When planning out our time in Virginia on our 50 state road trip, we booked a 6 night stay at the Hyatt Place Roanoke.
I made a mistake with our hotel reservation in Richmond though, so we booked an extra day in Roanoke at the beginning of the visit. Shae and I were subsequently due to visit Virginia Beach, but Hurricane Dorian made us rethink those plans as it was due to affect the area the afternoon we’d be arriving. We therefore booked an extra couple of days in Roanoke at the end.
As a result, we stayed at the Hyatt Place Roanoke for 9 nights – a mix of paid nights and nights paid for using points. Thanks to a good cash rate, a couple of Amex Offers, a free Hyatt gift card and it being a category 1 property, it was a great value stay. We’ll have more about how that all worked in the ‘Cost’ section later on.
We had a good stay, although our room was noticeably smaller than other Hyatt Places we’ve stayed at. Like I mentioned above though, it was great value overall and is in a pretty good location, so I’d recommend staying there on a visit to Roanoke. Here’s my full review of the Hyatt Place Roanoke.
Check-In
Shae and I arrived just after 6pm and got checked in straight away. Our first night was booked using points, then the next six nights were being paid for. We mentioned that we had the two reservations to the person checking us in, so she made sure our room was blocked for the entire week.
She let us know that we’d have to stop by the front desk the following morning to check out and check back in, but blocking our room meant all they’d need to do would be to extend the keys so that we wouldn’t have to change rooms. Seeing as we travel full-time and so bring a carload of stuff in with us each time, we appreciated not having to cart that to a different room after one night.
She gave us keys to room 315 and we made our way up to our room.
1 King Bed Room
Room 315 was right next to the elevator. While that’s convenient in some respects, it meant we had other guests and housekeeping walking past all day and night. That’s not bad for Shae and I, but our dog Truffles wasn’t a big fan of that.
The first thing I noticed when entering the room was how it was noticeably smaller than every other Hyatt Place we’ve ever stayed in. It was still a decent size compared to many other hotel rooms, but the square footage was definitely less than normal.
For example, pretty much every other Hyatt Place property has a corner sleeper sofa, whereas this one only had a regular sleeper sofa. One thing this property did have though was power outlets next to the sofa, something that’s usually missing at other locations.
To give you an idea of how much smaller the room was, it wasn’t possible to get an empty luggage cart in the room. We therefore had to unload the cart from outside our room, then load it up the same way when checking out.
One of the things I love about this hotel brand is that they provide a blanket for the couch that’s a great size and very comfortable. This was missing from our room when we arrived at the Hyatt Place Roanoke. That seemed to be an oversight though as they provided one at the front desk when asking about it.
Opposite the couch was a desk and office chair. This is usually in a different location in the room which I think contributed to the confined feeling.
To the right of that was a wet bar. I’d guess that 75% of Hyatt Places we stay at have a dry bar, so it’s always nice being at one of the 25% that have a wet bar. That area had a coffee maker and a mini fridge beneath.
The desk is usually opposite the wet bar rather than to the left of it. However, there wouldn’t really have been much room for it there due to the room’s size, hence its location elsewhere.
Between the living area and bedroom was the room’s TV. There was an ice bucket and a couple of drinking glasses in the shelving unit beneath.
As for the bedroom, there was a king bed. As with all Hyatt Places, the bed and pillows were very comfortable.
Both sides of the bed had plenty of power outlets and USB ports available for charging devices.
Opposite the bed on the left was the room’s closet. This contained a luggage rack, iron and ironing board, as well as an extra pillow in case anyone stays with you on the sleeper sofa.
Bathroom
Next to the closet were some dresser drawers and the room’s sink and vanity.
The vanity held the toiletries which were the Barney Kenet M.D. toiletries you’ll find at all Hyatt Places in the US.
The bathroom itself had the toilet and a walk-in shower. For me, the shower was the best part of the room as the water pressure was fantastic.
Breakfast
Breakfast was served until 9:30am on weekdays and 10am at the weekend. The generic Hyatt Place breakfast policy is that you only get free breakfast if you’re a World of Hyatt member (their loyalty program which is free to join) and you book directly with them, rather than through an OTA like Expedia or Hotels.com. In reality, they never checked room numbers when going for breakfast, so it doesn’t seem to matter at this property how you book.
There was always scrambled eggs, but the two or three other hot items differed each day. The day I took the photos there was shoulder bacon, potatoes and turkey sausage and cheese biscuits. Other days there was a sweet potato and corn hash, pancakes, monkey bread, sausages and more.
The other breakfast options were the same pretty much every day, other than occasionally having different freshly cut fruit.
One slightly strange thing to note is that the silverware was spread out around the breakfast area. Rather than having forks, knives and spoons all in one place, the forks were by the hot food, the knives were on the opposite side of the breakfast area and the spoons were on the section linking them.
While the breakfast staff did a great job of ensuring all the food was well stocked – I don’t remember anything ever being empty during our 9 days there – the same couldn’t be said for the silverware. There were a few mornings where there were either no forks or no knives or none of either. When highlighting that to staff they promptly brought out clean ones and so it wasn’t a big issue, it was just a little unusual that they were on top of everything except having something to eat your food with.
As for drinks, there was milk, water, juices and a coffee and tea station.
The selection of teas was poorer than most other Hyatt Places we’ve stayed at as they only had something like three different flavors – there are usually eight different flavors. Most notably for me, they never had any English breakfast tea which is the only flavor I like. While it looks like there are eight flavors in the photo below, all the flavors were duplicated.
Amenities
The Hyatt Place Roanoke has a few amenities for guests to take advantage of. There’s an indoor swimming pool which was very warm when I checked the temperature during our first couple of days there. The room itself was incredibly warm too, so it was like a swimming pool, (non-bubbling) whirlpool and sauna all rolled into one!
When checking a few days later though, the room was a little cooler, as was the water. It was still a comfortable temperature, just not quite the bath water temperature it had been when I’d first checked.
Speaking of temperature, praise be to the Hyatt Place Roanoke for having a fitness room where guests can adjust the temperature. Not only that, but the air conditioning worked very well, cooling the fitness room down quickly.
There aren’t guest laundry facilities at the hotel, so that’s something to be aware of if you’ll be spending a little while there.
Just off the lobby is a business center with a couple of computers and a printer.
By the front desk is a bar area, along with snacks and drinks available for purchase.
The Hyatt Place Roanoke is near Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport, so the hotel offers a free shuttle service to and from the airport. It seems like at least one of the airlines puts up their crew at the hotel as we often saw pilots and cabin crew coming and going.
Pet Policy
The Hyatt Place Roanoke is a pet-friendly hotel. Up to two dogs are allowed in a room provided the combined weight doesn’t exceed 75 lbs. The pet fee is $75 per stay, regardless of how long you stay there. That obviously sucks if you’re staying one night, but it wasn’t bad for us seeing as we stayed nine nights.
The hotel has sections of grass all around the hotel where your dog can do their business.
There aren’t any dog parks in the immediate vicinity, but we took Truffles to Highland Dog Park which is 6 miles away. This has separate sections for small and large dogs and, while it wasn’t the largest dog park we’ve ever been to, it was a reasonable size.
Service
Service at the hotel was very good. All the staff were friendly and helpful, with several staff members giving Truffles lots of attention which she always loves.
They’d made a mistake with our first night at the hotel as we booked using points but they still charged us something like $45. It took a little while to explain what happened, but ultimately they got it fixed and refunded our card, so that was fine.
Check-In & Check-Out Times
Check-in is at 3pm and check-out is at 12pm.
Wi-Fi
The hotel’s Wi-Fi is free for guests and had a good speed. Somewhat annoyingly though, it logs you out every 24 hours and so you have to reconnect. This wasn’t a problem on our phones, but whenever that happened on my laptop I had to restart it in order to reconnect which was frustrating, especially when I was in the middle of working on something online.
I’m writing this review from a TownePlace Suites (a Marriott brand) and they allow you to pick your length of stay when first connecting to the Wi-Fi. That ensures it stays connected for the entire stay rather than having to fuss around with reconnecting each day.
Location
The full name of this hotel is Hyatt Place Roanoke Airport/Valley View Mall. As the name suggests, it’s near the airport and Valley View Mall. That makes it an incredibly convenient place to stay if you need to be close to either of those locations.
We weren’t flying in or out of Roanoke, but it was nice being near Valley View Mall as it meant we were close to stores, restaurants and grocery stores. Downtown Roanoke is only 5 miles away, so it doesn’t take long to get there.
Immediately outside the hotel is a Chinese buffet called Red Palace. We went there for dinner to reward ourselves after a hike up to McAfee Knob and it was very good – far better than your average Chinese buffet.
Parking
Parking is free at the hotel; there were always plenty of spaces available out front, while there were additional spots all around the property.
Cost
OK, this section will be a little longer than in our normal hotel reviews. That because the first night was booked using points, the next six we paid cash and the final two nights were booked using points again.
We’ll start off with the six night paid booking seeing as that was the original reservation. We booked a AAA rate for $104.97 per night including tax. The cheapest other rate for our dates was $108.68 per night, so AAA membership saved us $22.26 on this stay.
$104.97 per night is more than we’d usually like to pay for a hotel, but I knew it wouldn’t end up being that expensive. For starters, I had a $100 Hyatt gift card I got for free as one of the Milestone Rewards. Their loyalty program offers that as one of three benefits you can choose from after staying 40 nights at Hyatt properties in a calendar year.
Even better, there was an Amex Offer that gave $75 back when spending $250 or more at Hyatt Place or Hyatt House properties. I had that offer on one of my Amex cards and Shae had it on one of hers. We therefore split the rest of the payment so that $250 went on one card and the rest went on the other. That meant our room rate that should’ve cost $629.83 ended up costing us $379.83, or only $63.31 per night which was great value.
I earned 4,635 points for that paid stay which included 500 bonus points for booking it using the Hyatt app. Our 9 nights in total meant I moved from 63 nights to 72 nights stayed with Hyatt this year. Crossing that 70 night threshold meant I got another Milestone Reward which was a choice between 10,000 bonus points and another suite upgrade award. We don’t tend to stay at Hyatt brands that offer suites enough for an extra suite upgrade to make a difference, so I picked 10,000 bonus points seeing as that can get us another two free nights at category 1 Hyatt properties on our road trip.
As for the other three nights that bookended our original reservation, we used points. The Hyatt Place Roanoke is a category 1 property in the World of Hyatt loyalty program which means it costs 5,000 points per night. That’s also very good value, especially seeing as we booked those nights at the last minute. If we’d had to pay cash, it would’ve cost us $124.23 for the first night and $133.86 for the final two nights. That means we got 2.48-2.68cpp (cents per point) of value for those three nights which is good value for Hyatt points
Final Thoughts
We had a good stay at the Hyatt Place Roanoke. The staff were friendly, the shower in our bathroom was amazing and breakfast was always kept well-stocked.
The biggest negative for me was how small our room was compared to most Hyatt Places. That meant there was a smaller sofa, the square footage was less and it was impossible to get the luggage cart into the room due to the layout. I’m not sure if that’s an issue with all rooms there or if it’s just the layout of the particular room we were in.
The hotel was in a great location and was good value when paying cash or using points, so it’d likely be my first choice if we return to Roanoke in the future.
Truffles Approval Rating
Truffles gives the hotel three paws out of four – pawsome! Having a $75 pet fee was reasonable given the length of our stay, although it would’ve felt overly expensive if we’d only stayed one night. She loved all the attention the front desk staff gave her, but she (*cough*us*cough*) didn’t enjoy being so close to the elevator as it meant she felt the need to alert us to people in the hallway.
Our Rating
Room = 4.1 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.1 / 5
Food = 4.3 / 5
Location = 4.5 / 5
Service = 4.4 / 5
Overall Value = 4.6 / 5
Total = 4.33 / 5
Address
Hyatt Place Roanoke Airport/Valley View Mall, 5040 Valley View Blvd NW N, Roanoke, VA 24012
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