Review: Hyatt Regency Vancouver

I hosted a friend in Vancouver a few weekends ago, and decided to put them up at the Hyatt Regency Vancouver for a one-night stay. This also gave me the opportunity to give Vancouver’s only Hyatt property a full review.

As a Hyatt Globalist member this year, I figured I would share my top-tier status benefits with my friend, while taking the opportunity of his visit to make some progress towards requalifying towards Globalist status the following year.

Hyatt Regency Vancouver – Booking

Hyatt is one of the final hotel rewards programs to stick to a published award chart with prescribed points prices for hotels. The Hyatt Regency Vancouver is designated a Category 3 property within World of Hyatt’s award chart, meaning that a standard room redemption costs 9,000 World of Hyatt points per night.

That’s exactly the rate that I ended up paying for this one-night stay, given that the prevailing cash rate would’ve otherwise been $400+, due to the Vancouver Sun Run taking place over the weekend.

Indeed, we value Hyatt points at 1.9 cents/point (CAD), so redeeming Hyatt points (which I transferred over from my Chase Ultimate Rewards account) was certainly the wiser choice. 

Hyatt Regency Vancouver – Location

The hotel is centrally located in Downtown Vancouver at Burrard St and West Georgia St, next to many downtown restaurants, shops, and popular attractions. It’s certainly an unbeatable location for any first-time visit to Vancouver, or a business trip when you’ll be spending most of your time downtown.

Robson Street is just a short seven-minute stroll from the Hyatt Regency and has many luxury retail and boutique shops, while the Pacific Centre shopping mall is a four-minute walk away.

For those who enjoy nature, Stanley Park is a 12-minute drive from the hotel or a three-minute walk to the bus stop at W Pender St and Burrard St. From there, you can hop on the #19 and arrive in 24 minutes.

Further afield, you’ll find the famous Gastown Clock and Rogers Arena, home of the Vancouver Canucks, both within a 20-minute walk. 

Vancouver International Airport is situated relatively close to downtown compared to other major cities, accessible within 30 minutes by taxi or rideshare for around a $30 fare, or by taking the SkyTrain to Burrard Station right on the Hyatt Regency’s doorstep.

Hyatt Regency Vancouver – Check-in

The hotel has entrances on all three sides of the block: Burrard St, West Georgia St, and Melville St. 

The Epic Rides bus to Whistler departs right from the Melville St entrance, and it just so happened that we’d take the bus back from Whistler just before checking into this stay. 

Even though I wasn’t aware of this at the time of booking, the location coincidentally turned out to be prime for our needs, since we could simply get off the Epic Rides bus and head straight up the escalators into the hotel lobby. For this reason, the Hyatt could be a great choice if you’re visiting Vancouver as a part of an overall trip to Whistler.

We arrived around 6pm at the end of our bus ride. Although the hotel lobby was spacious with high ceilings, I found the interiors to be uninspiring in terms of decor.

The lobby felt very businesslike, with dark wood panelling and grey walls and flooring. The check-in desks also appeared fairly dated as we approached them for check-in.

I had previously tried to “suite-talk” with the Hyatt Regency over text message, requesting an upgrade from our standard room with two double beds (which was the only room type bookable on points at the time).

I had requested a room with a king-sized bed or a suite upgrade if available, but the hotel had politely declined my request because they were full for the evening.

But to my surprise, upon arrival, I was told that we had in fact been upgraded to the hotel’s Discovery Suite on the 33rd floor, and that it was “quite large”. It would later turn out that the Discovery Suite is the Hyatt Regency Vancouver’s unpublished presidential suite, which isn’t even publicly listed on their website. 

It was certainly very generous of the hotel to upgrade us to their top-tier suite, entirely unprompted. My sense was that no standard or premium suites were available given the high occupancy, but since I was a Hyatt Globalist member and the presidential suite was unoccupied, the hotel simply decided to give it to us for the night. 

The front desk was also more than happy to extend a 3pm late checkout as a Globalist member, which is also quite generous when you consider that we were staying in the presidential suite. Yet again, Hyatt Globalist status had come through for me!

Hyatt Regency Vancouver – Discovery Suite

Heading up to the 33rd floor, we stepped into Room 3308, and were pretty blown away by our surroundings.

As you enter the Discovery Suite, to the left is a half-bathroom with a large mirror and LED ring light and toilet. 

In keeping with the rest of the hotel, the Discovery Suite has a businesslike colour palette of greys, soft blues, and red accents, with the patterned flooring and chairs also looking slightly dated. 

The Discovery Suite has an open-concept sitting and dining area. The sitting area features a couch with a side table on each end, plus two armchairs with a coffee table in the centre.

Against the wall are a large desk and ergonomic work chair featuring an iMac computer. This was my first time encountering a full computer workstation within a suite; however, it was quite an older-generation iMac, and the hotel could certainly invest in some new gear from the Apple Store over at Pacific Centre down the road. 

This dining area has a sizeable eight-person table, a three-seater island, and a kitchen featuring a small sink, a Keurig coffee machine, and a microwave.

My friend did note that the Keurig coffee machine in the kitchen was a bit below what he might’ve expected for a Downtown Vancouver presidential suite, and that Nespressos should be the minimum requirement for a residence of this calibre. Then again, he’s a bit of a coffee snob. 😉

Moving past the dining area, a second seating area is a mirror image of the first, with the couch being a pull-out version that could transform into a second bed. Sliding doors can close off this space to the rest of the suite, effectively creating a secondary bedroom.

Meanwhile, the primary bedroom is situated in a separate room to the right-hand side of the first sitting area, back near the entrance to the suite. 

The king-sized bed is flanked by two wooden side tables, while two velvet footrests sit at the foot of the bed to create a larger bench. 

In the right-hand corner of the bedroom are a reading chair, footrest, and reading lamp. Then, a flat-screen TV is mounted on the opposite wall to the bed.

The main bathroom features a large mirror with two built-in LED ring lights with two sinks. 

A large bathtub and separate walk-in shower are found on the right-hand side, and a door separates the toilet from the rest of the bathroom.

Lastly, a second bathroom is found on the opposite side of the suite, a mirror image of the primary bathroom that effectively forms part of the second bathroom when the sliding doors are shut.

In total, the Hyatt Regency Vancouver’s Discovery Suite has two and a half bathrooms, which is probably the most bathrooms I’ve ever had in a suite that I’ve gotten upgraded to.

The Discovery Suite had views of Downtown Vancouver from no less than three sides of the 33rd floor, which were were pretty spectacular through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

As you can imagine, my friend was absolutely delighted with his suite upgrade. I also crashed for a bit in the evening on the couch in the second sitting area, which wasn’t very comfortable at all, although I was also too lazy to make it a sofa bed for more comfort. 

Overall, I was very pleasantly surprised with this proactive presidential suite upgrade, which was my first-ever presidential suite upgrade without even having to ask for it.

As much as the suite reflected the rest of the hotel in being slightly past its prime, we had absolutely no complaints about our stay experience – the upgrade was a genuine surprise and a very welcome one at that. 

Hyatt Regency Vancouver – Two Double Bed Room with Balcony

After completing my stay, I realized that a review of an unprompted upgrade to the presidential suite may not be the most useful to readers, given that it’s a difficult upgrade to score and I had gotten very lucky.

Thus, I’ve asked our contributor Amy to share some of her thoughts on a recent stay at the Hyatt Regency Vancouver as well, when she had stayed in the Two Double Bed Room with Balcony.

Amy

On our last stay at the Hyatt Regency Vancouver, we had stayed in a Two Double Bed Room with Balcony, which was an upgrade from the standard Two Double Bed Room we had booked.

The rooms were recently renovated in 2019, and at first look, it looks pretty nice. The furnishings looked modern, the carpet clean, and the room spacious.

On closer inspection though, the age of the hotel was showing on the marked walls and the stucco ceiling.

The amenities in our room were pretty standard. There was a flat-screen smart TV, desk, dresser, accent chair, side table, and small refrigerator. The washroom had a bathtub, single sink, and LED-lit mirror.

I was a little disappointed with the balcony, as it was nothing more than a grey cement patio with no chairs or table, and offered a limited view of the building next to it and the hotel’s outdoor pool below.

Hyatt Regency Vancouver – Breakfast

Ricky

The Hyatt Regency Vancouver offers a very solid buffet spread, which is accessible on a complimentary basis for Globalist members. Since the entitlement is for two guests per room, I popped over the following morning for breakfast. 

Breakfast is provided at the hotel’s in-house restaurant, the Mosaic Grille & Bar, and runs from 7–11am.

I appreciated that all of the hot item dishes had covers that you could intuitively place on the side of the bowl and have them stand upright – too often, I find myself not knowing where to place the covers when getting food from the buffet.

There was a made-to-order omelette bar, which was a nice touch, as well as complimentary coffee and juice.

The breakfast items were top-quality, and we helped ourselves to quite a few plates’ worth. At a time when many North American hotels are waffling on their breakfast benefits as a cost-cutting measure, it’s great to see that the Hyatt Regency Vancouver continues to deliver for Globalist members.

Hyatt Regency Vancouver – Other Facilities

I didn’t have a chance to pop down to the hotel’s gym and pool, but my friend did go for a workout in the morning, and was quite happy with the fitness facilities.

The gym had a good range of cardio equipment, along with a few weight machines and a small floor workout area with free weights. 

There’s also an outdoor pool and hot tub linked to the gym, which looked like a nice place to catch some sunshine.

Conclusion

The Hyatt Regency Vancouver is geared towards a mix of business and leisure travellers and is a useful option for Hyatt loyalists in Vancouver.

My thoughts on this property are similar to that of the Hyatt Regency Toronto, where I also recently stayed, in that it’s a bit dated and uninspiring. I do wish that Hyatt’s overall presence in Canada could be improved in terms of the overall quality.

However, I was certainly overjoyed with the upgrade to the Discovery Suite for this stay, which elevated our experience and, combined with a tasty breakfast in the morning, left me with positive impressions as we checked out.

Given the reasonable World of Hyatt rate of 9,000 points, if paid rates were once again elevated across Downtown Vancouver hotels, I would certainly stay or put up a friend here again in the future.