After the valet unloaded the luggage from the sedan we had taken from the Park Hyatt Abu Dhabi, we made our way into the lobby of the Park Hyatt Dubai. It was close to noon, and we had a chauffer scheduled for 1:00. At the front desk, we were informed that our confirmed Park Suite had been further upgraded to a Park Executive Suite. Considering we had booked our 3 nights using a combination of 30,000 points and $375 in cash, plus a diamond suite upgrade, and a typical night in a park executive suite runs $755, this represented a value of nearly $1900.
-The Big One! Introduction/Giveaway
-Day One: Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport Review
-Day Two: United First Class B737-800 SFO-IAD summary
-Days Three through Six: D.C Area recommendations: Smithsonian, National Harbor, Baltimore Aquarium
-Day Seven: Lufthansa Business Class Lounge IAD summary, Lufthansa First Class A330-300 IAD-MUC Summary
-Day Eight Part 1: Six hours in downtown Munich, Lufthansa First Class Lounge Munich Summary
-Day Eight Part 2: Lufthansa First Class A330-300 MUC-DXB Summary
-Day Nine Part 1: Dubai Exotic Limo brief review part 1 & Abu Dhabi recommendations: Ferrari World, the Grand Mosque
-Day Nine Part 2: Park Hyatt Abu Dhabi Review
-Days Ten through Twelve Part 1: Park Hyatt Dubai Review
–Days Ten through Twelve Part 2: Dubai Exotic Limo brief review part 2 & Dubai recommendations: Burj Khalifa Sky
-Days Ten through Twelve Part 3: Dubai Recommendations: Tea at the Ritz Carlton Jumeirah Beach, Atlantis Monorail, Dubai Mall
-Days Ten through Twelve Part 4: Dubai recommendations: Platinum-Heritage Falconry Heritage Tour. The Dubai Museum
-Day Thirteen: Emirates 777-300 DXB-MLE summary, Moonima Lounge MLE summary, Park Hyatt Maldives transfer summary
–Days Thirteen through Sixteen Part 1: Park Hyatt Maldives Hadahaa Review
-Days Thirteen through Sixteen Part 2: What to do at the Park Hyatt Maldives Hadahaa
-Day Seventeen: Maldivian Dash-8/Boat Transfer Park Hyatt-MLE summary, Conrad Rangali MLE Lounge summary, Trans-Maldivian Twin Otter transfer MLE-Conrad Rangali Island
-Days Seventeen through Twenty-One Part 1: Conrad Maldives Rangali Island Review
-Days Seventeen through Twenty-One Part 2: What to do at the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island Resort
-Day Twenty-Two Part 1: Trans-Maldivian Twin Otter Conrad Rangali Island-MLE summary, Conrad Lounge MLE summary, Leeli Lounge MLE summary
-Day Twenty-Two Part 2: Turkish Airlines Business Class A330-300 MLE-IST summary.
-Day Twenty-Three Part 1: Turkish Airlines IST Lounge Summary, six hours in Istanbul
-Day Twenty-Three Part 2: Turkish Airlines Business Class B777-300 IST-SFO summary
-Day Twenty-Four: Hyatt Regency San Francisco Embarcadero Review
-Trip Summary/The Numbers
-The BIG Question: Park Hyatt Maldives Hadahaa or Conrad Maldives Rangali?
I’ve mentioned in the past that you should be so lucky to have a problem at Hyatt, and while our experience here doesn’t quite beat the apology we got for a minor issue at the Grand Hyatt in Kauai, it certainly reinforces that idiom. Imagine my delight (and despair) when while we were checking in, a bellhop knocked over my camera stand with my Girlfriends DSLR attached! Fortunately, the extent of the damage was a broken lens hood. But the damage was done, and management bent over backwards to fix the problem. Their first step, offering to replace the lens hood. As it turned out, they were unable to obtain the same quality hood Kim owned, so on top of purchasing a cheap lens-hood for it, they removed the cost of the more expensive version from the bill. But that’s not all: hotel management offered us 15,000 Hyatt points for the inconvenience. This is enough for a free night at up to a Category 4 hotel, and would cover the points portion of a cash+points booking on a single night at any Hyatt hotel worldwide.
To top it off, we found an apology note with a box of chocolates from their cafe in our room when we returned from our first nights’ adventure. Though admittedly, the hotel provided us with so many spare drinks and snacks in our room, we could barely stuff the chocolates down.
A small sampling of the many free snacks and beverages provided.
After getting checked in, we waited over 40 minutes for final room preparations due to an influx of people checking in. In the meantime, the front desk offered us complimentary drinks, which we declined. I was getting anxious, as I wanted to get our luggage in the room and settled before our chauffeured tour.
While waiting, Kim admired some of the courtyard artwork, and I took notice of a small cafe serving a variety of chocolates (the kind of which were sent to our room). I checked back with the front desk and they informed us that our room was ready. The bellhop followed us with our luggage down the hall, down one flight on the elevator, and down another hall to our corner room.
We walked into our massive suite. Of the rooms I’ve stayed in, it falls short of only the Deluxe Ocean Suite and Presidential Suite at the Grand Hyatt in Kauai. A sitting area with coffee table awaited in the living room, along with a work desk and the coveted complimentary mini-bar. At the end of the room sliding glass doors opened to a view of downtown Dubai. In the giant bedroom was the king-sized bed, a couple of picture windows, and more doors leading to balcony access.
[ipanorama id=”1076″ width=”100%” height=”400px”]
To the right of the bedroom was our over-sized bathroom with a tub, dual sinks, and a shower the size of a walk-in closet. The hotel also provided amazing rose scented bath salts.
But we didn’t stick around for long, for we had a chauffeur waiting to show us around the city. We dropped off our things and took off. See my upcoming post for more details on our adventure: -Days Ten through Twelve Part 2: Dubai Exotic Limo brief review part 2 & Dubai recommendations: Burj Khalifa Sky.
When we returned from our long day out at around 8:00, we consulted with the conceirge about arranging tea at the Burj Al Arab. As we had missed our opportunity for tea at Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi, we figured this would be a great alternative. Unfortunately we learned that reservations are required long in advance, and that there was no availability. Instead, we made reservations for afternoon tea at the Ritz Carlton.
We then went back to unpack our things, and I proceeded to shoot some video of our room. In the process, I managed to partially tear down a curtain from the ceiling, so we had the front desk send maintenance down to fix it. After spending some time on that and kicking back, we made our way to the Terrace for dinner at around 10:30.
We had a simple meal, both of us opting for a wagyu burger with fries, and indulging in a strawberrylicious cocktail. While the food was just fine, we were surprised at the speed and quality of service. Though as we discovered later, service speed in the country does not seem to be a priority, with it being incumbent on the patrons to request any additional needs, and the check when ready.
Though it was nearly midnight when we returned to the room, we were far from ready to sleep. Kim caught some movies on TV while I did more filming and photography, in the process snapping some shots of the Burj Khalifa: visible from our balcony.
By the time we got to bed, it was nearly 2 A.M.
We woke up around 10 to grab a late breakfast, and made it to the Cafe Arabesque shortly before the end of breakfast at 10:30. Breakfast at the restaurant was terrific, though I didn’t enjoy the atmosphere quite as much as at the Park Hyatt Abu Dhabi, nor did I feel the selection was quite as extensive. Nevertheless, we both ate heartily before making our way back to the room.
On our way down, we made a pit stop at the pool to check out the grounds. As we explored, an attendant approached us and advised us of the spa specials. We decided that we were interested, so he gave us a tour of the spa and brought us to their front desk to set up an appointment.
Unfortunately the only times available would have interfered with our tea time, and given how busy we would be the following day, we opted to skip getting a treatment.
Our next task was to get in a solid nap before tea at 4:00 and adventures.
We woke up at 3:00 and utilized a hotel limo- another luxury sedan, (though lesser than our BMW 7 from Abu Dhabi) to drive us to the Ritz Carlton Dubai at a cost of ~125AED.
Our daily adventure took us well into the evening. See my upcoming post- Days Ten through Twelve Part 3: Dubai Recommendations: Tea at the Ritz Carlton Jumeirah Beach, Atlantis Monorail, Dubai Mall- for details.
When we arrived back at the hotel well after midnight, we promptly passed out- with an early morning ahead of us.
Our next day was spent mostly away from the hotel. We stopped back after our first adventure at around 12:30 only to grab some snacks then hop in the hotel sedan just an hour or so later to take us to Old Town Dubai at a cost of ~50AED. See my upcoming post–Days Ten through Twelve Part 4: Dubai recommendations/information: Platinum-Heritage Falconry Heritage Tour, The Dubai Museum. – for details.
We got back in the early evening, around 5:00. After dropping our things in the room, we took a stroll over to the fitness center, where we found some exercise equipment and a ping-pong table. Next, we went back to the room and began the process of manually cleaning all our clothes as opposed to paying exorbitant fees to have the hotel wash them. To check out the prices, listed in AED, click HERE. After washing, we hung many of them up on our balcony railing to dry, which drew a few sour faces.
As the sun began to set we took a swim in the hotel pool, which was refreshing after a long few days out. Shortly after the sun went down it became a tad too cold for us to handle. We dried off, went back to the room, and started packing for our flight the next morning. At this point we realized our clothes were still FAR too wet, and I came up with the idea to take the load to the spa to utilize the electronic wringers. This did wonders and took several pounds weight off our luggage. We then took a break for dinner at the cafe arabesque, which felt very unpopular on a Saturday evening. I don’t recall many details of the dinner save to say that it was ordinary.
We left to continue packing late into the evening.
We woke early, still exhausted, to finish packing for our 9:30 A.M flight. Our stress levels were high as we had a lot to do and not a ton of time to do it. We eventually checked out at 8:05 and grabbed a cab from the front for the short 10 minute ride over to the Dubai Airport. I advise giving yourself a bit more time for the check-in process at the Dubai Airport.
Ultimately
Like at the Park Hyatt in Abu Dhabi, I don’t feel we had quite enough time to enjoy and experience this hotel. The room itself was phenomenal, as were the many complimentary treats and beverages. Having an entirely free minibar (even alcohol) is quite the perk! We took advantage of the pool for only a brief time- and as it was getting cold out, no less.
The service up front was terrific, and like I noted above I felt lucky to have them break our lens hood. Had it been a more significant part of the equipment I might not have felt the same way.
I wish I would’ve had the opportunity to try the other two restaurants on site: The Thai Kitchen and Traiteur. But this time around we were better off getting in our sight-seeing and food from around town.
I look forward to returning here in the future.