Hyatt Place Niagara Falls — Hotel in City of Niagara Falls

I researched hotels in the area before I landed on Hyatt. I stayed for 3 nights and didn’t want to drive any where. ||My criteria: ||1) within 15 minutes walking distance of Niagara Falls ||2) good online reviews ||3) on-site bar||4) spacious rooms ||||And. . . This hotel has a sixth floor patio for viewing the 10:00 fireworks! Sold! ||||I knew from reviews that the public parking garage across the street is a lil sketchy so I wasn’t terribly creeped out. I did try not to use it at night. One of the garage’s elevators wouldn’t take us to the floor- broken buttons. So we took the smelly stairs instead. ||Tip: Garage parking is $30 a day but Hyatt discounts it to only $10. Keep your parking ticket with you- the front desk will discount it before you exit the garage each day, else you must pay full price. ||||The lobby of Hyatt was fashionable and spacious. We chose not to purchase the breakfast plan -$12 per person. There is free coffee/tea/ creamers available in the lobby. ||There’s also an indoor pool/gym/$5 laundromat but we didn’t use these facilities.||||I had purchased a 2 queen bed and soda bed room for two occupants. I asked in my notes for a room with a view, and Hyatt stepped up to the plate with a corner room where I could see the garage out of one window and Old Falls Street out the other! The latter is a cobblestone-like road designed for heavy pedestrian traffic. I spent so much time people-watching- tourists took pics of the mini water decorations on the sidewalk or went to the Indian restaurants across the street. There was a safe, chill amusement park feel to the atmosphere. The tourists all seemed to be enjoying themselves even into the night hour.||||So back to the hotel room- large and clean! We told a hotel cleaner not to bother going in our rooms as we left, but we came back to fresh towels and trash cans. The water pressure isn’t super aggressive but it did the trick. There is no fan in the room but the room air is dry. I brought my own pillow because I don’t like fluffy pillows. ||Shampoo/conditioner/shower gel are included inside secure shower fixtures. ||There is a coffeemaker/fridge. ||||Cons: 1) no microwave in the room (this is pretty common in this area so I knew when I booked it)||2)The window shades operate electronically by use of a panel on the wall, but only offer two settings- blackout or totally open. I’d’ve appreciated a setting that allowed in light but provided privacy, as the parking garage is across from some windows. We opted for open windows unless we were sleeping or changing.||3) The doors here do not close automatically. If you simply walk out your hotel door, it will stay ajar unless you purposely pull it closed. Also, our deadbolt was broken so we had to settle for merely opening the simple latch that stops the door from opening. Not as secure, but we felt the hotel was pretty safe. ||Hotel staff is friendly. There are travel brochures/ vacation info in the lobby. A sign on the desk even said the night illumination of the falls started at 8 pm- we wish we’d seen that before jogging pell-mell to the falls, as we’d seen online they started at 6:30! They did not start at 6:30. A bit before 7:30 is when the falls light up, and closer to 8 the lights start changing. ||||There are good restaurants within walking distance! We tried Hard Rock Cafe, on the same block! For American bar-sit down food. ||Try Tandoori Hut right across the road (in the garage) for authentic Indian! Make sure you order mild, and don’t get biryani if you have wimpy taste buds! The Mami House was a longer walk of a few blocks but had amazing Filipino food! Now I’m craving their vermicelli starch noodles! ||||At the hotel bar- it closes at 10 so if you drink, make sure you leave a little before that for the 10:00 fireworks!||I am a lightweight and don’t like alcohol taste too much, so Bartender Kelsea made me an amazing drink with peach schnapps, cranberry and pineapple juice! So fun and tasty! ||||Value: about $220 per night for a late September vacation. A bit pricier than some other hotels but I considered the price worth it. You can get half this price if you go more off-season in January-February. You’ll...

Very disappointed with this hotel. We’ve stayed at several other Hyatt Place hotels and this was by far the worst.

First the good:

• The location: For the NY Side, you can’t get much better. Literally steps away from the park and views. • The Price was very reasonable. • The shower with huge quantities of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash on a wall mounted dispenser was a nice feature.

Now for the bad:

• The room was very dirty. Bits of food stuck on the alarm clock, large quantities (like how did anyone miss this!) of a sticky drink all over the window sill, one of those sticky hands like you get in a 25 cent machine stuck on the ceiling, all hard surfaces were dusty and just gross. The sheets seemed clean at least. • Weirdest thing: There was never ANYONE at the front desk. Upon check in there was a line of people waiting. A Bellboy had to go get the 2 workers from a back room. Later my wife wanted to order a drink at the bar at like 9 PM and there was no one working, and she had to wait a long time for someone to show up at the front desk so that he could call someone else to come down and make a drink (who seemed annoyed). Multiple times I went to the front desk just to validate parking or whatever, and never anyone there. Just a very weird setup… no bell to ring or anything. This was spring break week, and a decent amount of people were in the area; some things are still closed, but it’s not like it was winter. • The water in the “heated” pool was extremely cold. Talking about 70 degrees. That was one thing my kids were looking forward to, but the pool was unusable for us. • Breakfast was very bad. About what you would expect from a Holiday inn or some place like that. The breakfast at a Hyatt Place in D.C. we’ve stayed at multiple times was amazing. So this was very unexpected. Ate breakfast here once and on the other days had to order from “Spot Niagara Falls” not far away which was “OK” for somewhere outside of NYC/NJ. Another time, went to THE most ghetto McDonald's i've ever been to. Holy moly, Niagara outside of a few blocks from the falls is one of the worst places in america, and i've been through Camden, NJ. • The building is newish, but everything already seems rundown. It’s just not well maintained. Doors to stairs are stuck and hard to open, bathroom vanity constructed of particle board falling apart (see photo), etc. • Wifi was basically unusable. Could not play videos or stream. Luckily, i didn't have to do too much work.

All of that being said, if you’re staying on the New York side, I really don’t know where you’re going to stay, that’s much better than this. The whole town looks kind of rundown and chain hotels that I think of as being of high quality have dirty looking offerings here (Wyndam, Sheraton, etc.). If you have your passports (our kids didn’t come in time), I highly suggest you stay on the Canadian side.

Edit: the fact that the hotel owners have not commented on this review many months later should tell you even more about how little they care about...

We have stayed at this hotel twice previously and both times were great. Hotel was awesome, super clean, great food. We just stayed there for a 3rd time and it was not good. The first room they gave us, the floors were so stained and dirty that you didn’t want to take your shoes off or put your bags down. The curtains were broken and would not close. The chains weren’t even on them which means they knew ahead of time that the curtains were broken but still gave us the room. The room was also right above the pool and the smell was so strong you couldn’t even breathe in the room. Without an apology, they switched us to another room which was better, but not by much. The room was dirty. There was sticky stuff all over the light switches. There were pubic hairs on the bottom of the shower. The floor under the vanity had not been swept, was covered in dirt and hair. One of the pillows was so old and worn that the stuffing was in clumps and the pillow case was stained. The pillow, and a few other pillows on the beds, were covered in long hairs, so they had not been washed. My daughter’s allergies were so bad from whatever animal was in there before, that we had to pull the comforter off the bed and sleep with just the sheet, so the comforter was also not washed. There was blood stains on one of the comforters and one of the towels in the bathroom. The hallways were dirty with garage on the floor. There was garbage and food on the floor in the elevator, which was still there the next day when we checked out at 1:30pm. We did not bring food with us, expecting to eat at the hotel restaurant again, but when arriving they told us the restaurant has closed down and was no longer there. Would have been nice to know a head of time because it was New Year’s Eve and it took us hours to get food elsewhere. Last time, the breakfast had hot foods..omlets and potatoes, ect .. but because they closed the restaurant, all they served were hard boiled eggs, bagels and cereal. I can’t have gluten, so there was nothing for me to eat besides disgusting hard boiled eggs. Again, I would have brought food with me had I known. There were massive clumps of hair floating in the pool, which was still there the next day at 11am when we went down to swim again. Pool had not been cleaned at all and the floor was dirty. The bathroom next to pool was so disgusting. Garbage all over the floor and the toilet had not been cleaned in what looked like a very long time. There was dry poop splattered all over it. I expect theses things from the lesser hotels, but for what this hotel charges I don’t expect any of this. This hotel has definitely changed from the last time we stayed and was beyond...