Park Hyatt Washington D.C. REVIEW - MASTER THREAD
 

I received word the PH Washington finally reopened yesterday after many delays in their opening date. Has anyone been there yet and can provide a report? I know they got rid of the horrible bathroom showers and replaced them with new rainfall showers like Hotel Victor and I imagine the hotel should be beautiful.

I will be there July 4th weekend but imagine some FT has already been there!

I stayed in DC last week (but not at the PH), but went to the PH and they gave me a nice tour of a Park Deluxe and a park twin. I did stay in the old rendition, and might here if for a longer stay.

Lobby: nice, trendy, but a little bit dull. You can tell that the space used to be the old PH. The cherry tree paintings as you enter are neat, though.

Blue Duck Tavern: Menu looked good, though not overly creative. More creative than Melrose was. Kind of cool how they tell you where each thing is from. It is nicer than Melrose was, but I was not overly impressed by the "open kitchen." For example, L'atelier de Joel Robuchon is a much more impressive "open kitchen." Nothing seemed to be happening in this one.

Park twin: very minimalist. It seemed small, in large part b/c the bathroom took up so much space. Why they put twins in (but no option for a rollaway) I will never figure out. What two people want TWIN (not double) beds? There was a flat panel display, some books, VOSS water. Nice looking toiletries. Just bath w/ shower - no separate shower. Overall, would not be worth the 400 appx USD they want for it.

Park Deluxe: much nicer. Nice living room with couch and table (the one in the pictures online). Still minimalist. Bathroom was nicer with bath and shower. Size is good for this room, amenities the same. It looked quite comfortable, but not exceptionally.

Service seemed friendly and competant.

I was never a fan of the old incarnation of this place. I never thought service was quite up. Hopefully that improved. At least the rooms have.

Would I stay here? Probably not, and I personally would never spend more than 225 or so per room per night. I much prefer the MO or the RC Georgetown (incinerator one). Rooms at both I feel have more character and are more comfortable. RC seemed to be much bigger, and MO a bit bigger. Lobby at both is better. Both had a warmer feeling to them. RC GT has bath and shower in all rooms. MO in most (including most lowest level rooms).

I might buy a basic room and upgrade w/ points if I were there for a while, but otherwise, at current prices absolutely not.

I have a two night reservation for october. One paid (gov't rate) and one free. Much steeper gov't rate than before.

lala

llalala

I am sure that there is something that I do not understand and I would be grateful if you could help me understand why the Federal Govenment would be willing to re-imburse $369 for a federal employee to stay at the Park Hyatt. Even the private sector would baulk at this.

For some reason I thought that Government rates were circa $65-95

Current per diem rates for hotels in the DC area for the following date ranges... definately not sub $100 by any means

Gov't rates for Dubuque, Iowa are 65 bucks, DC is expensive.

FYI -
Two people sharing one room can pool room allowances. Gov't employees travelling without gov't travel orders can use gov't rate if travel orders are not required.

I think my rate is actually the hyatt.com rate, it worked out cheaper.

lala

We're here right now in a corner deluxe room. I'm not sure I would call this an executive suite, but its quite lovely. Okay, my TH is calling it a suite. I took some pictures and will post them on my flickr.

We're on a gov't rate and for the first time in ages, they wanted to take down alll the information on the ID. Which was fine, this is DC afterall.

We were first put in a standard guest room (concierge checked us in), however, the desk person moved us into this room (910). It is a complete transformation of space. Bathroom is very close to the Park Hyatt Paris look - separate shower from bathtub, same strange closet configuration. Blaise Mautin toiletries if you are a fan. Lots of shaker style furniture and nice little touches like seriously elegant water glasses and hiding the network cable in a small wooden box. TH says lighting in living space could be better for reading. Desk is nice, but chair would not be comfortable for long term sitting and working on the computer.

I am using network connection, seems to be fine.

Will hit gym in the am. Breakfast is in the tea lounge or delivered to your room if you wish. We are having dinner tomorrow at the Blue Duck.

I like the hotel, but right now I am feeling like I wish it had less echoey lobby and a lot of the pritzker art seems to be missing. :( Especially in the halls by the elevators.

Oh, I guess Ms. Pritzker is staying here this weekend, so that is why we were not given the presidential suite. ;) There were copious notes from the evening concierge to the morning concierge about what needed to be done for her today.

Amenity was to be a bottle of wine. We requested more water and they sent up some lovely nectarines as well.

We are going to dupont circle for a quick dinner tonight, but I think we'll be ordering room service coffee to try some of the christopher norman chocolates I picked up at dean and deluca.

More later including a link to my pictures.

lala

Just becuase a hotel has a very high Government rate ABSOLUTELY doesn't mean that the Government will reimburse an employee at that rate. There are published maximums for reimbursement. Get a room for less and the Government pays the lower amount. Get a room for more and it comes out of your pocket, not the Government. Some hotels charge even more. PH Chiago Government rate os about $386.50, while the Government reimbursement is $138. It would take 3 employees sharing a room to not have to pay anything out of pocket for that hotel in Chicago!

If you want to see what the Government reimburses people take a look at:
http://www.gsa.gov/Portal/gsa/ep/con...Type=GSA_BASIC

Very true. TH and I both can share a room in DC and stay somewhere like the Park Hyatt, but in Chicago, its the HR for us. :) Trust me, I'm okay with that.

I have had exemptions granted in DC when every hotel in town has been filled by conventions and the lowest rate I can get would be in gaithersburg or greenbelt and that is a scootch bit out of the way. You really have to plead for that exemption and the highest I have had to go is 40 bucks over the rate at about 189 a few years ago.

I know for a fact that places like the Manchester Hyatt will zero out their gov't rates - fed and state during things like the big geospatial conference in San Diego because they know all those rooms will sell out to the highest bidder. That is not cool.

lala

I stayed at the Park Hyatt DC last weekend and would have to agree with others that while the rooms are great, the service is not four star.
Right now I’m having to fax my folio to Hyatt GP customer service because the staff somehow can not deal with a stay involving one night on points and a paid night. Upon checking in on Oct 20, I informed the desk agent that I would be there 2 nights, one on award and one on a paid rate. Sure enough the next morning, at 10:00 am our keys no longer worked and housekeeping wanted us to check out. After several trips up and down to the front desk we got it squared away, but my bill showed a $69 redemption fee for Friday night. Our breakfast in the restaurant Sat morning was very unpleasant with workmen using heavy grinding equipment. We could not hold any conversation. When I asked to see the manager, the young man said “Well breakfast is on us, you don’t have to pay.” I responded “Well isn’t breakfast free anyway for diamonds?” He just said “Ummmm” and walked away.
Using the pool was an adventure. We got in our suits & robes and headed to the third floor where pool was listed in the hotel guide. We wandered around the 3rd floor and finally ran into a hotel employee who informed us that while the pool is on the 3rd floor you can't actually get there because there is no access from the main hotel wing. You have to walk through the lobby, step outside and dodge the taxis and hike up to the pool in the adjacent building. You would think they could post a sign when you get off the elevator. Not the end of the world but just kinda tacky...
When trying to check out early Sunday, we were charged for Sunday’s in-room breakfast. I asked the desk person “What is the deal with free breakfast for diamonds?” He responded “Oh the computer knows whether or not you are diamond and adjusts the charges.” They need to print up some coupons or figure out how to get the computer working properly as others have also had this problem. There were several other charges on my bill that I had to correct. In my rush to leave I did not notice that my folio listed Sat $269 AAA rate as an ineligible redemption room rate, I guess somehow affected by the earlier effort to remove the redemption fee. Ugh. So now I get no stay or point credit and have to call and fax for help. The manager listed on the folio has not responded to my email, and Diamond CS is trying to correct. Anyway, the rooms are beautiful but the hotel has some service issues and I would not bother staying there again until I hear that the service problems have been addressed.

I agree, they are not making it easy for diamonds to figure out if breakfast is included or not. When we asked about breakfast "Justine the concierge" basically said that as gold passport members we could have coffee delivered to the room :confused: , but didn't mention breakfast. When I asked again, she said we could have coffee in the tea lounge. We ended up not eating in the morning, so we never resolved it.

The coffee we ordered the night before was not very good, so I guess we didn't miss much.

So, Wilma, where did you eat breakfast - blue duck or the tea lounge?

I miss melrose. :(

lala

We ate breakfast in the tea lounge and the food was good. I asked several people about what sort of dollar credit diamonds got for breakfast, and never got any info. The in-room breakfast we ordered was very good and nicely setup.

Sorry to hear about difficulties during your stay. I have the same sentiments about this property. Rooms are nice, but just don't expect any service.

When you come to think of it, it's amazing how disorganized the hotel's operations are -- your example about the "free" GP beverage and Diamond breakfast issue is just one of the example......it does appear that nobody at the front desk knows exactly what's going on with that....

It took me a month dealing with the hotel's accounting department to get the charges removed, and that's after contacting Corporate (which they didn't care to help, kind of surprising)....

Anyway, I chose the easier way....by avoiding this property until it can get its act together....but I highly doubt it can achieve that any time soon, especially with the indifferent attitude of the GM and the front desk "manager"...

I had a great stay last week. I was upgraded to a small suite - the bathroom was amazing. My amenity was waiting in the room for me - a 500ml bottle of Steele Cabernet Franc elegantly presented with with Riedel glasses and a Blue Duck Tavern travel bag for the wine.

Since this is one of the few properties that actually lets Diamonds have their complimentary breakfast in-room, I ordered a room service breakfast, and the server politely explained to me that I had a small charge for ordering the American breakfast instead of the Continental....it was all handled without my asking or mentioning that I was a Diamond.

All in all, I was delighted with my stay. No service issues, here.

We stayed here for one night on 10/13.

I paid for a "Park King", and was put in a large room with a living room and separate king bedroom, with a really cool plasma screen tv that rotated in the wall to be usable in either room. (I'm easily impressed, ok? ;) ) The bathroom was awesome, with one of those "no curtain" rain showers and an immense tub.

A bottle of nice cabernet was waiting for us on arrival, complete with a wine bag if we wanted to take it home - which I felt was a simple but very nice touch!

We ordered a late and very simple room service Friday night - and it was perhaps the most expensive soup and fruit I've ever had in my 42 years. Still, the service was fast and the food was good.

We didn't receive breakfast coupons. I was up early and went to the restaurant to buy a cup of coffee. They looked up my room number and gave it to me at no charge. When we went to breakfast, we ordered from the menu. When I asked the server about the Diamond breakfast benefit, she said "It took off $10.00 apiece". A little chincy, I thought, but the food was excellent, and the service was outstanding, so I figured I'd check with the front desk.

At checkout, the front desk agent said, "Let me just adjust your restaurant charges off your bill, since you're a diamond", and proceeded to remove our whole breakfast bill.

Our stay was short, but I felt that I received everything I would hope to receive as a Diamond. We both agreed that this is a cool hotel and would return again.