For our six days in Palm Springs we booked a stay at the Hyatt Palm Springs.
Hotel rates in Palm Springs were particularly expensive when we visited in February 2022 because the last few days of our stay overlapped with the start of Modernism Week. Thankfully we managed to find award availability for those dates and so were able to book our stay using World of Hyatt points.
The hotel didn’t have particularly great reviews online, but it seemed like our best option nonetheless because it was pretty much our only affordable option whether using points or cash.
Our stay was better than I’d been expecting based on the online reviews, so in that sense it exceeded my expectations. The property is somewhat dated and I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to pay the $250+ per night that some other guests were paying, but it’s in the perfect location for exploring downtown Palm Springs.
Here’s a review of our stay at the Hyatt Palm Springs.
Check-In
We’d driven in from Temecula and arrived at about 3:30pm. While I unloaded our car, Shae went inside to get us checked in.
Our suite wasn’t quite ready, so I waited with our stuff inside while Shae went to park the car. The front desk agent hadn’t been particularly helpful when checking in as we had to ask where the parking garage was and what the breakfast policy was for those with Globalist status.
It didn’t take long until we got confirmation that our room – 102 – was ready. The front desk agent wasn’t helpful on that front either as she didn’t advise where our room would be. In most hotels that wouldn’t be an issue because it’s usually fairly intuitive, but that wasn’t the case at the Hyatt Palm Springs.
If your room is on the second floor or higher it’d likely be easier to find your room as I think there were signs with room numbers. However, on the first floor of the hotel. the long corridors that you’d expect to lead to rooms didn’t lead to any. After pushing the luggage cart all around the first floor, I went back to the front desk to ask where our room was. It turned out that it was down to the right of the front desk, through a door that takes you outside as our suite had an exterior entrance.
Cabana Suite
The Hyatt Palm Springs is an all-suite hotel where every suite has two rooms. I have Globalist status with Hyatt and had some Suite Upgrade Awards, so I used one of those to upgrade our room to a Cabana Suite.
As mentioned above, we entered our room from outside. It was initially surprising to see that rather than entering the living room, the door opened straight into the bedroom. That had a comfortable king bed and a chair in one corner. Along the wall was a dresser with a TV on top and a luggage bench to the left of that.
The bedroom led through to the bathroom on the left and the living room straight ahead.
On the right of the hallway was a coffee maker, a couple of complimentary bottles of water and a mini fridge in the cupboard below.
The mirrored closet was to the left of that and had an iron, ironing board and luggage rack. There was also a shelving unit that carried a couple of drinking glasses and a hairdryer.
Bathroom
The hotel had a bathtub with shower. The shower had surprisingly good water pressure considering the hotel is fairly dated.
The bathroom was a good size, having lots of counter space both sides of the sink, as well as a separate mirrored shelf area.
The hotel provided small bottles of toiletries and bars of soap. The shampoo was fine, but the bars of soap were awful as they were more like bars of chalk. They had a weird consistency and didn’t lather up at all well.
Living Room
The living room of our Cabana Suite at the Hyatt Palm Springs was quite large. There was a leather sofa along one wall, an additional chair and a large ottoman. On the opposite side of the room was a long shelving unit and wall-mounted TV. There were several decorative elements as well that were a nice touch.
The Cabana Suite wasn’t perfect though. Overall, it felt a little dated, with some of the wallpaper showing its age. Having a leather sofa in a hot area destination like Palm Springs was a poor choice as it got very sticky when sitting there for more than a few minutes at a time.
Another curious design choice is that there was no work area in the suite. Both the living room and bedroom were a good size, but for some reason they’ve decided not to provide a desk and office chair.
The air conditioning wasn’t great either. For starters, there was something up with the thermostat because even when setting the temperature to 64° it felt more like 70-72°. There was a discrepancy in temperature between the bedroom and living room too. There was only one temperature control for the entire suite, but the living room was always cooler than the bedroom. That meant the bedroom could get a little warm at night.
Although the suite wasn’t perfect, it was clean and had plenty of space (it’s 606 sq ft).
Cabana
The reason our suite was called a Cabana Suite is because outside the living room was our own personal cabana. There were a couple of sun loungers as well as a couple of outdoor chairs, with a fan overhead.
The fact that the living room opened out to the hotel’s courtyard and swimming pool area meant the layout of our suite made more sense. We’d normally expect to enter straight into the living room, with the bedroom being at the back of the suite. This setup was preferable though because the front of the hotel was quieter than the pool area would likely be. I don’t know if all suites at the Hyatt Palm Springs have this layout or if it’s only Cabana Suites.
Hyatt Palm Springs Breakfast
Breakfast is served from 8-11am every day. I always love when we can have a later breakfast at hotels for a couple of reasons. It means I can sleep in later and a late breakfast will normally see us through to dinner.
I have Globalist status in the World of Hyatt program which means that we get complimentary breakfast. The Hyatt Palm Springs doesn’t have a lounge, so that was provided in the hotel’s restaurant to the left of the front desk.
Complimentary breakfast included one entrée and one drink per person. Rather than having a breakfast buffet, there was a set menu to choose from:
I loved the sound of many of those breakfast options. With us staying six nights, that meant six breakfasts and so I tried something different each time.
All the entrées are cooked to order, so you can customize your breakfast. I don’t like cheese, so it was nice to be able to order the omelets and burrito sans cheese.
All our breakfasts tasted great and included plenty of food. The only element I didn’t care for as much was the bacon. That was far too crispy for my liking, but I know some people like it that way and so that’s just down to preferences rather than being an actual problem.
Here are the different breakfasts we tried; I ordered the bagel with lox on our final morning to-go which is why it’s in a container like that. You might notice there are photos of seven dishes – the French toast was something Shae ordered one of the days.
Amenities
Even if you don’t get a Cabana Suite, the Hyatt Palm Springs has cabanas available for other guests to use.
There’s an outdoor swimming pool and whirlpool.
That courtyard area also has a game area with a table tennis table and bar.
At the front of our property (right outside our room) was an AstroTurf putting green. That had definitely seen better days as it was well-worn, plus it seemed kind of pointless as the hotel didn’t offer putters and golf balls and I doubt golfers bringing their own clubs would leap at the chance to test their skills on this sub-mediocre putting green.
In front of the putting green was lots of outdoor seating next to a water feature.
That seating was empty during the day for the most part, but was much more popular at night time when the outdoor HooDoo Bar was open.
With us staying at the Hyatt Palm Springs during Modernism Week, we got to see it lit up at night for the festival.
In the lobby there were a number of displays and vendors for Modernism Week as I think the hotel was one of the sponsors.
The Hyatt Palm Springs has a fitness room on the second floor. This contained several pieces of equipment and weights.
Hyatt Palm Springs Pet Policy
The Hyatt Palm Springs is a pet-friendly hotel and their pet fee is $30 per day. With us staying six nights, we should have been charged a $180 pet fee which is very high. Thankfully they neglected to charge this to our folio, so Truffles got to stay with us for free.
There’s a small pet area to the side of the hotel, but Palm Springs is a great place to walk your dog and there are plenty of grassy and mulchy areas for your pup to do their business.
Service
Our check-in experience wasn’t particularly good and we didn’t really need any help from the front desk after that other than to check out. We declined housekeeping during our stay and so can’t comment as to how thorough they were.
The breakfast staff members were always friendly though. Our food came out relatively quickly after ordering too even when ordering with customizations (like no cheese on my food).
Wi-Fi
The hotel offers complimentary internet. The connection was reliable and the speed was good, so we had no problem doing video calls during our stay.
Check-In & Check-Out Times
The check-in time at the Hyatt Palm Springs is 4pm and check-out is at 11am. My Globalist status meant we could’ve requested a 4pm late checkout, but we had a long drive ahead of us the day we checked out which included a stop at Manzanar National Historic Site, so we got going earlier that morning than normal.
Location
The hotel has a fantastic location on Palm Canyon Drive which means you’re within walking distance of everything downtown. That includes many restaurants, bars, the Palm Springs Walk Of Stars, Marilyn Monroe statue and much more. Check out this post for things to do in Palm Springs.
Parking
The Hyatt Palm Springs has an underground parking lot. They offer self-parking for $25 per night and valet parking for $27 per night, although valet parking was suspended during our stay due to COVID.
A benefit of Hyatt Globalist status is that you get free parking on award stays. That means that by booking with points we saved $150 on parking fees for our six night stay.
Cost
We booked our stay using points. When we stayed in February 2022 the Hyatt Palm Springs was a category 3 property. That was before they introduced peak and off-peak pricing, so our stay cost 12,000 points per night.
Peak/off-peak pricing went live on March 1, 2022, a couple of weeks after our stay. That means category 3 properties now cost 9,000, 12,000 or 15,000 points per night depending on if they’re priced at the off-peak, standard or peak rate respectively.
Hyatt was running a promotion at the time offering 2,022 bonus points for every two nights you stayed. Award nights were eligible, so our six night stay costing a total of 72,000 points got us 6,066 points back.
If we’d paid cash for the cheapest room for our dates, it would’ve cost us $272.99 per night including tax. That means we got 2.27cpp (cents per point) of value by redeeming points which is good for Hyatt.
The value got even better though. By using a Suite Upgrade Award, we were able to get upgraded to a Cabana Suite for which they were charging $418.62 per night for our dates; that’s almost 3.5cpp of value. Again, there’s no way we would’ve ever paid that price in cash, but that’s the beauty of points and hotel status – you get to book stuff you wouldn’t normally be able to afford and/or would want to pay.
Final Thoughts
Overall, we were happy with our stay at the Hyatt Palm Springs. We enjoyed our suite even though it had a few areas for improvement. Breakfast was very good, the hotel had some nice amenities and its location is fantastic.
My opinion of it is based on us redeeming points for our stay though. I wouldn’t have been as happy if we’d paid $250+ per night for our stay. In fact, while having a drink at Boozehounds we got chatting to another couple who happened to also be staying at the Hyatt. They were paying ~$300 per night for their room and were disappointed with it. I forget what issues they had, but I think there was something badly wrong with their bathroom and one or two other things.
Even though the hotel is far from perfect, if we head back to Palm Springs at some point in the future I’d be happy staying at the Hyatt Palm Springs again provided we could use points for our stay.
Truffles Approval Rating
Truffles awards the hotel four paws out of four – pawfect! Our suite was quiet for the most part which meant she didn’t feel the need to bark to protect us from imminent danger. The hotel was in a good location to take her for walks, so she enjoyed that.
Her four paws rating is also based on us not getting charged the $30 per night pet fee; if they’d charged that, she would’ve downgraded her rating to three paws because having to pay $180 would’ve severely impacted her dog treat budget.
Our Rating
Room = 4.3 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.2 / 5
Food = 4.6 / 5
Location = 4.9 / 5
Service = 3.6 / 5
Overall Value = 4.1 / 5 (based on the points price; we’d never have paid $250+ per night)
Total = 4.28 / 5
Address
285 N Palm Canyon Dr, Palm Springs, CA 92262
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