Immediately upon arriving at the Hyatt Regency Minneapolis, I liked the hotel. My Uber pulled up and opened the trunk and one valet opened my door while the other got my bag #efficient
My room was clean and had several lamps but unfortunately had not been retrofitted with any form of overhead lighting. There was however, a large window which provided sufficient lighting during the day. The major downside that affected how I operated during my stay is that there were no direct usb chargers anywhere in the room. At this point, I think it is standard to provide a direct usb charging option.
The other thing the room was missing was a microwave! Luckily this wasn't one of those situations where you have to beg for a fridge. However, there was no complementary water ($3.50/10 oz bottle) and you had to go down to the gym, which was not particularly easy to access, to get to the single microwave all of the guests were expected to share. Personally, I ended up eating my leftovers cold because I thought it was too much trouble to make the trek up and down and all across the hotel to heat up my food. Also, as someone who does not appreciate random food smells in hallways, I didn't want to subject others to that experience.
This brings me to the other issue associated with the microwave's location; if someone heated something up while you were in the gym, you were forced to smell it for at least 30 minutes.
The other thing missing at this hotel was access to silverware. I highly recommend bringing your own silverware. Before my stay at the Hyatt, I had never had a problem borrowing silverware from the restaurant at the hotel I was staying at. When I asked the host for a set of silverware, he offered me a set of cheap disposable plastic silverware. I was horrified.
The gym at this hotel was very nice. There were four rooms with various gym equipment, a basketball court, and what was essentially a yoga room with a system that allowed you to project virtual workouts with which you could follow along.
I was excited to see four peloton bikes, but unfortunately I experienced a series of delay when it came to starting my peloton workout. 3 of the bikes were updating when I arrived at and the one that was left was not balanced. Once one of the bikes had finished updating, I was able to log in, but again experienced a hiccup as the seat couldn't shift forward because it had been previously overtightened. At this point, I felt enough of my time had been wasted and decided to just move forward with the bike I had access to in the best way I could. During my time out of the saddle, I heard some concerning sounds. Fortunately, the next night I was able to access another bike that functioned as expected.
Besides the peloton bikes, I mostly used the dumbbells although there was one dumbbell that was missing for the duration of my stay which was a bit frustrating as I had to go to another room to borrow the set from that rack.
I did decide to try out different equipment on my last day in the gym and found the battle ropes to be too short.
I was attending a conference hosted at this Hyatt which was convenient (although I did not get nearly enough sunlight because there were no windows in any of the rooms we used). I think the main ballroom we were in was under the gym and on our last day, we heard what sounded like the battle ropes through the ceiling which was very distracting.
Overall, everything was going well until my last morning. For whatever reason, I was exceptionally tired for the duration of my time in Minnesota. As a result, I was very excited to finally have an opportunity to sleep in before my flight as check out was at 11am. However, I was instead woken up by housekeeping trying to get into my room at 8:30. They didn't stop until I tried speaking to them at which point they walked away without responding. Then, at 9:30, they came back and just kept knocking until I responded at which point, they again walked away without speaking.
That was truly a terrible way to way up, even without being sleep deprived. I was very confused about what was going on and unfortunately, due to an issue with the phone in my room which Engineering was unable to fix, I wasn't able to quickly get in contact the front desk to get an explanation about what could have possibly been going on.
All together, I enjoyed my stay at the Hyatt and in Minneapolis. I just wish it could have ended on a more positive note. read more