Shae and I took a pause from our 50 state road trip recently to fly to Seattle, WA. We went there to surprise a friend for his birthday and we all stayed at the Hyatt Regency Seattle.
There are a few Hyatt Regency properties in Seattle – the one we stayed at is the one downtown. It ended up being a great stay and I’d be more than happy to stay there again in the future when we return to Seattle officially on our road trip.
Here’s a review of our stay at the Hyatt Regency Seattle.
Check-In
Shae and I flew in to Seattle seeing as we’re currently in Denver, CO. We took the Sound Transit light rail system from the airport to a nearby station and walked the ~5 minutes to the hotel.
There was a little bit of a wait to check in as several people arrived just ahead of us, but it didn’t take too long before we got to the front of the line. The guy checking us in was very friendly and it only took a couple of minutes before we had our keys to room 4304.
I have Globalist status with Hyatt which entitles you to a suite upgrade at check-in if you don’t use one of your Suite Upgrade Awards ahead of time. All the suites had sold out the night we arrived, so we had to make do with the standard king room we’d booked. The nice thing was that with the hotel having 45 floors, we were almost at the top on the 43rd floor.
King Room
The bedroom was straight ahead when entering our room, with the bathroom off to the right. The bed was very comfortable and the room’s blackout curtains worked well to keep it dark at night.
Both sides of the bed had power outlets and lamps. In addition to the bedside lights, both sides had smaller reading lights beneath.
To the right of the bed was a safe, mini fridge, coffee maker and a few bottles of water. Both sides of the bed also had motion-sensor lights at ground level so that you could see where you were going in the dark without needing to turn any other lights on which was a nice feature.
Opposite the bed was a wall-mounted TV which might not look too big in the photo, but it was probably the largest screen TV we’ve had in a hotel before.
By the window was a sofa and a good-sized coffee table.
To the right of the couch was a desk and office chair.
Being on the 43rd floor meant we had a nice high view, although I don’t know if rooms on the other side of the hotel have a water view or not.
The closet was back towards the room’s entrance and contained an iron and ironing board.
Bathroom
The bathroom had a walk-in shower; the shower was OK, but it didn’t have tremendous water pressure. A good feature is that the handle to turn the shower on was on the wall opposite the shower head which meant you didn’t get wet when turning it on.
Rather than having small toiletry bottles, there were larger bottles of Pharmacopia shampoo, conditioner and body wash.
Regency Suite
We’d booked our friend’s room as a Guest of Honor stay which is a benefit available to World of Hyatt members with Globalist status when booking award stays using points or free night certificates. Booking a Guest of Honor stay means that they receive full Globalist benefits like suite upgrades, lounge access, free parking, etc.
When checking in our friend’s room they had one suite remaining, so we were able to get them upgraded to that. We decorated the room for our friend’s birthday before they arrived, but here’s what it was like pre-decoration.
Regency Suite Living Room
The Regency Suite at the Hyatt Regency Seattle is a one bedroom suite. When entering the suite there was a wet bar off to the right, the living room straight ahead and the bedroom and bathroom to the right. Between the bedroom door and wet bar was a desk and office chair.
The wet bar had a sink and coffee maker, along with a mini fridge in a cupboard beneath.
The living room had a couch and a couple of other chairs along with a coffee table. Their suite was a couple of doors down from our room which meant they had the same view as us out the window.
Opposite the couch was a wall-mounted TV. The TVs let you cast to them from your phone which meant we were able to have a Happy Birthday song playing for our friend when they arrived while we hid.
Regency Suite Bedroom
Their bedroom had a king bed with an armchair and side table on the left.
Opposite the bed was another wall-mounted TV.
Between the bedroom and bathroom was a separate dressing area with a closet.
Their closet had an iron, ironing board, safe and a couple of bathrobes.
Regency Suite Bathroom
In addition to a walk-in shower, their bathroom had a fairly large, deep bathtub.
Hyatt Regency Seattle Club Lounge
Another benefit of Globalist status is getting complimentary access to the club lounge which is on the 8th floor.
When we visited in July 2021 the lounge still wasn’t back to normal COVID-wise. Breakfast wasn’t available, nor were evening drinks and hors d’oeuvre’s which are presumably normally offered there.
The only food that was provided were a few snack bars and packets of nuts.
It was also a little surprising that there were no self-serve soft drinks beyond bottles of water and a coffee maker.
On the positive side, there was a nice wraparound seating area outside.
Hyatt Regency Seattle – Market
Seeing as breakfast wasn’t available in the club lounge, the hotel is giving Globalist members $25 per person per room to spend at Market which is where you can get breakfast in the morning. That meant Shae and I had $50 to spend between us each morning, as did our friends. Breakfast is served until 11am each morning, so there’s no need to rush down in the morning if you don’t have plans.
As you can see from the menus above, $50 between two people should generally be enough to get plenty of stuff to eat and drink. We ended up trying a bunch of different breakfast items during our four night stay, all of which were very good.
Both the egg frittata and quiche came with salad; the salad didn’t have any dressing, so that’s something that could be improved.
The hotel also has Andare Kitchen & Bar (an Italian restaurant) which is open from 11am until 8:30pm or 9:30pm depending on the day. This is available for dine-in, to-go and room service.
There’s another restaurant called Daniel’s Broiler but that appeared to be closed while we were there.
Amenities
The Hyatt Regency Seattle has a good-sized fitness room with lots of equipment including Peloton bikes.
If you don’t have access to the club lounge, there’s another business center on the second floor. It costs 40c per minute to use their basic workstation or 55c per minute to use their design workstation which includes access to Adobe Creative Suite. I was a little surprised they charge to use their computers, but this might be done to prevent non-guests from using it as an internet café.
If you need to print anything it costs 59c per side when printing in black and white or $1.99 per side when printing in color. It looks like these services are managed by FedEx so that might be another reason for all the charges.
Pet Policy
The Hyatt Regency Seattle is a pet-friendly hotel and they allow one dog of up to 50 lbs per room. Their pet fee is $75 per stay for 1-6 nights and $150 for stays of 7-29 nights.
We left Truffles with some friends in Denver for this trip, so we didn’t have her with us. I therefore didn’t pay attention to whether there were any grassy areas near the hotel, although looking on Google Maps it looks like there are a couple of small parks a few blocks away.
Service
Service at the hotel was very good. At the front desk Marisol and Jandrea in particular were excellent.
All of the staff members at Market were fantastic in the morning at breakfast. There were a couple of very new employees who were still getting to grips with the computer system, but they were always incredibly friendly and pleasant. Their supervisor/manager was also lovely, although I’m afraid I didn’t get any of their names.
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi was free and seemed to be a good speed.
Check-In & Check-Out Times
The check-in time at the Hyatt Regency Seattle is 4pm and check-out is at 11am. My Globalist status meant that we were able to get a 4pm late checkout which was useful as our flight back to Denver wasn’t until the evening.
Location
The hotel is in downtown Seattle and is only half a mile from Pike Place Market and a mile to the Space Needle. I hadn’t realized before our visit that Seattle is a hilly city, so Lime scooters can come in handy there if you don’t want to exert yourself too much.
It’s also only a five minute walk to Westlake Station where you can take Sound Transit to other locations in the city as well as to the airport.
Parking
Self-parking at the hotel costs $40 per night and comes with in and out privileges. We didn’t have our car with us, but our friends did. Seeing as we’d booked their room as a Guest of Honor stay using free night certificates, the parking fee was waived.
Cost
The Hyatt Regency Seattle is a category 4 property which means it costs 15,000 points per night. We booked all four of our nights using World of Hyatt free night certificates. These were earned in a variety of ways; two were category 1-4 certificates received when renewing our Hyatt credit cards. One was a category 1-4 certificate earned from spending $15,000 on one of our Hyatt cards and the other was a category 1-7 certificate earned after staying 60 nights. Using a category 1-7 certificate wasn’t the best use that could be made from it, but it was due to expire a couple of weeks later and so it was better to use it than lose it.
Unfortunately I didn’t make a note of how much the cash rate was during our stay, but I think it was something like $200 per night including tax.
Final Thoughts
We really enjoyed our stay at the Hyatt Regency Seattle. It’s in a great location downtown, the rooms are in very good condition and the staff are fantastic. Breakfast was also good, with the only somewhat downside being the fact that the club lounge still has a very limited offering.
Our Rating
Room = 4.2 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.0 / 5
Food = 4.6 / 5
Location = 4.7 / 5
Service = 4.8 / 5
Overall Value = 4.5 / 5
Total = 4.47
Address
Hyatt Regency, 808 Howell St, Seattle, WA 98101
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