Hyatt Regency Bethesda — Hotel in Bethesda

My experience at the Hyatt Regency Bethesda has been by far the worst to date.

Approximately 24 hours after arriving at the property, my wife and I noticed small bites on our arms that progressively spread across our torso, back, neck and ears. When notifying the front desk, the manager who came over advised the agent who was assisting me to move me to another room. As the agent went to make a selection, I heard the manager say, "No, not that one." At the time I was not sure what that statement was in regard to but after later finding out that another guest attending the same conference as I had already been moved due to suspected bed bugs, I can only assume it was to prevent me from being moved into a room that was already marked to be inspected. In any event, I was given keys to another room.

After packing up all of my family's belongings and making the trip over to the new room, we walk in to find that the "new" room reeks of marijuana. The fact that my child is immunocompromised and has respiratory issues, I realize this will not work for us and head to the front desk to request another room. Side note: When someone complains of bed bugs, it is my basic expectation that a member of leadership or an inspector would actually inspect the new room the guest is being moved to, ensuring there are no issues. As someone who works in hospitality, I find this lack of attention to detail egregious showing a clear disregard or lack of policies and procedures to ensure guest satisfaction.

With less that 12 hours until check out, the hotel decides to move me to the Presidential Suite which seems odd for two reasons. The first being that I have such a short time remaining at the property. The second and most important being, I have just complained of bed bugs, why would you move someone to your largest room to potentially spread this infestation. Was the pest company called out to inspect the presidential suite as well or just my initial room. Based on the lack of process at this property I would assume the latter.

I'd like to delve deeper into the actual interactions with management to give you a better understanding of my frustrations. When initially reporting my claim of bed bugs, the manager did not even bother to come from around the desk to speak with me. I was just handed a card and told to send her an email so she can forward it to the claims department. After not receiving a response or at minimum an acknowledgment of receipt of my email for 4 days, I decided to complete a survey for the property with the feedback that I had not been reached out to. After the property received my survey, I was finally given a response to my email leading me to believe that the claim was just now, 4 days later, being submitted to the claims department and that they would reach out to me within 5-12 business days. I responded back to the email with a question, and again, no response. After 3 weeks (15 business days) pass by with no response I send a follow up email. I then receive a response back from leadership stating that the room was inspected with no sign of bed begs and that they can unequivocally state that the "red spots" on my body did not occur at their hotel.

This may be the dismissive approach that this property uses with guests who are not familiar with the hotel processes, but I knew how incredibly disingenuous this was. Bed bugs typically can only survive up to 3 days without feeding. This makes it critically important when the inspection was actually completed. Ironically, when I requested the date that the actual inspection was completed, the hotel told me they could not provide that information. Very alarming. Most pest companies perform the canine inspection, but the efficacy of this method varies widely. So, for a manager to state that I "certainly" did not get bed bug bites at their hotel is irresponsible and insulting.

It's very sad that the property was more concerned about defending itself from a bed bug claim that the actual experience of their guest. Please avoid...

In short: got cancelled without any notice or support!

NOT RECOMMEND!!! NOT RECOMMEND!!! NOT RECOMMEND!!!

I would give zero star if possible. Baher at the front desk is terrible. No patience, no responsibility, no compassion. He should not be considered a reasonable professional in hotel business at all. My parents arrived near mid night after a international flight for hours. It was cold outside (about 40F). The girl at the front desk tried to help us but there was some issue with the system. Then Baher came, and that's when the nightmare started. He just simple told us they cancelled our reservation. No apology, no reservation number, no contact info to customer support, no backup room, no replacement hotel, no, nothing. Most importantly, there was NO NOTICE AHEAD before we arrive, though they collected our contact info when the reservation was made. He also refused to talk to me, saying the reservation was not under my name, completely ignoring the fact that my parents don't speak English. His English is not perfect either, with strong dialect for someone in hotel business, but I would consider that a much less issue compared to his altitude. Seeing that there would be no proper hostage from Hyatt, we tried to reach the customer support, but we need internet to do so. He refused to provide the wifi, after we explaining to him we were having issue to connect using our data at the front desk. Knowing there would be no way we can get hold of the customer support at the front desk, we wanted Baher to eithert write down the claim he gave or record what he said so there we could contact customer support with valid statment, he just simply refused. So there was no way we can verify his story with the customer support. After we finally figured out the contact info to the customer support and got the customer support on the phone, the customer support told us they would call the hotel to figure things out. We were there, hearing the phone at the front desk ringing right in front of us constantly, but Baher just ignored it and did not pick it up. Seeing what happened, I called the support using my cell again and put the customer support on speaker, so they can talk to Baher. He just simply lied to my face saying they could provide us no room, when customer support suggested just give us a room and they would figure out with Hyatt later: The girl we met first said there was room earlier before Baher came by. As the customer support was not from local there was limited they could do, so they were wondering Hyatt can do anything to get us a room in the mid night nearby, Baher stated the system issue prevented him doing anything, while he was on his personal cell all night long. It took us and customer a few hours before we finally got a room more than 3 miles away, without any support from Hyatt. I don't know what is on his mind, but Baher kept saying they would be happy to welcome us for the rest of our previous reservation in the coming days. With this awful experience, we would stay away from Hyatt probably forever. I will certainly make sure all my friends aware of the risk they would have for future...

Dec 2024: This is a very, extremely, super poorly managed hotel. I’m very surprised that it received the Hyatt Regency branding. (Skip to Point 3 if you are in a rush).

1. Google Review is not a discussion thread, if these people care enough to reply to my review with their made-up stories, use your own judgement in terms of what/who to believe.

2. When checking in, only 1 staff was there to assist 5 customers. Wait time was considerably long. When it was finally our turn, another customer cut the queue and was serviced by the front desk???

3. READ THIS: they turned off the water supply for the second night. We were NOT notified in any methods (text, email, phone, in-person etc.). We learnt about the water shut off when we saw 3 jars of water and a paper on the desk when we returned to our room at 10:15PM.

The paper said “We would like to inform you in advance…” (Direct Citation). Now tell me, what’s Hyatt’s definition of “in advance”? Is it a couple hours on the same day of the water shut off, when people are out visiting museums?

We soon realized that 3 jars of water were not even close to being enough for the night, we then called the front desk asking for 3 more jars of water. Front desk responded, very rudely, “that’s a lot of water, we don’t have that amount at the back, it has to be requested through housekeeping” (Direct Quote). We were totally speechless… the hotel turned off the water without advance notice, and was not willing to provide more water? Hyatt, water is considered essential for life, how about Google-ing that, Google is free.

We waited for 20 minutes, a lady knocked on the door and we saw piles of boxes (of water) on the cart. Here’s an advice for Hyatt: next time when you decide to lie to the customer, make sure you hide the fact that you have at least 4 boxes of water in stock.

For the entire night (after walking in Washington all day), we skipped showering, left with little water to clean ourselves, very limited water to drink, and the “best” part: no water to flush the toilet. Hyatt, does this put a smile on your face? I think so since your front desk staff sounded very happy to humiliate us.

4. Upon check-in, we were given an adjoining room, We asked the front desk if we can get a regular room and were told “all standard rooms are occupied, but I’ll block the rooms beside you so nobody would live in the rooms” (Direct Quote). Next morning, I heard people laughing and speaking loudly in the rooms beside us. - Pure lie by the front desk again.

Humans, find somewhere else to stay. If it’s unfortunate enough that you end up staying here, be sure to avoid the camping package. Oh don’t forget to opt-in for the customer-respect package, that’s a need.

Hyatt, perhaps consider changing your hotel name to “Hyatt - Cave Experience”, not sure if you like the name but even a motel provides water, FYI....