Hotel Review: Hyatt Centric French Quarter New Orleans, Louisiana

This year was the first time Shae and I had ever attended Mardi Gras and we weren’t entirely sure what to expect. We both ended up enjoying it more than expected (check out this post to find out why) and part of the reason was because we stayed at a great hotel in the French Quarter.

We wanted to stay downtown so that we wouldn’t have to battle the traffic in and out each day and it was a great decision. Thanks to some free night certificates and points, we were able to stay at the Hyatt Centric French Quarter New Orleans without having to spend a few thousand bucks for our five nights there.

The hotel is in a great location and had excellent service, so we’d happily stay there again if we visit New Orleans again in the future. Here’s our review of the Hyatt Centric French Quarter New Orleans, including how we stayed there for (sort of) free.

Check-In

We’d stayed six nights in Lake Charles, Louisiana before heading back east to New Orleans. Unfortunately we got a later start than we’d originally intended, plus we stopped off at the Gator Chateau so that Truffles could meet a baby gator. Seeing as that was the Friday during the busiest part of Mardi Gras, traffic into New Orleans was a nightmare.

What would normally be a three hour drive turned into a seven hour ordeal, so we didn’t arrive until about 7pm. Trying to get to the hotel proved to be a bit of a nightmare due to road closures; we were only a couple of blocks away at one point, but were redirected on a several mile diversion to get to it. If you’re not trying to get there on a Friday night during Mardi Gras though, you wouldn’t have any such problems.

I have Globalist status in the World of Hyatt loyalty program and so am eligible for suite upgrades. I emailed the hotel the night before to ask about a suite upgrade, but never heard anything back. The fact that we were staying during the busiest part of Mardi Gras (including Fat Tuesday) meant I didn’t hold out too much hope for getting an upgrade.

Our stay started off well when the car valet didn’t look down on us for rocking up in our somewhat beaten up 2004 Toyota Corolla. We stayed at the Thompson Nashville (another Hyatt property) for New Years Eve and the valet there completely blanked us seeing as we didn’t look the part. The valet at the Hyatt Centric was very professional though, grabbing a cart for us to load our stuff, then taking our keys to park our car.

When checking in at any other time of the year, you’d just go straight to the front desk. During Mardi Gras though, the Hyatt Centric (and likely most other hotels in New Orleans) have security at the front door. The person there checked that our names were on the list of people due to check in, then we were able to head to the front desk.

The front desk agent was friendly and got us checked in quickly. We had to complete a pet form seeing as we had Truffles with us, then we were each given wristbands that we had to keep on us during our stay. These are used when entering the hotel during Mardi Gras so they can easily verify that you’re a guest.

Once they’d finished checking us in, we were given our keys to room 243 and we headed up to our room with the bellhop bringing our bags.

Bedroom

I was so tired from the long day of driving that I didn’t think to ask about a suite upgrade when checking in. It doesn’t seem like we received any kind of upgrade at all, as the room we were assigned seemed to match the description of the one we booked (1 King Bed). Having said that, our room did have doors leading out to the pool area which suggested we were upgraded to a ‘1 King Bed With View’ room, but the couch in our room didn’t match the photo provided on their website, so I’m not entirely sure what room we ended up in.

Even if we didn’t get an upgrade, we weren’t too worried as the room was still a decent size. As always with Hyatt brands, the bed was extremely comfortable and so we slept very well each night.

One slight downside is that I don’t remember there being power outlets immediately next to the bed on the right side. There were power outlets on the wall to the right of the bed though (the wall is just out of the picture below), so it wasn’t a big issue.

There was a bench at the foot of the bed which Truffles appreciated as it meant she was able to jump up more easily. All the stimulation from Mardi Gras meant even that was too much effort at times though.

On the opposite side of the room was a couch and coffee table. To the left of the couch was a Keurig coffee maker and a couple of large bottles of Dasani water. The water cost $4 per bottle, although it’s complimentary if you have Discoverist, Explorist or Globalist status with Hyatt.

To the left of the couch was a cabinet with the room’s TV.

There was an OK selection of TV channels, but we ended up plugging in our Fire TV Stick to increase our channel selection.

The TV cabinet contained a mini fridge and a couple of drawers. I’d expected the fridge to contain a minibar, so I was pleased to see it didn’t as it meant we could use the full space for our own food and drinks.

When entering the room, there was a fairly large closet area to the left. This was a great space as it meant we could store all our stuff there so that the bedroom area didn’t feel crowded.

The closet itself contained a safe, bathrobe, ironing board, iron, luggage rack and spare blanket. Looking at the photo below, it seems like there might have been a flashlight attached to the wall too, but I didn’t notice that until just now.

About an hour after checking in, there was a knock at the door. It was a member of staff delivering a welcome amenity due to my Globalist status. It was a fruit and nut plate that contained a couple of apples, cranberries, walnuts, orange slices, strawberries and grapes. They also provided two additional bottles of water and a card welcoming us.

There was a room service menu which seemed to match the menu in Powdered Sugar (the hotel’s main restaurant).

In addition to the regular room service menu, they have a 24 hour express menu in case you just want something to snack on.

If there are any toiletries you forget to bring with you, the Hyatt Centric French Quarter New Orleans will hook you up with complimentary items. They also have several other items you can borrow or buy.

Bathroom

The bathroom was on the right when entering the room. There was a fairly good-sized vanity, a large mirror and a makeup mirror.

The bathroom had a walk-in shower which had good water pressure. Apologies for the not-great photo below, but the layout of the bathroom meant it was hard to get a full picture of the shower. Unlike some nice hotels that should know better, the Hyatt Centric French Quarter New Orleans had doors covering the entire walk-in shower which helped ensure the bathroom floor didn’t double up as a paddling pool after taking a shower.

The toiletries were BeeKind which seemed decent enough.

Batch

After getting settled in a little, Shae and I headed down to Batch – the hotel’s bar – for a quick drink. Here’s the food and drink menu for Batch:

Looking back over these photos, I’m a little disappointed. I’d forgotten that Batch had a grilled duck confit sandwich listed which sounded amazing – I guess we’ll just have to return in the future so I can have that.

New Orleans has an open container policy, but we decided to just enjoy our drinks at the bar before heading out into the French Quarter. Shae got the Tropical Heat Margarita which she really enjoyed, while I ordered a whiskey on the rocks.

Powdered Sugar

Powdered Sugar seemed to be the main restaurant at the Hyatt Centric French Quarter New Orleans.

Their menu seemed to be the same as (or closely matched) the room service menu. During Mardi Gras they also had some reasonably priced specials.

After a quick wander down Bourbon Street on our first night, Shae and I headed back to the hotel and decided to order dinner there. Shae got the Gulf Nachos, but I couldn’t decide between the fried catfish basket and fried shrimp basket. The person serving us suggested the catfish, so I went with that.

Shae’s dinner was pretty good and she thankfully let me have a little of it as it took them an extra 10 minutes to bring out my catfish basket. While Shae’s Gulf Nachos were good, my catfish basket wasn’t great. The catfish itself was OK, but the fries tasted like they’d been fried 2-3 times. It was supposed to come with hush puppies, but there was only one solitary hush puppy.

It was also supposed to come with potato salad, cocktail and tartar sauces. None of those were initially provided, but the server ended up bringing over the potato salad which was tasty. The cocktail and tartar sauces weren’t provided, but I’m more of a ketchup guy anyway, so that wasn’t an issue for me.

Seeing as we were in New Orleans for Mardi Gras, we decided to get a personal-sized King Cake to share for dessert which sadly didn’t come with a baby.

Powdered Sugar is where breakfast is served. I tend to be a late riser, so the fact that they served breakfast until 11am on weekdays and 12pm at the weekend pleased me greatly!

I meant to take photos of the Powdered Sugar menu but as mentioned earlier, their menu seemed to pretty much match the room service menu which I included photos of earlier. In addition to the regular breakfast offerings, Powdered Sugar had different breakfast specials each day.

I have Globalist status which means we received complimentary breakfast for two each morning. Our first morning was a Saturday, so I decided to take advantage of their breakfast buffet special.

Their sausage links were great as they were more like British sausages than regular US breakfast sausage links – I’m British, so I particularly appreciated that. Although the sausages and bacon look sparse in the photos above, they refilled them shortly after I took the photos.

That first morning Shae ordered the strawberry chocolate chip pancakes. They were fairly good, although the strawberry juice meant they were a bit too soggy.

There were a lot of items on the breakfast menu that sounded tasty, so I ordered something different for breakfast each of the following days.

Our second morning I ordered the duck grillades and grits. This comes with two eggs any style, so I ordered them sunny side up. The duck was very good and it came with an insane amount of grits. If you’re southern, you can probably gobble down that amount of grits with no problem. Grits aren’t something we Brits grow up with though, so there’s only so much of them I can eat. This was a decent breakfast choice though as I don’t have duck in my life often enough.

Shae ordered a bunch of different sides for breakfast that morning – a couple of pork sausage patties, scrambled eggs, a biscuit and a much more reasonable serving of grits. For comparison, I probably received at least five times that amount of grits.

Breakfast the next morning was a bit of an adventure. I ordered the breakfast bowl and asked for it with breakfast potatoes, sausage, two sunny side up eggs and no cheese. It took ages for it to arrive and when it eventually came out it was covered with cheese. I therefore took it back to the counter and asked for it without cheese.

It once again took ages for it to come out and once again it didn’t match what I’d ordered. It had breakfast potatoes and sausage, but the eggs were scrambled and it had grilled vegetables too. I was really hungry by that point, so I was fine with the scrambled eggs and grilled vegetables, but I noticed that it once again had melted cheese beneath.

I’ve a feeling that they gave me someone else’s breakfast as a couple of minutes later they brought out a breakfast which finally matched what I’d ordered. It almost seemed like an afterthought though as the food in my breakfast bowl was about half the size of the two bowls I’d originally received.

I wasn’t the only one with a disappointing breakfast that morning. Shae ordered the brownie batter pancakes which was that morning’s breakfast special. They were sadly not at all special though and were pretty much flavorless – there was no brownie batter specialness in there.

Breakfast the next morning was a little better. Having said that, I ordered the lox and bagel which initially came without the cream cheese that’s supposed to come with it.

I’m not a cheese fan (hence asking for none of it on my breakfast bowl our first morning), but I don’t mind a thin spreading of cream cheese on a bagel. I therefore had to ask for that and they brought out a couple of small tubs of Philadelphia.

There was just about enough lox, but it would’ve been nice to have had a slightly larger portion of that.

Shae got the breakfast special that day too. That was a breakfast quesadilla which she liked.

Our final day at the Hyatt Centric French Quarter New Orleans was also our final day in Louisiana on our 50 state road trip. I therefore figured I should get something Louisianan, so I ordered the Boudin Benedict which came with breakfast potatoes and toast. This was good, with the poached eggs cooked very nicely.

Other than breakfast each morning and dinner our first night, the only other time we ate at Powdered Sugar was to get dessert one night. That was an amazingly great choice though. We got some kind of chocolate dessert to share which was amazing. OK, so it cost something like $7 which is more than I’d usually pay for a cake that wasn’t very big (its diameter was about the same as a regular donut).

Seriously though, it was amazing. It was filled with some kind of chocolate ganache and was so good that I was tempted to snatch Shae’s half out of her hands. Ultimately, I valued my life too much to risk that, but it took a huge amount of restraint – the dessert was that good. The photo below doesn’t do justice to the beauty of the flavor inside.

Amenities

I mentioned earlier that our room had a door leading directly out to the swimming pool. We didn’t make use of the pool during the stay and I forgot to check if it was heated or not.

The pool seemed to be accessible late into the evening. It was lit up at night; our friend mentioned that the photo below looked a little creepy, but the lights alternated, so it’s not like it always looked like you were swimming in blood in the dark 😉

Next to the swimming pool was a bar area which was a nice feature to have if you’re relaxing in or by the pool during the day.

Before our stay I had all these grand intentions of working out at least twice during our five night stay. Laziness (and Mardi Gras) got the better of me, so I never ended up using the fitness room despite it being very close to our room on the second floor.

The fitness room was a decent size and had several pieces of equipment and weights.

I didn’t notice if it was possible for guests to control the temperature of the fitness room, but it was nice and cool in there when I took the photos, so I probably wouldn’t have felt the need to make it cooler if I’d actually worked up the motivation to get on the treadmill.

Also on the second floor was a courtyard area they called the Atrium which was a nice enclosed outdoor space.

The Hyatt Centric French Quarter New Orleans had a business center which consisted of a couple of computers and a couple of printers.

Seeing as we were visiting during Mardi Gras, it was nice to see that the hotel had a bead recycling station.

Pet Policy

The Hyatt Centric French Quarter New Orleans is a pet-friendly hotel. Their pet fee is $100 when staying 1-6 nights and $200 when staying 7+ nights. We got lucky though as they didn’t charge us for having Truffles with us when checking out.

Dogs have to be 25 lbs or less and you’re allowed up to two dogs per room.

One slight downside of the hotel’s location is that there’s no grass immediately outside the property. We therefore tended to take Truffles up to N Rampart St which is only a few blocks away as there was a grassy area on a median there. That part of the road is closed due to the Hard Rock Hotel collapsing during construction last year, so at the time of writing this you don’t have to worry about traffic when crossing the road to the median.

Canal Street was also only a couple of blocks away and had grassy areas in the median too. Needless to say though, Canal Street was very busy during Mardi Gras, so we didn’t take Truffles there as frequently.

Service

Service was very good at the hotel. The front desk agents, the concierges and the staff in Batch and Powdered Sugar were all very friendly. Special shout out to the security guard who seemed to be at the hotel entrance 24/7 during our five days there. I don’t think he was an actual member of staff at the hotel (I might be wrong on that), but he was always very friendly and personable as we came and went.

An additional shout out to Erin who works in HR at the hotel but who we didn’t actually meet there. We happened to meet her at the Southern Paws pet store and got chatting to her for a while and she was lovely. She seemed genuinely interested in finding out if there was anything they could’ve improved about our stay. The only suggestion we had was that it would’ve been fun for them to leave a couple of masks and a few beads in each room when checking in during Mardi Gras, but that was about all we had as we were enjoying our stay so much.

Check-In & Check-Out Times

The check-in time at the Hyatt Centric French Quarter New Orleans is 3pm, while check-out is at 12pm.

Wi-Fi

The Wi-Fi at the hotel is free for all guests. It always seemed to be fast and we didn’t have any connectivity issues.

Location

The hotel is in an excellent location, which is one of the reasons we enjoyed Mardi Gras so much. Being in the French Quarter was perfect as it meant everything was within walking distance. Bourbon Street was only a block away, so it took no time at all to get over there. If you wanted some peace and quiet though, walking back the block to Dauphine Street meant it was much quieter.

Parking

It’s not cheap to park at the Hyatt Centric. They offer valet parking which costs $42 per night, or $48 for oversized vehicles. I’d normally balk at paying that kind of price for parking, so would have checked something like ParkWhiz to find something cheaper.

The great thing is that one of the benefits of having Globalist status with World of Hyatt is that you get free parking on award stays. That saved us $210 seeing as we stayed five nights.

There’s nothing listed on their website about self-parking, but an email I received before arriving said self-parking was an option, but to see the attendant as the prices varied by time and date.

When leaving our car with the valet, I’m pretty sure he said that it came with unlimited in and out privileges, but don’t quote me on that. It wasn’t worth trying to drive in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, so we just left our car parked the entire time.

Cost

As you might expect, it’s not cheap to stay in the French Quarter during Mardi Gras. Thankfully we had points and free night certificates we could use.

The Hyatt Centric French Quarter New Orleans is a category 4 property in the World of Hyatt program which means it costs 15,000 points per night. For our five nights, we covered our first two nights using 15,000 points per night and then used three category 1-4 certificates for the rest of our stay.

If you have a Hyatt credit card, you get one category 1-4 certificate at renewal each year; Shae and I each have a Hyatt card, so that’s where two of the certificates come from. You get another of those certificates if you spend $15,000 per cardholder year on the newest World of Hyatt card which is where that third certificate came from.

I have the newest World of Hyatt credit card which comes with a $95 annual fee, while Shae has the old version of the card which has a $75 annual fee. The main reason we keep those cards open is because of the anniversary night certificates, so really we paid $170 for our five nights at the hotel, so it wasn’t “free” as such.

Still, only having to effectively spend $170 for five nights is still a great deal. For comparison, it would’ve cost us almost $3,000 if we’d actually paid for the stay based on the price when we made our reservation.

On the points front, you can usually earn 50-60,000 World of Hyatt points as a welcome offer on the World of Hyatt credit card. Depending on the exact offer when you apply, you’d earn enough points for about four free nights at the Hyatt Centric.

Final Thoughts

We had a great stay at the Hyatt Centric. The staff were all very friendly and professional despite Mardi Gras being the most hectic time of the year for them. The hotel has some nice amenities and our room was more spacious than expected despite it seeming to be a standard room.

Even though we didn’t get a suite upgrade from having Globalist status, other Globalist benefits like complimentary breakfast and free valet parking probably saved us close to $500.

If we return to New Orleans in the future, the Hyatt Centric French Quarter New Orleans would definitely be my first choice based on the excellent experience we had and its prime location.

Truffles Approval Rating

Truffles gives the hotel three paws out of four – pawsome! We loved that the hotel was pet-friendly and that we didn’t end up getting charged a pet fee.

The hallway could get very noisy at night though (which is to be expected considering it was Mardi Gras), but Truffles didn’t appreciate that. We also had to walk a few blocks to get to any grass as there wasn’t any around the hotel.

Our Rating

Room = 4.4 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.4 / 5
Food = 4.2 /5
Location = 5 / 5
Service = 4.4 / 5
Overall Value = 4.7 / 5 (this is based on it being a category 4 Hyatt property; there’s no way we would’ve paid ~$600 per night including tax)

Total = 4.52 / 5

Address

Hyatt Centric, 800 Iberville St, New Orleans, LA 70112