After spending five days in Gallup, we headed east to Albuquerque for the International Balloon Fiesta (read more about that here).
For the International Balloon Fiesta we booked a stay at the Hyatt Place Albuquerque/Uptown as it was close to a Park & Ride location, but we got there a little earlier so that we could spend five days at the Hyatt Regency Albuquerque.
I picked the Hyatt Regency Albuquerque because it’s a category 1 property. That meant we could book it for only 5,000 points per night, but that standard room pricing wasn’t the reason we booked it. Hyatt lets you book premium suites with points too and so with this property being a category 1 hotel, those could be booked for only 10,000 points.
That meant we could get a VIP Suite or the Presidential Suite for only 10,000 points which is fantastic value, especially seeing as those points can be transferred in from Chase Ultimate Rewards if you don’t have enough Hyatt points. I’d been hoping we’d get the Presidential Suite and sure enough – that’s what we got!
There were a couple of quirks to our stay, but overall we enjoyed it and the staff members were fantastic, so we’d be happy staying there again. Here’s a full review of our stay at the Hyatt Regency Albuquerque.
Check-In
We booked this stay as a Guest of Honor stay. That’s something members with World of Hyatt Globalist status can do – you can book a stay using points for someone else and your Globalist benefits get extended to them even if you’re not there.
I have Globalist status and Shae was short of having enough nights to earn that status. As a result, I booked it using points from my account and transferred it to her account so that we’d get my benefits but she’d earn the elite night credits towards Globalist status of her own.
Seeing as the stay was booked in her name, she went inside to check in while I went to park our car as the hotel’s parking entrance is on the other side of the building. Shae asked if it was possible to be allocated the Presidential Suite rather than “only” a VIP Suite and they said that’s the room they’d already allocated us – woohoo!
I arrived back in the lobby shortly after they finished checking us in, so we headed up to the top floor of the hotel to check out what the suite was like.
Presidential Suite
I don’t know if the Hyatt Regency Albuquerque has more than one Presidential Suite, but the room number of ours was 2006. The suite had large double doors for its main entrance, along with doors at either end of the suite – one leading in to the dressing area just off the bedroom and one leading in to the wet bar/breakfast bar area.
Those double doors opened into an entrance which had a room divider on the left. This stretched out far enough to span the width of the entrance, so we used it to stop our dog Truffles from getting to the door when breakfast was delivered in the morning.
Based on the hotel website’s description of their suites, it seems like the Presidential Suite is 1,556 square feet which is about double the size of the apartment we lived in before setting off on our 50 state road trip!
Video Walkthrough
There are a lot more photos of the suite below, but I also took the following video walkthrough of the Presidential Suite to help give a better idea of the layout.
Living Room
To the left of the entrance hallway was the suite’s living room. This contained a comfortable leather couch along with a couple of armchairs and a window seating area.
The wooden cabinet at the end of the living room contained a TV.
There was a TV channel listing, but it didn’t match up with what was on TV and there was no on-screen channel guide. We therefore would’ve had to scroll through the channels each time to see if anything was on, so we just plugged in our Fire TV Stick instead to avoid that hassle.
Behind the leather couch was a work desk which included a computer and printer. It seemed like you needed some kind of password to log in, but that information wasn’t anywhere to be found. We could’ve called the front desk to obtain that if needed, but we had our laptops and so didn’t bother.
The Hyatt Regency Albuquerque is the second tallest building in the city. With the Presidential Suite being on the top floor (20th floor), you get views out over the city as well as the Sandia Mountains in the distance.
Dining Room
On the other side of the living area was a dining area with a large dining table and four chairs.
Wet Bar/Breakfast Bar
To the right of the dining room in the photo above was a breakfast bar with four high stools and a Keurig coffee maker on top.
On the other side of the breakfast bar was a wet bar with a mini fridge beneath.
The mini fridge had seen better days as the door was missing guards that would normally enable you to store drinks there.
On top of the wet bar were several small bottles of water.
Bedroom
The bedroom was off the living room. It was a decent size and had a very comfortable king bed. When recording the video, I’d said there was a chaise longue as that’s what I thought it was at first glance, but it was actually an armchair and ottoman sitting in the corner of the bedroom.
Rather than having regular curtains or blinds, the bedroom had wooden shutters that slid across.
Opposite the bed was another wooden cabinet that contained a TV. This TV also had the problem of the channel list not matching up with the actual channels on the TV.
In the other corner of the bedroom was a clothes rack.
Dressing Room
Off the bedroom was what I’m assuming is meant to be used as a dressing room, but perhaps has some other use. This had a table and mirror which can presumably be used as a makeup table, albeit without a chair there.
At either end of that room were closets. One contained an iron, ironing board, luggage rack and bedding…
…while the other contained a safe and a pillow.
If you need any items, there’s a long list of items the Hyatt Regency Albuquerque can provide. I’m assuming this list of items is available for all guests, not just those staying in the Presidential Suite.
Bathroom
The bathroom was off to the left of the dressing room. This was massive and had three separate sections. The main bathroom area had a whirlpool tub.
As you can see in the photo above, there were lots of toiletries available along with loofahs if you prefer those to wash cloths.
Along one side of the bathroom were double sinks. The bathroom was incredibly well-lit and the particular light bulbs they use gave off a good amount of heat.
Next to the sinks were separate sets of complimentary toiletries for men and women which was a nice touch.
In addition to the whirlpool tub, there was a large walk-in shower room.
This contained triple shower heads which was fun. The water pressure wasn’t amazing – presumably due to the pressure being spread across all three – but it was still an enjoyable shower experience.
There was a cubby hole in the shower room with even more toiletries.
The third part of the bathroom was a separately enclosed room containing the toilet.
Powder Room
The one remaining room in the Presidential Suite was a powder room which was off to the right of the main suite entrance.
Breakfast
One of the benefits of Globalist status (including that conferred by a Guest of Honor booking) is free breakfast. When we stayed at the Hyatt Regency Albuquerque, it was soon after it had reopened and so their restaurants were all still closed.
They were still able to offer breakfast, but it was only being done via room service from 7-11am. Slightly more weirdly, it was only available from Wednesday to Sunday each week. I’m guessing that’s because the chef(s) had Monday and Tuesday off (more in a moment about how breakfast worked on those two days).
There were eight breakfast options and we tried half the different options between us. All the breakfast options we tried were good and was more than enough food each morning.
On Monday and Tuesday (the days when room service breakfast isn’t available), the hotel provided us with $20 gift cards per person to Sawmill Market. Sawmill Market is like a hipster food court with all kinds of different dining options. The downside is that it’s about 1.5 miles from the hotel, so it’s not like you can just wander round the corner for breakfast.
As a result, we just ate granola bars and instant oatmeal for breakfast those two days and saved the gift cards for dinner from Sawmill Market on our final night in Albuquerque. Our dinners that night were delicious, so it was a good use of the gift cards.
Those only used two of our four $20 gift cards, so with our other two gift cards we bought desserts for that night and salads for the next day from Mercantile Cafe which were also very good.
Amenities
The Hyatt Regency Albuquerque has an outdoor rooftop pool on the third floor. This was still open at the end of September 2021 and was a decent enough temperature to swim in if we’d wanted to.
There’s also a good-sized fitness room on the second floor with lots of equipment and weights, including Peloton bikes.
If you’re not staying in the Presidential Suite and need to use a computer and/or print something off, there’s a business center in the lobby with four computers and a printer.
In addition to ice machines, there are vending machines available on some (or all?) floors.
As mentioned earlier, all the hotel’s restaurants were closed during our stay. They have a number of them during normal times though including a Starbucks (not pictured below).
Although those were all closed, the hotel’s gift shop was open.
Pet Policy
The Hyatt Regency Albuquerque is a pet-friendly hotel. Their pet fee is $100 for stays of 1-6 nights and $200 for 7-30 nights.
Truffles enjoyed staying in the Presidential Suite as there was a lot of space to run around and chase after her ball.
She was a little unsure about the bathtub though, perhaps because she was camouflaged.
There aren’t any grassy areas immediately outside the hotel, but if you exit out the front of the hotel and head to the left, there are some grassy areas a block or two down the street. Albuquerque also has a number of dog parks, with the North Domingo Baca Dog Park being our favorite of the three we’ve checked out in the past.
Service
Service at the Hyatt Regency Albuquerque was surprisingly good. I say that was surprising because it was closed for 18 months ever since the pandemic started and only opened in the month or so before we stayed there. As a result, I wouldn’t be surprised if they had new staff compared to who used to work there. Despite that, everyone was unfailingly kind, friendly and helpful from the front desk staff to the two valets who were both particularly personable and welcoming whenever we entered or left.
We did have a bit of an issue getting our mail sent there. We had a couple of packages sent to the hotel and both were sent via trackable mail and so we knew when they’d arrived. However, it took them several days for them to be able to find the packages. I’m not sure why there was that issue and it wasn’t for a lack of them trying to find the packages – they certainly tried their hardest to locate them. Although it was a little concerning at first that our mail might’ve been lost (we got both packages eventually), I appreciated that the staff tried so hard to work out what happened to them. I’m just assuming it was teething problems with procedures there being nailed down so shortly after reopening.
Wi-Fi
The hotel offers free Wi-Fi for guests and the connection was always very good.
Check-In & Check-Out Times
The check-in time at the Hyatt Regency Albuquerque is 3pm and check-out is at 12pm. We asked for a late checkout and were only offered until 2pm. We could’ve pressed for a 4pm late checkout as that’s a guaranteed benefit for Globalist members, but figured they might’ve had someone else checking in to the suite that night and so we didn’t want to cause issues for them.
Location
The Hyatt Regency Albuquerque is in central Albuquerque and so is relatively close to everything in the city. That means it has Petroglyph National Monument to the west and the Sandia Peak Tramway to the north.
Parking
The hotel has access to an underground parking lot, with the entrance on the other side of the building. Self-parking is $18 per night and valet parking is $22 per night, both of which come with in/out privileges.
Another benefit of Globalist status is free parking on award stays, so rather than having to pay $90 for our five nights, we paid $0.
Cost
As mentioned earlier, a standard room at the Hyatt Regency Albuquerque only costs 5,000 points per night, while premium suites – like The Presidential Suite we booked – cost 10,000 points per night. That meant our five night stay cost 50,000 points.
I didn’t make a note of much a standard room would’ve cost during our stay, but booking the premium suite would’ve cost $753.66 per night including tax. Only having to redeem 10,000 points per night for that same room means we got 7.54cpp (cents per point) of value which is fantastic value for Hyatt points. We’d obviously never pay that kind of cash rate, but that’s one of the fun things about the points and miles game – you get to have experiences that normally wouldn’t be possible.
Final Thoughts
We enjoyed our stay at the Hyatt Regency Albuquerque, especially seeing as we got to stay in the Presidential Suite for five nights. The hotel was still ramping up when we stayed as they’d only just reopened, but their employees were all working as hard as they could and were very friendly and helpful. As a category 1 property in the World of Hyatt program, it’s great value.
Truffles Approval Rating
Truffles awards the hotel four paws out of four – pawfect! Although the hotel didn’t have any grassy areas of its own, she had no problem going on walks nearby. She particularly loved having so much space in our suite to run around and, being on the highest floor, it meant it was nice and quiet.
Our Rating
Room = 4.8 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 3.7 / 5 (due to some parts still being closed)
Food = 4.1 / 5
Location = 4.2 / 5
Service = 4.8 / 5
Overall Value = 4.7 / 5
Total = 4.38 / 5
Address
Hyatt Regency, 330 Tijeras Ave NW, Albuquerque, NM 87102
dee says
nice overview..looked like fun
stephen says
It was!
russell says
thank you so much for this!
i live in abq, but my place only has a shower, so i was looking for a hotel with a nice soaking tub. what a fantastic value for 10k points, i’m going to have to book a staycation soon! their website provides absolutely no info on the room, so i truly appreciate this review. i hope you had a great time at balloon fiesta! 🙂
stephen says
Great, I’m glad it was helpful. One thing to be aware of is that you might “only” get a VIP Suite rather than the Presidential Suite. I imagine the VIP Suite would have some kind of bath, but I don’t know if they have a whirlpool tub like the one in the Presidential Suite.