After spending 10 nights in Jackson, our final stop in Mississippi was Biloxi. We’d never visited Mississippi before and the only thing I knew of Biloxi was that there were several casinos. I was therefore picturing it being tacky, but Shae and I actually loved it there.
Rather than staying at a casino, I booked us in at the Hyatt Place Biloxi. I was able to take advantage of Hyatt’s Best Rate Guarantee to get our room 20% cheaper, so it ended up being excellent value (see the ‘Cost’ section below for more about that).
We’ve stayed in Hyatt Places 60 nights a year for the last two years. Of all of those, the Hyatt Place Biloxi is definitely in my top three and might actually be my favorite. It’s in a great location opposite the beach, the rooms are comfortable, the staff members are all lovely, they have some great deals at the bar, an outdoor heated pool and more.
Here’s a complete review of our stay at the Hyatt Place Biloxi.
Check-In
We’d taken advantage of a late check-out at our previous hotel, so we didn’t arrive in Biloxi until about 7:15pm. It was therefore too dark to see the Gulf of Mexico as we drove along the water to the hotel, so we were looking forward to seeing it the next day.
Denise checked us in quickly and was very friendly. I asked if it was possible to get an upgrade to a room with an ocean view seeing as I have Globalist status with Hyatt. She advised that we’d already been upgraded which we appreciated – Hyatt is great about automatically upgrading guests with status unlike IHG.
One thing to note if you’re after an upgrade at this hotel is that unlike most Hyatt Place properties, the one in Biloxi has suites. I would’ve rather had that room type, but they didn’t have one available for all seven days of our stay. We don’t like changing rooms after we’ve checked in and unpacked, so we were happy staying in the room with a view.
King Bed Room With View
When entering the room the bathroom was immediately on the right. Beyond that was the bedroom area and at the end was the living area. This is a different layout to most Hyatt Place properties as you normally enter into the living area.
As always with Hyatt Place beds, it was very comfortable and we slept well every night. The lamps on both sides of the bed each had a couple of power outlets which was helpful for charging our phones overnight. The lamp on the left was a little wonky, but still worked OK.
On the other side of the room divider was the living area. This had a corner sleeper sofa, ottoman, side table and the large blanket that I love.
Like I mentioned earlier, it was dark when we arrived, but this was our view the next day.
Opposite the sofa was the room’s closet which contained a luggage rack, iron, ironing board and pillows for the sleeper sofa.
To the left of that was a desk and dresser. Between the two of those was a cupboard which contained a decent-sized mini fridge.
The TV was mounted to the wall above the mini fridge and dresser.
One thing to note with the TV is that when turning it on, it doesn’t go full-screen. Instead, it takes up 2/3 of the bottom-left corner of the TV, with other options being displayed on the right of the screen.
To make it go full-screen, you need to press the button on the bottom-right corner of the remote for a couple of seconds (I can’t remember what the button was). If you want to change the input (e.g. if you want to use a Fire TV Stick like we did), press that same button for a couple more seconds and you should be able to change to HDMI 1. Do the same again to change to HDMI 2, etc. It’s not an ideal setup, but it was fine once we actually knew how it worked.
There was a fairly good selection of TV channels, but we also used our Fire TV stick while there to increase our channel selection.
Bathroom
The bathroom wasn’t huge, but it was a little more spacious than your usual Hyatt Place bathrooms. It had the toilet, sink and vanity on the right and a walk-in shower straight ahead. The shower had pretty good water pressure, although water out of the sink’s tap didn’t have great pressure.
The toiletries were the standard Barney Kenet M.D. toiletries you always get at this hotel brand.
One of my pet peeves about Hyatt Place bathrooms is that they usually have strangely oversized doors that mean you have to pretty much get into the shower in order to close the door. On the positive side, the Hyatt Place Biloxi had a sliding door into the bathroom and so that wasn’t an issue.
Having said that, I actually prefer the normal type of door to the one that this hotel had as the bathroom door was made of frosted glass. That means if you need to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, turning the light on makes the bedroom bright which isn’t helpful for anyone else in your room trying to sleep.
Despite the frosted door, we really liked our room. It was nice getting to have an ocean view and our floor was very quiet, so our dog Truffles didn’t get disturbed by other guests in the hallway or above us.
Breakfast
One of the (many) reasons I enjoyed our stay at the Hyatt Place Biloxi is because they serve breakfast until 9:30am during the week and 10am at the weekend. Most Hyatt Places serve breakfast until 9am and 9:30am respectively, so I liked having an extra half-hour to spend in bed each morning seeing as I’m a late riser.
They offered scrambled eggs and breakfast potatoes as hot options every morning, with a couple of other hot options rotating each day.
On a couple of mornings of our stay, the breakfast staff started clearing breakfast away early, although it was nowhere near as bad as the Holiday Inn Express New Albany we’d stayed at a couple of weeks beforehand where they cleared it away 30 minutes early!
Amenities
Hyatt Places aren’t always great when it comes to their amenities, but the Hyatt Place Biloxi was certainly above average. One of its best features was its outdoor swimming pool and whirlpool. The swimming pool was heated, so guests could still enjoy it even though it was only 40-50° outside at times during our stay (we visited in January). There were even a few loungers in the pool itself!
Just outside of the swimming pool area is a fire pit with lots of seating around it.
Just outside of the breakfast area was an additional seating area which is probably nice when the weather is hotter as it was shaded.
The fitness room was a pretty good size and had several pieces of equipment and weights. Although the temperature can’t be controlled by guests, it wasn’t too hot in there which I appreciated.
The hotel doesn’t have a guest laundry area. It did have a business center in the lobby though which had a couple of computers and a printer.
Bar
All Hyatt Places have a bar area next to the front desk, but the Hyatt Place Biloxi had a much nicer bar area than normal. While most Hyatt Place bars consist of a short counter area with 2-3 seats, the one in Biloxi was much longer and there were lots of tables and seats behind it, making it much more conducive for socializing.
They also offered specials at the bar in the evening. I didn’t check to see if specials were available every evening, but on the Saturday night we checked in they offered:
- Cuban sandwich & a beer for $8
- Well cocktails for $3 (I’m not sure what’s in those)
- Draft beers for $2
- Shots for $1
We couldn’t say no to $1 shots, so after unloading our stuff from the luggage cart, we headed down to the bar – I had Jim Beam and Shae had some kind of tequila.
Another evening they had jazz night with a live musician.
That night they offered:
- Wings, chips & beer for $8
- Well cocktails for $5
- Wine for $3
- Beer for $3
These are all great prices for a hotel bar, so it wasn’t surprising to see the bar was busier than normal compared to other Hyatt Places we’ve stayed at. It probably also helped that the person working at the bar – Raven – was lovely.
Pet Policy
The Hyatt Place Biloxi is a pet-friendly hotel which is one of the reasons we stayed there as we travel with Truffles. You can have up to two dogs weighing no more than 75 lbs combined, with no dog weighing more than 50 lbs.
The pet fee is $75 for 1-6 nights and $175 for 7+ nights. Seeing as we stayed for a week we’d expected to be charged $175, but when checking out they didn’t charge us anything at all for a pet fee which was awesome. I don’t know if that was a mistake, if they waived it because I have Globalist status or if it was waived seeing as Truffles is so cute 😉
The hotel has lots of grassy areas all around the hotel, including a dedicated pet walking area at the front of the hotel.
There’s a sidewalk when leaving the hotel’s parking lot, so it’s easy and safe to take your dog for a walk. One thing to note is that dogs aren’t allowed on Biloxi beach at any time of the year. We can highly recommend heading over to the nearby city of Ocean Springs though. It has a really cute downtown area and dogs are allowed on their beach; it’s only about 15 minutes away, so not too far.
We took Truffles there one evening to play in the sand and she had a great time. Dogs have to remain leashed, so we attached a long rope to her so that she’d have space to run after her ball. We did this one evening when there were very few people around seeing as it was in January – we wouldn’t have done that during the summer as it would’ve been much busier.
In the opposite direction is Gulfport dog park. This was a nice dog park with separate sections for large and small dogs, with both sides having plenty of space for your pups to run around.
Service
Service was excellent at the hotel. All of the front desk staff members we interacted with were very friendly and they always greeted guests when entering.
When checking out, I asked to partially pay with a couple of Hyatt gift cards. Rather than being made to feel like an inconvenience because they’d already processed things beforehand, they happily amended things to ensure most of our stay was paid for using those gift cards.
Check-In & Check-Out Times
You can check-in from 3pm, while check-out is at 12pm. World of Hyatt members with Globalist status get to take advantage of a 4pm check-out, so we did that on our final day.
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi at the Hyatt Place Biloxi was very good and the speed was fast. Even better, we didn’t have to reconnect every 24 hours which most Hyatt Places require. This is only a small thing, but it’s a pain having to reconnect every day as it’s such an unnecessary requirement, so I appreciate this property not requiring that.
Location
The hotel is in an excellent location as it’s as close to the beachfront as you can get in Biloxi. Having said that, we were surprised that Biloxi doesn’t seem to offer anywhere safe for pedestrians to cross from hotels over to the beach. You have to cross over a two-lane road to a grassy median, then cross another two-lane road to the beach. We visited during off-season and it was only the two of us, so it wasn’t much of an issue. If you’re visiting during the summer though and are trying to corral your kids while lugging a cooler, beach chairs, etc., I can imagine it being a much more stressful and dangerous experience crossing the road. That’s not the hotel’s fault as the city should provide bridges or places where pedestrians can cross safely, but it’s something to be aware of.
The hotel is also far enough from the casinos to not be disturbed by partying going on down there, but close enough to walk to them if you want to.
Parking
Parking is free at the hotel and there are a lot of spaces. If the spaces are all taken at the front of the property, there are loads more spaces at the back of the hotel.
Cost
We got a little lucky when booking our stay. Hyatt was charging $95.04 per night before tax ($106.44 with tax) on their website which is a decent price considering how nice the hotel is and how close it is to the beach. (n.b. This was for a stay in January, so I imagine it’s much more expensive in the summer.) The reason we got lucky was because we found the same room costing ~$89 on Trivago.
Rather than booking on Trivago though, I booked directly with Hyatt and submitted a Best Rate Guarantee claim. In case you’re not familiar with Best Rate Guarantee policies, most hotel chains guarantee that you’ll get the lowest cost when booking directly with them rather than an OTA like Hotels.com or Expedia. If you find a better price elsewhere, they’ll match it and give you something else on top – either an additional discount or bonus points. For more on how that works, check out this post I wrote on Frequent Miler about a couple of Best Rate Guarantee claims I made with Hyatt a few months ago.
Hyatt offers to match the rate you found elsewhere, plus they’ll give you either an additional 20% discount or 5,000 bonus points. Seeing as we were staying for a week, I took the extra 20% discount as that was going to be worth more than 5,000 bonus points. That meant our nightly rate dropped to $71.43 per night, or exactly $80 per night including tax – that’s a fantastic deal.
Part of our stay was paid for with a $300 Hyatt gift card we bought for $255 thanks to this deal, so that made our stay even cheaper.
If we’d used points for our stay it would’ve cost 12,000 points per night as the Hyatt Place Biloxi is a category 3 property in the World of Hyatt program. That would be a decent redemption in the summer when the rates are presumably more expensive, but paying $80 is much better value than redeeming points.
Housekeeping Bonus Points
Speaking of points, the hotel offers 250 points per day when declining housekeeping. Be sure to check your account after your stay though as they didn’t award us any points despite us declining housekeeping every day. We should therefore have received 1,250 bonus points, so I reached out to my Hyatt concierge (one of the benefits of Globalist status) and she promptly sorted that out.
If you don’t have Globalist status, reach out to Hyatt Concierge on Twitter as they’re very good about resolving problems such as these.
Final Thoughts
We had a wonderful stay at the Hyatt Place Biloxi. We got upgraded to an ocean view room, they offered breakfast later than most other Hyatt Places, their staff members were fantastic and it’s in an excellent location. Their bar offers great deals on meals and drinks, plus they have an outdoor heated swimming pool which means it can be enjoyed year-round.
While it would be nice to not have a frosted glass bathroom door, that was a relatively minor thing in comparison to how nice the rest of the hotel is. If we ever return to Biloxi (which Shae and I both really want to do), the Hyatt Place would be our first choice as a place to stay.
Truffles Approval Rating
The Hyatt Place Biloxi gets four paws out of four – pawfect! Not only that, but Truffles has also awarded them with the golden tail wag – high praise indeed!
Loads of the front desk staff members showered her with love, so she really enjoyed all the attention she received when we walked past each day. They have a dog treat jar by the front desk, so they offered her treats a few days too.
The hotel has lots of grass around, plus the sidewalk outside the hotel made it easy and safe to take her for longer walks. Our room was quiet which meant she wasn’t disturbed by noises out in the hallway and best of all (well, for me anyway), we didn’t get charged a pet fee.
Our Rating
Room = 4.5 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.9 / 5
Food = 4.7 / 5
Location = 4.9 / 5
Service = 4.8 / 5
Overall Value = 4.7 / 5
Total = 4.75 / 5
Address
Hyatt Place, 1150 Beach Blvd, Biloxi, MS 39530
Inspired to stay there when I visit the Gulf coast, finally! Thanks
It’s definitely worth it!
Amazing view from your room!
Yep, not a bad thing to wake up to in the morning!
We had a stay here last fall and would love to go back during beach season as the hotel has such a wonderful location. The staff really makes this place great!
Us too!