Hyatt Place Champaign/Urbana — Hotel in Champaign

Great experience, great room, great location for everything. Here is a detailed review.

Over 4 months, I've stayed at 5 hotels in the Champaign-Urbana area (Home2, Residence Inn by Marriott, Hilton Garden Inn, Best Western Plus, and the Hyatt Place). I usually use booking sites and balance quality and price, but for my week-long stay I booked directly and beat the price of the discount sites.

Parking: Covered parking = $9/night. I'm usually against paid parking (I believe it should be bundled in room cost), but it was nice to park in shade in a semi-protected area and have elevator access right to my vehicle. In contrast, at the other hotels, I parked outside and dealt with the usual rain, snow, wind, and heat. The covered parking was definitely a HUGE plus. Breakfast: Included in price. I'd call this a well-stocked grab-and-go with good variety. Three HOT breakfast biscuit options, two fruit cup options, two muffin options, three wrapped pastry/danish options, boiled eggs, yogurts, fresh fruit, cereal cups, premium oatmeal cups, single-serve milk cartons, self-serve apple & orange juice, and coffee & tea options. The dining area is nice for anyone opting to eat there. In contrast, the Hilton had fewer options and was $7. Home2 was a bare bones continental. Best Western Plus was the typical full breakfast bar (very decent). Residence Inn was cook-to-order custom breakfast. Considering the varied experiences, I really appreciated the Hyatt's approach for variety and convenience. Room: I stayed on a mid-floor basic 1-bed room and appreciated the view. In fact, I was comfortable sleeping with the window shade fully open, which I've not done outside of Vegas. The wall thermostat was easy to keep the room comfortable. The fridge was a small in-cabinet model and there was no in-room microwave. Ample desk workspace. Good lighting options. Bar: Between work and just watching the Olympics, I didn't get around to visiting the bar. Plenty of drink options and I believe they're open through midnight. In contrast, the Hilton's bar closed at 9pm or something goofy. Facility: I liked the overall feel. Many hotels feel less-private, but the Hyatt layout and way they run it made for a great experience. Controlled-entry parking, then a key card required to access the guest floors made it seem like everyone there was supposed to be there. It was a more like a "vacation resort hotel" experience. There are no washers/dryers onsite, BUT they have laundry service. This was my first laundry service experience (forgot my suitcase at home), so after some unscheduled shopping at the nearby mall & department stores, it cost me $10 added to the bill to have 2-3 changes of clothes laundered. Unscented detergent, btw. Drop off at the front desk prior to 6am and it's back late afternoon. Staff: All friendly. Attentive front desk staff, friendly and well-run housekeeping. A+ (In contrast, I'm annoyed when I have a "do not disturb" sign on the door and housekeeping knocks or tries to enter. Great hotels like this one have head housekeepers communicate with the front desk and their housekeepers regarding checkout dates/status. I don't mean to sound snobby, but at another time and place, I've actually had housekeeping enter a bathroom when my girlfriend and I were showering/getting ready.) I'm happy to say the Hyatt staff are pros all around. Maintenance personnel were also professional. Hotel Location: The Hyatt is my choice going forward for best all-around. It's a short drive to any part of campus. It sits in a lively area with bars, restaurants, a brewery, and more. A short distance the other direction is a mall and "big box" stores. I'd love to return for a vacation and really experience the local radius as well as campus-area restaurants.

Had I known how much I'd like the Hyatt, I'd have stayed here every visit. Without a doubt, I'll stay here again next time...

Our visit was unexpectedly rough at this Hyatt Place. Our check-in was quick and easy. After a long day of travel, my son used the bathroom only to find there was no soap or supplies. My wife went into the hall to find the service staff to ask for some bathroom soap and they said they would be visit our room in a while. My wife pushed further and they provided some soap for us. When I walked into the bathroom, the first thing I noticed was a huge goober on the ceiling. Gross! The luggage rack in the room was missing a main bolt and was a bit precarious but still worked. We quickly left our luggage behind to head to dinner. Unfortunately, upon our return from dinner, we found that the HVAC fan was loud. I went to the front desk to request a new room given what had happened and the noise from the HVAC. I explained and showed photos which didn’t seem to faze them much. I had the staff listen to the recording I made of the HVAC sound and felt somewhat dismissed before one of the staff said something along the lines of: “Yeah I guess that might be difficult to sleep with” before deciding to give us a new room. Our second room was next to our room which would have made it easy to swap rooms. However, as soon as we walked in the room, we were all assaulted with an odor perhaps of someone smoking or something else in there. It wasn't so much as a strong odor - it was just that the three of us all became immediately congested and realized there was no way we could sleep comfortably in that room. With that, I went to request another room. The front desk clerk seemed a bit annoyed saying that it was a “No smoking hotel” – I certainly realized that but I think many other people sensitive to smoke or strong smells would have been pained to stay with that odor whatever it was. True to form, the third room was missing the luggage rack and the TV did not work. I called the front desk to request help with the TV and to provide a luggage rack. About 20 minutes later, a person from the front desk arrived to “fix” the TV but did not bring a luggage rack to keep our luggage off the floor. It took about 5 minutes of playing around with cords and the remote before I was handed the remote control and told the TV worked. The staff handed me the remote and began to leave the room. I wanted to test the remote before she left and simply tried to change channels and the TV went back to not working again. She spent another couple minutes to “fix” the TV again and I was told that I could only use the channel and volume controls on the remote otherwise the system wouldn’t work. You would think you wouldn’t need a written manual to run the TV in a hotel – that’s just stupid. It was disappointing for us to miss the basketball game we were watching for such a stupid reason. I did see in other reviews that people had similar troubles at this hotel with their TV service. The breakfast was good and the staff had breakfast cleaned tables quickly. The first two spoons we grabbed were dirty. We stayed at another Hyatt Place the next night in a different city and it was a wonderful experience in line with what we had normally expected from this Hyatt brand. I simply hope this Hyatt Place puts a better checklist in place so that these things don't happen to other guests. Hopefully it's just an isolated experience as most reviews seem to be positive about...

I am highly disappointed with my experience here, everything was very complicated. I feel like I was taken advantage of after being very patient and nice. we booked a room online through bookonline a little before midnight not realizing the dates where incorrect, after we got there a little after midnight the guy at the front desk was very confusing and impatient he said he couldn’t check us in but can book us a room. After seeing my card was charged 308$ when the room was 189$. I asked for a refund, the guy said he couldn’t, explained I had do it online where I booked at. In which I requested a refund. I called the hotel the next day to let them know what’s happening and someone from book online should be calling them to confirm the refund . The next day I spoke on the phone with bookonline, they called the hotel, the manager Iesha told them to call back tomorrow witch they did but for some reason someone told there bookonline that we did a no call no show. Which was very incorrect I spoke with the front desk when I arrived at the hotel and on the phone when I called explaining the situation before the book online called them. No one was helpful at all everyone seemed very impatient, they told the bookonline incorrect information which lead to my refund not being approved. I am very upset with this establishment. They lied, they’re impatient, I feel taken advantage of after a lot of back n forth from the online site and the hotel it’s self. It should not be this complicated at all especially after i made them aware of the situation. I am highly dissatisfied and will not recommend this...