Very disappointing stay with uneven service and hard product failures

1   Not Recommended
Room 293 , King Bed Room
December 2, 2018 by EXPERT

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Hyatt Regency Sonoma Wine Country
 Map | 1 Review | 0% Recommended

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Room 293

King Bed Room

Liked:
Location
Service
Food
Amenities
Room
Stats
Room
King Bed Room

Business in town and the chance to dine at SingleThread in Healdsburg led me to choose this Hyatt--the only real full service upscale hotel in the area. I usually would choose a Marriott brand property since I have Ambassador status, but the Courtyard across the street being limited service wasn't appealing. So I settled on this Hyatt, which last I visited for a stay some 6 years prior.

The hotel needed renovation on my last stay, and the hotel apparently has just come out of a renovation and addition of a new tower building.

Unfortunately, the new buildng and facilities look good but have many problems. The stairwells were filthy. And hallway lighting would go out suddenly for no reason during a storm--even as there was no interruption in power in my room at all. My room thermostat had a mind of its own and constantly reset to 85 F despite about 5 engineer visits. My room’s showerhead dropped so badly that it made the shower look uncleaned even on my first arrival, and apparently was so poorly done that it couldn’t be fixed even after an engineer visit. Not so impressive for new construction.

It is a lovely lobby/front desk/bar area on entry:

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Parking was fine, but a bit crowded. There is valet parking for the same rate as regular daily parking, but I wasn't trusting the team here. 

Check In

Check in was fine and friendly. Though booked for $131 in a double queen room, the FDA kindly moved me to a single king bed room in the new tower building. I did inquire if she knew the air con was better in the new buildingm, since I required excellent air con; she assumed it would be.

Since it turned out later that everyone knew there were problems with the new tower room thermostats resetting, it is quite disappointing that I was placed in one without warning even after mentioning my requirement for excellent air con.

Room

The room looked good...but had serious flaws.

The entry hallway:

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The small but efficient bathroom:

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The closet/bar area (with blinking light in the refrigerator being a very annoying feature!):

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The bedroom area:

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The view onto the parking lot wasn't so exciting (or quiet):

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The air con seemed to work great:

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Unfortunately, the air con would of its own mind reset to 85 F for no reason despite my setting it for 65 F or cooler and on hold. This became quite a service issue as it happened repeatedly during the first 24 hrs of my stay despite many engineer visits that supposedly corrected it.

Shower pressure was weak and quite disappointing, made all the worse by a constant dripping from the shower head that left the shower constantly looking wet (even on my first arrival) and which made for an irritating noise. Fortunately, my dinner at SingleThread the first night (and concomitant wine pairing!) left me unable to notice it while sleeping, but it was quite evident the next day. The fact that a new building had such an annoying leak didn’t speak to good craftsmanship. The fact that it couldn’t be fixed spoke even more poorly about the new hotel construction.

Street noise was also a surprising problem. I could hear parking alarms and other traffic noise quite easily from the room. One would think new construction to the Regency standard would include double paned windows to insulate for noise, but that clearly wasn’t the case. 

Clearly, this new tower building was built quite on the cheap. It showed in so many ways, it’s stunning how poor the construction choices were.

Wifi was a decent 15 Mbps up and down. Once the engineer caught flack from management that they hadn't sorted the air con issue, the air con was set to 60 F and remained at that setting for the rest of my final night. Relief...after almost 36 hrs. Not impressive.

 

 

Service

Service was an issue here. Everyone was friendly and trying to be helpfull But the moment anything went wrong, the team fell to pieces and really didn't seem to know how to handle things. Even management seemed to be a bit inadequate in this regard, though they did pull through in the end.

On arrival, the room refrigerator light was blinking on and off--it was very off putting. It took 2 engineer visits to get it corrected for some strange reason.

I also noticed housekeeping hadn't emptied two of the trash cans even on my arrival. Minor, but gross.

The air con was a big problem. Despite being set at 65 F, the air con had reset to 85 F on my return the first night after my dinner--I assumed it just did that because I was out of the room, but I was wrong. It also reset again in the middle of the night, causing me to awaken at 6:30 am to 75 F. (I require it to be 67 F or cooler to sleep, and I always guarantee that before booking at any hotel.) I called to have it fixed, and the engineer came--and then it came again after it reset yet again. Twice more. It actually reset to 85 F in front of me while I was on the phone complaining for the 4th time! So I knew there was a problem. Then, suddenly, while still on the phone, it reset again to 61 F. Something was amiss for sure.

The engineers apparently fixed it finally by the time I returned on the second night, as it was set to 61 F and didn't move from that setting to my departure. But the whole matter was handled poorly--no real apology that the air con wasn't working, even after one FDA indicated they knew there was a problem in the tower. Why did they put me in the tower with known air con issues if they knew I wanted excellent air con?

Other minor service issues: the shower in my room was constantly dripping, something I fortunately didn't notice until the first morning. But it got worse it seemed through the day. On calling an engineer to fix it, he came twice and then disappeared. I had to call and ask and was told they couldn't fix it and might I like a new room. For my last night again on a 2 night stay, just after the air con finally had been fixed. I wasn't willing to endure a room change with poor air con, so I didn't bother. No more apology or anything offered for the inconvenience yet again.

Room service was actually pretty good--timely and efficient, always brough to me within 20-30 min. But calling room service was an exercise in frustration, waiting for 20-30 rings and no changeover back to the front desk even. So I constantly was calling and hanging up, calling the front desk and being called back by room service. Not impressive at all. 

Room service usually got the details right, but they also served me an egg white omelette that wasn't egg whites. The nice girl offered to comp the bill when I said I had to go and couldn't wait for another order.

When I had asked to speak to the front office manager, I was told he wouldn't be in until 3 pm the first full day. I waited, but I never heard from him. I had to call my final morning to speak with him--the fact that he hadn't reached out to me first is disappointing. He knew what had transpired and let me know that 4000 points were added to my Hyatt account. I was insulted, and I told him so. I expected 1/3 or 1/2 of the first night's room rate should be discounted based on the air con fail alone. He agreed. Then when I told him about all the other issues, he did offer to comp the entire first night. That was appropriate IMO, but it took him a while to get to what was appropriate. I wasn't so impressed.

Overall, this is a Hyatt House dressed up nicely but not with the standards one usually associates with a Hyatt Regency. It didn't even operate as a regular Hyatt hotel IMO. Very lackluster service standards all around IMO.

Dining

Food was solid when the got it right. I ordered room service breakfast twice, and room service lunch and dinner as well.

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The cheese cake was quite good, actually.

Location

The hotel is conveniently located just 10-15 min south of the Sonoma STS airport and right in walking distance to some nice restaurants in town. It was a mere 10 min from any of my meetings in town. It also was just 15-20 min south of Healdsburg, where we had dinner at SingleThread.

Overall

Overall, I was pretty disappointed with the Hyatt Regency Sonoma. Its service standard was lacking on many fronts, and its new hard product was uneven and had all sorts of problems. It wasn’t an expensive stay, but I've had far superior Hyatt Regency and Sheraton/Le Meridien/Westin/Renaissance stays for comparable rates. 

I am unsure as to whether I'd return. The hotel needs to fix its hard product and cleanliness issues, and it also needs to do some serious service training for its staff. And perhaps its management, as well. 

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