Decent Value

This review should be foregrounded by the fact that the room cost only $45 a night, so expectations should be adjusted to suit what the room costs. I used a DSU to upgrade to a suite on the Regency club floor. I highly recommend staying on the club floor if you have Diamond status because the floor seems quieter than the others. The suite has a living room with very basic furnishing-- a small desk, a small Ikea-like convertible couch, a coffee table, and a bar. The floor is tiled marble with no floor coverings, so it has a bit of a hard feeling. To the left of the door is a bathroom with double sinks, a jacuzzi tub, and a shower. Windows open from the tub to the bedroom. The bed is surprisingly comfortable-- more so than the beds at the much fancier HR Mexico City. All in all, the suite isn't luxurious-feeling but it is spacious and clean. If the hotel supplied fresh flowers for the coffee table it would do a lot to freshen/soften the room.

Service is not the hotel's strong point, but at $45 a night one is willing to forgive it. If you absolutely need something, find a front desk clerk who is higher in the authority chain. My check-in clerk seemed brand-new and not very familiar with Hyatt procedure, but I moved to a more experienced clerk who seemed very capable and helpful. 

Main Restaurant: On my first day I was hungry upon arrival so I ate at the main restaurant. They were serving a Yucatan buffet. It wasn't spectacular but it was fine for its purposes, with a chef making a variety of local specialties, and a salad bar and hot food bar. The price came out to $25 for the buffet and a glass of wine, which seemed slightly high for this part of Mexico. For my later meals I switched to the Regency Club.

Regency Club:

The Regency Club is definitely one of the smaller you will see in a Hyatt Regency, but when I visited there were very few other patrons so it seemed fine in size. The food spread in the evenings is not great by any measure but it is not bad, in comparison to the many U.S. Hyatt Regency Clubs I've been to that have very wilted/mediocre offerings. Every night there are about five plates of antipasto (fruit, cold blanched veggies, cold fresh veggies, meats, cheeses), a few small taco-like appetizer items, and two hot dishes. There are also three types of desserts. The desserts were surprisingly high quality-- they seemed to be made by a professional pastry chef. The other dishes were more in the middle range, meaning that you can cobble together a pretty decent snack or small meal, but it is very much a make-do kind of thing and not a destination snack. There were also strange omissions in the spread, like a salad dish without any salad dressing (or even vinegar and oil). 

You can grab beers or sodas from the fridge in the Regency Club at any hour of the day. However, they sometimes ran out of things and didn't seem to be able to replenish. For example, I ordered white wine one night and they were out, and couldn't get more apparently, which seemed odd since the restaurant downstairs is presumably well stocked. Most of the businessmen in the lounge seemed to be drinking beer, so maybe wine just isn't a thing in Villahermosa.

Pool Bar:

The pool at the hotel is nicer than the reviews led me to believe. It is a pretty big pool deck area with some nice palapas for shade. There are tropical plants surrounding the pool to give it a tropical feeling. On Sunday when I arrived it was crowded and there weren't any places to sit, but during the week it was calm and empty so it was much more pleasant. There is an open-air bar next to the pool. It is pretty bare bones, but fine if you are just looking for a relaxing drink outside. But don't expect any fancy cocktails-- it is strictly a liquor + mixer kind of bar. When I visited the drinks were running about $5 USD per.

The staff didn't do much to explain the surrounding area, but if you walk out of the hotel you can find a lovely park that surrounds a lagoon. You can walk along the lagoon and see some sights, and there are a few museums as well. If you walk right after exiting the hotel you can find a few dinner restaurants on the road leading to the Centro. 

Overall the Hyatt Regency Villahermosa is not the equal of its fancier and more full-service Hyatt Regency brethren. However, for the price it is not bad at all. You can definitely spend a few pretty painless days here walking around the lagoon, hanging by the pool, and exploring the local environs.