tinkybelle

Did a search and came up with almnost zilch at Acapulco Hyatt.
Can anyone give me a report or comment on this property.
I see it is only around $113US and a category 1 so that doesnt say much for it so far.

ben20

Through touroperators or local agencies in Mexico you should be able to get rates below USD 90,- per standard room per night.
(depending on seasons of course, also in weekends it is more expensive).

the only BIG PLUS for this hotel is:
it is a cat 1 resort
USE YOUR GP POINTS FOR AN OCEAN SUITE !
Super good view when you get a high floor suite like I did.

Through expedia there are some amazing deals for Acapulco resorts.

The Hyatt is a busy, but nice resort (for the money !) But it takes 10 minuts to get the elevator!

However it will never come close to the Quinta Real, Princess or Las Brisas!

ben20

Also Tinkybell, I thought you were also like me Member of the Club at the Hyatt / Gourmet Club.
Two years ago they were still offering the dining benefits at the restaurants.

tinkybelle

Ben thanks for the tips.
Yes I am a club at the Hyatt member.
Yes there are dining benefits at Acapulco!!
I will also check the accommodation rates.

paradocs

Tinkybelle: we stayed there 3-4 years ago. I remember it as being quite nice and it had very spacious guest rooms.

Up on a hill over looking the bay is a fabulous restaurant. I think the name is Cayuca 22.

MEX

No recent reports on this property so.....

stayed for two nights on an award stay- 12/23 to 12/25. Used 2,000 extra points for club room- I knew the hotel was going to be full and was afraid of getting stuck in a bad room. As Cat. 1, it was 7,000/night versus internet rate of approx. $220 (high season). Checked-in on club floor (20), by-passing long lines downstairs. We were given a room with a full view of the ocean.

Hotel (+)
The room/bathroom (with tub) was clean and spacious.
Balcony with 2 chairs and end table with plenty of sun during the day.
Fantastic view of acapulco bay.
Complimentary cold breakfast buffet in club room for approx. 4 hours.
Complimentary booze and food (tacos, guacamole, chicken, etc.) in the evening. 2 hours.
Friendly and helpful club staff.
Wal-Mart right across the street
Cat. 1!!!!


Hotel (-)
The hotel doesn't have the resort feel- more Holiday Inn than Hyatt.
The beach is quite awful and dirty. I highly recommend a short (10 min./5 USD) cab ride around the bay to cleaner, more peaceful beach spot.

FortOrdTwoBucks

Has anyone stayed at the Quinta Real? I know it is part of the Preferred Hotels & Resorts group.

ben20

I stayed at Hyatt, Las Brisas and Quinta Real.

Hyatt is 4* star hotel, cannot compare with the other two.


I understand why other people prefer Quinta real over las brisas, because Quinta Real is much more modern and the Governor Suites are excellent.

Though, personally I prefer Las Brisas: Their service is one of the best in mexico. Take one of the junior suite and you are treated marvellous.
Food in La Concha beach club is very very good.

Quinta real: service and attitude OK, but nothing special. Prices for F&B are very high and soso. Suites are very nice. Sea in front of hotel is very rough, be careful.

Three weeks ago, angry farmers closed for a short period the access to the Acapulco Diamante zone, where the Quinta Real is located, because the farmers think they deserve more money for the land they sold to the property developers in the zone.

TrojanHorse

Have any diamonds received complimentary Reg. Club rooms/access at this property?

Are Diamonds generally treated well??

mahleria

I am just back from a single night stay at the Acapulco Hyatt. At check-in, we were told that they upgraded us to a deluxe room. It turned out to be a large corner room with balcony going all the way around (180 degree view), albeit on a lower (7th) floor. The room itself is plainly decorated and the bed is decidedly Mexican (read: hard). This was especially ironic on the tail end of our Mexico vacation, as we judged each hotel on the hardness of the bed and expected the Hyatt to finally deliver on american-style soft bed.

I asked about regency access at the front desk, and they denied it at first, but after further prodding, they did agree I would have the privillege. Unfortunately, the club closes at 7:30PM and we got there 10 minutes late. We looked in at breakfast and it did not look particularly inspiring: the usual offering of pastries, some cold cuts, a little fruit. The diamond amenity was promised at check-in, but also did not arrive until further prodding. It turned out to consist of just the bottle of wine with no snack. I asked for red and got El Gato Negro merlot from Chile, which may have been actually worse than the infamous Veramonte.

There are four restaurants that we saw. El Isleno is a kosher place where we saw burgers and pizza served. The other outside restaurant is El Pescador. They feature Tuesday night pasta and pizza buffet for 129 peso (about $12.50) which we opted for. It was average fare, but easy on our stomachs--a necessity after 10 days of street corner mexican food . Their menu featured American-style entrees with emphasis on fish dishes. There is an interior restaurant with mexican specialties on the menu. Breakfast buffet was served in the other interior restaurant--"La Ceiba". The buffet featured the usual eggs, sausage, pancakes and waffles to order, plus prime rib (or was it short ribs?) . At $15, it is a bit excessive by mexican standards, so we went across the street for VIPS--something like a mexican diner. For dinner, I highly recommend "El Amigo Miguel"--a local restaurant that specializes in seafood. They have two locations--one in the "old" center of town on the west side and one on Costera--the street parallel to the beach, but also west of Hyatt.

Hyatt maintains their own fleet of vintage 1980s Cutlass taxis. Ride to the airport costs 180 peso (about $17), but we only had 150 peso left and they agreed to take us anyway. Flagging a taxi on the street would be even cheaper most likely. The key to getting a reasonably priced taxi at the airport is to walk past all the people offering it inside, walk outside and start bargaining with the actual taxi drivers. The price for our ride to the western side of town (much past Hyatt) went from 450 peso inside to 180 outside, but you must bargain! Taxis within town cost no more than 50 peso ($5), but make sure you get the price before getting in. There are also numerous buses going up and down the street parallel to the beach, which cost 30-40 cents per ride.

Hope this answers some of the concerns. I highly recommend venturing out of the tourity strip and visiting the zocalo--central square. Quite a contrast to the hotel-lined piece of America which Hyatt is a part of.

TrojanHorse

Would I recommend this??? NO

here it is:

Hyatt ACA Review

Jan 13 – 17 2006

Night One: Hyatt.com rate $71.10 (plus about $12.09 in taxes) USD
Nights 2-4: FFN

Status: Diamond

Check-In: Arrived at 2:30 p.m. local time. Went to check in and waited only a couple minutes. Not much of a line as I had feared based on prior posts on this topic. Reservation found and I didn’t realize he only found the first night. I asked about a RC upgrade or at least access. They said no right off the bat as I had two kids (4&6) with me. Rules stated no kids < 18 allowed in the RC. I said no problem as I would not take the kids in the RC. Still a no go, all of a sudden they said they were booked, a check of the Hyatt.com site revealed otherwise. At this point I said something and they said oh you are diamond. I had to show them my diamond card so either they could care less or they didn’t see that in my reservation. I balked at the 5th floor room which is what Hyatt.com said the 71 dollar rates would get you (floors 3-5). Then when I was about to sign, I noticed the one night stay. I said that was incorrect and they found the other three FFN nights. I still inquired about RC access and they finally said that I should go up to the RC lounge on the 21st floor and talk to them. I did just that and the lady was checking in someone else so I just grabbed a glass of OJ and waited. After checking in the couple in front of me, I inquired about the RC access and showed my diamond card. She flat out said no access and as soon as she said that, the guy cleaning up the RC came over to the reception desk in the RC and took my ˝ full glass of OJ. I just looked at them both and said out loud Sheesh. She said something about no kids in the RC, I went through the whole we won’t bring them in here routine. Still a no go. She wasn’t about to budge and I was going to keep bugging her about access and we both knew it. She finally offered two free buffet breakfasts per day and it would be noted in my record, and I agreed. However not until the last day did I looked up the benefits on gold passport and the breakfast privledge stated something for all registered guests so maybe I screwed myself over, who knows.

Room 1916 – two doubles and is a partial ocean view and also faces Wal-Mart and the dirt parking lot below. Not really a bad view though. There is not an alarm clock in the room but there is a coffee maker so I’m happy. Room is average in size and definitely nothing special to me. The balcony is good for drying clothes, that’s about it. The TV has roughly 4 English channels at any given time although they are not necessarily the same channels all the time. The mini bar can be used as a fridge but for them to empty it, it costs 50 pesos ($5 USD) per day. Instead, a cooler ($7USD) was purchased at Wal-mart and used as a fridge. Plenty of ice can be had as its not an ice machine but one of those big restaurant ice bins that you scoop all the ice you can take out of it. It was great. Not many outlets in the room, two that were empty or reachable to be exact and when you want to charge things, it becomes something you have to organize. Maybe that’s why there’s no alarm clock, no plugs.

Elevators – A couple of times we had some decent waits but all in all it wasn’t that bad. The security guy was really great at hitting the button when he saw you coming and holding the door open till you got there. Kudos to him. Not as bad as I had read in other posts.

Breakfast Buffet – 155 pesos ($15.50 USD) and was pretty good especially for free. Kids are half that. Lots of hot things, a waffle, pancake bar with every topping you can imagine, mmmm, and lots of fruits, juices, and a smoothie bar too. Of course there was cereal, breads, (no bagels, but they had lox and cream cheese, go figure) and an omlette bar. For the price (or if you can get it for free) I totally recommend it. I would say the service there was great too. One thing I noticed though, was when you asked for the check and it was delivered they stand right over you till you sign it. It was like this in each of the hotel bars or restaurants.

Lobby Bar – 7 p.m. each night has a 2 for 1 happy hour. Slowwwww service but you can’t beat the prices. The bar prices when not discounted are very reasonable in my opinion. I found that the surprise of my stay (good prices on booze).

Poolside Bar – Service a tad bit faster than the Lobby bar but they won’t break any best service records either. Prices are good here including the food prices. However beware, it appears if you sit at the tables near the bar (Less then 3 feet away even) the food prices seem to increase and the service is even slower. In other words eat at the bar. You can take your drink anywhere on site and they give you glass bottles and glass containers which seemed weird to me.

Pool – there are two pools and I was expecting really small crowded pools. Neither pool was what I considered small. One was a kiddie pool with a very shallow end (1- 1 ˝ feet) with a deeper end of up to 3 feet. A ton of kiddies in it. The larger pool went to five feet or so and also had a shallow end but it wasn’t much of a shallow end. This pool was of decent size to me and I didn’t have any complaints. As stated in other posts, people come out bright and early (usually 8 a.m. as that’s when the towel booth opens) and lay out their towels and claim their chairs. Since I expected that, I asked (and also read on the pool regs) the hotel and this is not permitted. So I would go down to the pool, find a seat (or 3) that appeared to be unoccupied and took them over. Not once did anyone ever challenge me on doing this. I would guess 95% of the seats along the pool edges were claimed like this and unoccupied by 9:00 a.m. Towel service is by checkout. At check in you are given a card that you give the towel booth when taking towels. They mark down how many you take and make you sign. Upon return they give you your card back. Those that don’t return by 7:00 p.m. get a 150 peso charge per towel not returned. However if you want to stay past 7:00 p.m. (when it closes) you keep the towel, return the next day and ask for a return receipt and they will give you one that stays (i.e. for four towels) 4 towels returned and 600 pesos credit. What happens is your bill will show this 600 peso charge and you give the receipt at check out and they remove the charges. This happened to me twice but no problems getting the charges removed at all. Just don’t lose the receipt. As expected a ton of kids and a ton of locals. I have to admit the locals were really nice. I was quite impressed.

Beach – Behind the pool is the beach. Its pretty small and sandwiched by two commercial boat launches. Its not that bad though. It’s where the smaller boats take off. The water is pretty nasty and brown. Its calm in the a.m. and rough in the afternoon and evening. Beware, peddlers galore. They are non-stop and sell crap and more crap. Almost all take a simple no and keep moving and don’t bug you again, at least for that day. However one wouldn’t take no and I had to get in his face and say “Get out of my face, what part of NO don’t you understand”, and at certain times the Hyatt runs a beach bar out there. I didn’t use it so I don’t know the prices. There is a shower area too before returning to the pool.

Internet – Free access in the lobby. However you really have to be in the right spot to get it. You may record a signal and still not connect so move. At least that’s how it worked for me. I found the best spot for a live wireless access was as close to the front desk as I could get. I got a signal in the lobby bar area but still couldn’t get on the internet. Beware of a ton of people asking you to look up flight information for them. At first I did then finally just said no as it was that bad.

Bugs - man i got eaten alive in the lobby early in the a.m. when I was using the free wireless.. mosquito's rip you apart in fifteen minutes.. wear long pants, socks, and long sleeves when you go down to the lobby.. oh yeah as someone else told me.. don't leave your window open at night.. you'll be dinner that way too.. ironically, they never bothered me during the day when I was outside.. go figure

Phone calls – Roughly $15 for the first three minutes to the USA and like $1.50 + per minute after that so I was told by the front desk, I never did use the phone.

Location: If this was about 1 to 1 ˝ miles further down (away from the airport) the street, it would have been in a great location with lots of places to go within an easy walk. I would run that way each day and saw numerous fun bars, restaurants etc at that end. There isn’t much around the Hyatt to do except Wal-Mart (see next paragraph).

Wal-Mart – a block away across the street. A very clean and huge WM. English speaking help is practically zero though. Some of the over head signs have English but that’s about it. Very organized and lots of people working and keeping it clean. A huge food section in there too. Hard liquor, beer, wine, soda, juices etc available as well as most typical food stuff. A bakery is in there that is very cheap but the stuff I bought was bland but fresh. Also a pharmacy is in there. For fast food, you can choose from McD’s, Subway, & Domino’s. There is a BK on the same side of the street as the Hyatt (across from the WM). Prices for most things to me were cheaper than in the USA once you converted the peso over to USD.

Overall Service: I was not impressed with the exception of one concierge gal and the breakfast buffet staff, they all could (IMHO) care less about you and it was tough to get anything from anyone. If you speak English only like myself, be prepared to spend a lot of time trying to talk to anyone and be prepared to have some communication problems, verify everything. This was not Hyatt service as I expect.

Goldpassport: Points, bonuses, Hycard etc. What a disaster this was. At check in they didn’t have a clue to what I was talking about. They told me they would research everything and get back to me. Every day I’d follow-up and everyday they said that they would get back to me. A complete disaster, at checkout they didn’t know what I was referring to. I will wait to see what posts and then complain to hyatt. However, I never got my HYCARD, my diamond amenity, nor did they know anything about any bonus (3KWKD). There isn’t any indication on the folio either that I will receive any of this. Again, I need to see what posts before writing to hyatt.

Would I stay here again? Only if I needed to get a stay credit or qualify for a promo. It would be one night max and I would never pay more than $75 bucks for this place either. There has to be a lot better than this place.

SanDiego1K

I had a prepaid stay at this hotel in November. Although the stay was paid on the day I booked it, on the day of the stay the hotel fraudulently charged me a high 3 figure amount. I did not know this til I got my credit card statement about 3 weeks later.

I contacted the hotel by email and fax. It never responded. I contacted Hyatt Customer Service. They contacted the hotel, who said they knew of no charge. I faxed my credit card statement showing both the prepaid stay and the fraudulent charge. It took Customer Service until last week (six weeks after my initial contact) to get the hotel to acknowledge that the charge was in error, and to reverse it.

All in all, it was a thoroughly unpleasant experience.

marlin

We were there at the same time as Trojanhorse (January 15-17) and I have to agree with his very complete descriptions.

We had four rooms, all booked on points in Regency Club (7,000 per night). We checked in on the 21st floor. The concierge, Mary, was quite pleasant. For the most part, she had everything correct but she informed us right away that the kids (well behaved 12 and 7 year old) would not be able to go in the RC at breakfast and cocktail hour but at other times they could. (?).

Our rooms were all on the 21st floor, facing the Bay, pretty view. There was a plate of fruit in each room (all Platinum members, we were not expecting anything extra). Two of the rooms were still being cleaned when we arrived but they were ready soon after. Everything is average and not really Hyatt standards as Trojanhorse explained, but it was fine, given the value.

The next morning, the kids and I went to see if they could go in Regency Club and they informed me (politely) again that they could not. They said I could take a plate of food out for them which we did. Breakfast was pasteries, cereal, fruit, juices and coffee. At the cocktail hour there were tacos, chicken skewers, shrimp salad, pasta salad and rolls. The concierge was making margaritas and there was also wine and beer. There were very few guests there.

Trohanhorse-I'm pretty sure that Mexico is exempt from the HYCARD promotion. I know that I could not use the gift cards down there either. I'm sure that Goldpassport customer service can straighten out the other bonuses.

Luckily, we didn't encounter any bugs in the lobby or elsewhere. In fact, pest control came in when we were in the rooms--they put some kind of cream under the furniture. Ewwww. Better than bugs I guess.

Finally, we used a driver I would highly recommend. His name is Senor Hector and can be reached at [email protected] He charged $40 to drive all nine of us from the airport. He is a tour guide and took us other places too. Very polite, perfect English, clean van.

TrojanHorse

I guess the only reason that I thought I could get the Hycard is that I called the Diamond line to have them input it on my reservation which she did without any hassle.

So on that note, does the 3KWKND bonus apply at this property then?

To clarify on the bugs, my encounters with them were in the lobby early (still dark) in the a.m. when I was hooking up to the free wireless.. I did not encounter any bugs the rest of the time..

humanoid94

I have to agree with TrojanHorse's excellent analysis. We stayed at the Hyatt the 13th to the 16th. I would only add that the phone is actually much less expensive than the front desk staff indicated to him. We dialed a US 1-800 number and used a sam's phone card. The total charge was 15 pesos ($1.5) each for the two phone calls we placed. (Each about 10 minutes)

I am not sure if our points from the stay have posted yet, as we used my father's gold passport number and I do not have access to the account. He is a gold passport general member, but received the complimentary fruit plate at check in, which was nice.

The buffet breakfast was fine, and a fair value for $10 more a night (when one books the bed and breafast rate).