A few weeks ago I was in New York to spend time with my family.  I don’t have any family in New York, they were visiting there and flights were cheap, so why not?  The first night I stayed at the Hilton New York in midtown Manhattan, which is a massive if not unimpressive edifice that is nice enough on the inside but has little personality.  I needed to be in New York for one more night and was perusing through available hotels and for some reason my eyes kept darting back to the Park Hyatt New York.  It was certainly out of my budget (at around $900 per night!) but I had some Hyatt points sitting there.  Could it be worth it? I don’t know, let’s do a Park Hyatt New York review!

[Just as a side note, I really put a lot of effort into these photos.  I frequently get comments from folks that the photos “look like the stock ones on the hotel website!”  I’m trying to make mine better than those, so I’ll just point out that all of these images are mine, a bit narcissistic I know but I’m proud of these pictures!]

The Park Hyatt New York

The hotel sits in the middle of New York’s 57th street, home to an assortment of the finest luxury shops in the world, as well as some crazy-expensive hotels.  It’s very close to Central Park but it’s not like there are massive panoramas of the park from your room.  There are some residences on the upper floors of the property with better views but unfortunately I do not own any of them so I could not verify for myself 🙂

I decided to book one night at the hotel and use points for it.  This was not cheap.  I value Hyatt points very highly and one night here ended up costing me 30,000 points for a standard room.  But oh well, I love my readers so thought I could stay here and show you some great pictures if nothing else!

The entrance to the property is understated (keeping in line with the Park Hyatt’s minimalistic theme) and actually pretty easy to miss.  I eventually spotted it, or rather I saw two doormen and figured they must be doormanning for the Park Hyatt and was correct.  I walked in at 2pm and was greeted by a beautiful lobby where I checked in with an attendant to see if my room was ready yet.

The check-in attendant said my room would be ready in an hour or so and was happy to look after my bags until it was ready.  In the interim I went and saw a show with my uncle.  On that note, the musical “Beautiful” was absolutely amazing!  It captures the heart and spirit of Carole King’s music and had a wonderful script that was sarcastic and snippy yet oozed with feeling.

Anyway, back to the hotel.

The Room

When I went back to the hotel my room was ready for me and my bags had already been delivered.  From the ground floor I went to the third floor, to the actual lobby.  I picked up my keys at the reception desk and made my way to the 22nd floor to find my room.

The hallways were finished with lots of wood paneling and reminded me of the Park Hyatt Paris-Vendome.

I found my room, 2201, after taking as many wrong turns as was humanly possible.

The standard rooms at the Park Hyatt New York are large (525 sq. ft.), especially by New York City standards.  I walked down a short hallway that concealed a closet and then turned left

Bedroom

The room area was very nice and upscale.  Keeping in mind that the design theme of the Park Hyatt hotels is very minimalistic, using geometry to emphasize place and setting, I thought they nailed it.  The ceiling were also very tall, which was a nice touch, again compared to the rest of the hotels in New York where they cram as many rooms into a given space as possible and you feel like you’re as tall as the ceiling.

The bed was nice and comfortable, not too hard and not too soft.

The desk had a business-quality phone, a universal power outlet setup, and a little tablet where you could look up various things about the hotel.  The tablet in particular was a nice touch, I like when hotels subtly use technology to enhance the customer experience but don’t beat you over the head with it.  The tablet was there if you wanted it but wasn’t obtrusive.

Ideally there would’ve been, you know, a window or something in front of the desk chair, but it made it feel more minimal I guess.  The Park Hyatt book in the middle of the desk pad was very nice and had some great photography, be sure to flip through it when you stay at a Park Hyatt.

Looking back across the bed you could see the really cool design of the separator between the hallway and the bedroom.

Before heading to the restroom area, I noticed there was a nice looking chest next to the front door that functioned as a place to put your room key or anything else that you’d need to grab as you walked out the door.  Then I realized the front of the chest opened to reveal the room safe and some extra storage space!  Really cool an unexpected touch.

I made my way towards the restroom area.

On my left was the minibar in a little armoire of sorts.

The Epic Minibar

The armoire was nice and shiny on the outside.  I’d heard some stories about the grandeur of the offerings inside and was excited to see for myself.

I opened the “minibarmoire” and was greeted with a wide variety of items available.  The armoire doors revealed even more items on offer.

They had some incredibly premium items on offer (the neuhaus chocolates, for example), but those were nothing compared to the refrigerated section, which was in a large drawer.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a small bottle of Krug in the drawer, but for $180 I decided to pass.  Maybe next time…

The Restroom

The restroom was enormous!  I love a great restroom (that sounds weird) and this one was as big, if not bigger, than the bedroom portion of the room.

There was a bathtub next to the window that overlooked…another building.  But to the right of that building was a sliver of a view of Central Park!

Next to the tub was the sink area, with his and hers sinks and a little area in the middle that had all sorts of amenities.

I really loved the live flowers, such a nice touch.

There were two frosted glass doors, giving way to the shower and the toilet area.

The toilet looked like…a toilet, so I didn’t worry about getting any super-amazing pictures of it, because toilet.

The shower area was absolutely MASSIVE and even had its own vanity mirror!  The shower had a rain shower element on the ceiling as well as the removable handle on the wall.

I absolutely LOVE theTubereuse 40 shampoos and shower gels used by the Park Hyatt franchise, they are in fact the only ones that I end up taking home with me on my trips.  Good quality and they smell great (and the labels are really snarky, if you read the ingredients).  If you look on the front label, you’ll see that they actually come up with a different fragrance for each Park Hyatt.

The Hotel Property

Just as a disclaimer, I didn’t get as many general hotel property shots as I would’ve otherwise liked.  The hotel staff seemed to get really nervous when I set up my tripod and said there was no commercial photography allowed, so I had to wait until there were no staff around to get the shots I wanted.  To the hotel staff: I promise I’m not trying to sell these pictures, I just wanted to tell as best a story I could for my readers!  It leaves me with an ethical conundrum: do I email the hotel in advance so I can get clearance to take pictures of the property and risk them doing certain things simply because I’m a blogger or don’t do it for a much more impartial view?  I don’t know the right answer unfortunately, so I got pictures where I could without causing a fuss for the hotel staff.  I’m missing pictures of the restaurant and bar area, please visit my buddy Ben’s excellent review of the Park Hyatt for some great pics of the restaurant and bar areas.

The indoor pool on the 25th floor is absolutely gorgeous!  I loved how the gray marble and granite gave everything a sense of placement and made for some great geometry.  The morning sun cast all sorts of light across the pool.

Next to where I’m standing here was a hot tub, and a little farther down was a seating area that had nice lounge chairs.

Outside the pool area was a stairway up to the fitness center, which was occupied, so I couldn’t get any pics of it.

I made my way back down to the lobby to check out and was again blown away by all of the design touches.

Wrapping it up

Back in the lobby I checked out after my one night stay, pleased with my decision.  I probably could’ve gotten much more value from 30,000 points, but there’s just something about a flagship property that’s exciting and made it feel worth it.  I wish I would’ve had more time to see all of the facilities offered by the hotel, but the hotel was very much secondary to spending time with my family.  The design of the hotel is consistent with the other Park Hyatts at which I have stayed and the service was professional and functional.  I don’t feel like it’s fair to ask if it would be worth $900/night, because I am so far below the income levels of their target demographic that I cannot fathom paying that much for any hotel, therefore I cannot make that sort of comparison.

 

Have you been to the Park Hyatt New York?  What did you think, do you think it’s worth the 30k points for an award stay?