Hyatt Centric Downtown Minneapolis — Hotel in Minneapolis

This was our experience in the Grand suite here which costs $600 per night. The dial for the exhaust fan in the bathroom was missing, rendering it completely unusable. Without a toolbox, there was no way to twist the tiny piece of metal where the exhaust fan dial should have been. It could not be turned on. You choose the temperature of the shower water here by turning the handle to a certain location, but when you let go, the weight of the handle itself causes it to automatically droop back down to a 6 o’clock position regardless of the position you chose, and unfortunately the 6 o’clock position happens to be scalding hot. This means you need to stop what you’re doing every 3 seconds during a shower to reposition the handle or you risk getting third degree burns. After a week in this suite you’ll become an expert at washing your hair with just one hand. The bathroom looks good inside, but functionally it’s a disaster. I’ve stayed in small town motel rooms with better functioning bathrooms. They also failed to give us new soap bars every morning. The walls are apparently too thin, we received noise complaints from a neighboring room for having calm conversations in the living room at a reasonable volume after midnight. We were basically told to quiet down or else. Really? We were literally just talking normally. You really shouldn’t take another guest’s word for this sort of thing and blindly issue threats on their behalf when it’s 2019 and advanced technology exists and you can simply put cheap Bluetooth enabled decibel meters in every room to confirm from a distance if a noise complaint is valid. I’m accustomed to incompetent service in America and wasn’t even particularly bothered by any of this, but they really went full potato when we asked to extend our stay by one day. I called the night before and the manager gave his personal 100% guarantee that he definitely added one more day to our stay in that specific suite and there was absolutely nothing to worry about. Yet at noon the next day, while sharing an intimate moment with my girlfriend, we were interrupted by an unwelcome knock on the door followed by a phone call from the front desk demanding that we leave NOW so they could prepare the room for the new guests arriving today. Rather than admit their booking mistake, they were snakes about it and falsely claimed I actually asked to move to a new room, then they sent security guards to kick us out. LOL. I’m honestly glad they did because we switched to Hotel Ivy which is fantastic, beautiful, has great service and respectful employees, and is half the price. Hotel Ivy is much better and the difference in quality is astonishing, especially given the near equality in star ratings between the two hotels... It doesn’t seem possible that this mediocre hotel would organically rank similarly to Hotel Ivy. I strongly believe that The Grand Hotel hired a PR firm to leave a lot of fake 5 star reviews for themselves, I don’t see how it’s possible otherwise. Do not go here. You should go to Hotel Ivy instead. Trust me and ignore all other reviews. I am the only person sharing their honest opinion here, everyone posting a 5 star review is being dishonest. You can actually see one paid shill post his 5 star review below, Dayne Robinson, he openly admits he came in to apply for a job here and was pressured to leave a fake 5 star review so he can get the job, LOL. Pathetic. I’ll be fair and say some positive things about this place. The AC works nicely and its fan works exactly how you expect. If you want it on, it stays on all night without kicking on/off with an obnoxious noise waking you up all night long like some hotels do. If you like that constant fan sound when you sleep then you won’t be disappointed here. The view of the city is okay, and they are great at tidying the room and making the bed. This place looks great and has the potential to actually be great, but there is something wrong with the...

Unfortunately, my wife, newborn, and myself did not have an ideal stay at the Hyatt Centric this past week. There were initial issues with finding a place for my wife to store her frozen breastmilk. While in the end we did come to a solution, it took a lot of conversations with multiple people to get it figured out.

I will give you a compliment sandwich.

The Good: We had amazing service from the bartender Zac, who was super friendly and accommodating. Overall, a great guy that represents Hyatt well. On top of that we had a young man at the front desk with awesome long nails that was so helpful and kind with all of our requests, including printing out a label for our breastmilk bag so it didn't get thrown out, thus I give him big props.

The Not Great:

We had to call housekeeping after our first Keurig was leaking. The replacement they brought also immediately was leaking. Finally, the third Keurig did end up working. So few lights. Made the room look very dim and dark. Poor view. It could have been sunny with no clouds but with our view all we saw were other rooms and could not even see the sun if we tried. Not the hotel staff's fault, but definitely the architect's fault. There was a spot of black mold in the shower a couple inches from the shampoo and shower gel. I have a picture if needed. I was surprised that there was no microwave in the room, which was surprising for such a high-end hotel, but that could have been my mistake in not analyzing the room amenities close enough. There was an older lady working the front desk who was not super helpful. She was rude and short with me, and seemed annoyed that I asked her to grab my breastmilk bag for my wife from their walk-in freezer so we could thaw some milk to feed our baby. Very expensive parking. Again, likely not within your control but 3 days of parking almost doubled our night stay cost (after discounts, points, etc). The day we checked out I had to walk to the parking garage and walk up three floors to bring the car down. I know this was in the flyer at the hotel, but was not included in the message I received from the hotel. I was told by the front desk the first night that I had a $100 dining credit thanks to booking with my Amex Platinum. Unfortunately I had booked the first night with my Hyatt Free Night Certificate. Thus we spent almost $60 unintentionally thinking we were getting a credit. Housekeeping walked in on my wife breastfeeding two times in a row. They knocked and basically walked in a second later without waiting for a response. I believe they saw that I had checked out, even though we were still there in the same room for two more nights. Elevator was a little sketchy. Seemed outdated for such a nice hotel. No public ice machine. I didn't know we had access to it until we asked a night in. It would be quicker if I got it myself and would relieve the housekeeping staff. Overpriced food & Issues with food: $12 for two pancakes; burger came with toppings that explicitly were asked to be removed.

The Good Part Two:

The ladies that helped us check out the final day were super helpful with how to get out of the garage as well as how to deal with the $100 dining credit. The gym was amazing! All things considered, I would give this hotel a 2/5 stars. Ambience was pretty good, and the service got better, but there were holes in service that were...

This is probably the worst Hyatt I’ve stayed at ever, with constant misses throughout my stay.

I arrived pretty late in the evening, and the bartender was starting to try and check me in, but luckily the front desk associate came back right as he started. She wasn’t very friendly, but did briefly go over the property.

This was pretty common for much of the staff at this property, which there were many I had to interact with for one thing or another. There also seems to be a lack of training for a lot of the staff here as well, many of them seemingly unfamiliar with various aspects of their job and not being very hospitable overall. There were just 2 members of the staff (who I unfortunately didn’t get their names) that were outstanding, one of which worked at the front desk and seemed to be in a supervisory role and she was incredibly knowledgeable and hospitable.

Another thing that was surprising is the lack of Globalist recognition at this hotel, with no pre-upgrade prior to arrival, no acknowledgment at check in and no upgrade upon arrival even though every possible room type was still available throughout my entire stay. The hotel was clearly very empty because when I went down to the restaurant to get some food after checking in, I found out they sent the chef home and closed the kitchen early due to going hours without any orders.

Globalist breakfast is a $39 credit at the restaurant in the lobby or in room dining, with the same menu for both. There are quite a few options to choose from, but it’s definitely quantity over quality. Interestingly, the restaurant has no coffee available whatsoever, and I was told they didn’t even have a coffee machine. I also ended up being charged for breakfast one of the days, so I emailed after check out to have it refunded and it was, but I never got a reply to my email, which was odd.

The room is fine, but the AC is very loud and the walls are incredibly thin, so much so that you can clearly hear your neighbors talking at a normal volume. Even though the hotel was quite empty during my stay, I somehow had neighbors on both sides of my room, so maybe they grouped all the guests together, prioritizing convenient cleaning over guest comfort.

Late checkout was not proactively offered and they seemed reluctant to grant it to me until one of the staff members overheard I was a globalist. My key card still ended up deactivating at normal checkout time, and housekeeping did knock and double check the late checkout. I’m not sure what would’ve happened had I not been in the room at that time.

Daily water bottles were also not replenished when the room was serviced, which is a minor inconvenience to go down to the front desk to request them, but every time I did, they seemed to not want to give them to me.

If I’m ever back in Minneapolis, I definitely will not be coming back to this hotel. I think the general manager should at least retrain all the staff on both Hyatt policies and general hospitality, and this is the first Hyatt I’ve stayed at where I think deflagging the property might be appropriate. My biggest regret now is not submitting the post stay survey before it expired, since it doesn’t seem like anyone from management reads...