have to charge more for your product
That guest expects a most defect free experience and high quality standards

I don't believe Hyatt has to go to that extreme but it should offer an overall high quality standard that it has offered historically and does to this day around the world when the hotels are on point
And many still are to a fair degree thankfully

smilee

As far as North America goes, I think Hyatt clubs over the past 20 years have improved. They are larger as many hotels have expanded the size or location of the clubs. Unfortunately some clubs used to have a free happy hour in the evening and serve free wine/beer I don't think any North American ones do now.

The resorts typically have the best clubs in the USA. As far as resorts the clubs in Hawaii stand out for me. Excellent service and I love the fact I can get snacks or drinks mid day as I often spend hours at the resort. Scottsdale is also excellent and busy during the morning and day as people are enjoying the resort and the pools.

Even some hotels I frequent most often such as Bellevue WA, and Vancouver Canada, the service in the club also is what keeps me coming back. I don't go that often maybe 6-12 stays a year, but they always remember me and take a genuine interest in making my stay better any way they can. When I talk to others its not just me, but the Regency Club staff go out of their way for them too.

The biggest reason I have been loyal to Hyatt for so many years is the Club access. Lounges are excellent for when you are busy, just need to grab a drink or snack, or feel that you are "appreciated" for being loyal.