Hyatt Place St. Augustine / Vilano Beach — Hotel in Saint Augustine

It's my birthday weekend and this is the hotel that I chose to spend with my husband. Our stay was from Friday (check-in starts at 4 pm) until Saturday (checkout is at 11 am).

If you have a vehicle, there is required valet parking of $25 per night added to your bill. I saw this on their website prior to booking, so it wasn't a surprise charge for me, but it might be off-putting for other guests who expect free parking with their stay.

Hotel front desk staff, Cheryl and Amber, were friendly and informative. The room includes private beach passes (bracelets) to the Vilano Beach area about 2 blocks away.

The hotel seemed visually clean (after all, the hotel is less than a year old), but after we checked in, the odor of backed up sewage was wafting around the lobby area. We did our best to just walk quickly from the elevator or out of the building to get to where we were going. If it wasn't so smelly, I'd have taken more photos. This is where the location rating lost 1 star. There were other guests who also mentioned the sewage smell upon walking into the lobby or walking out of the elevator, so we weren't only guests who noticed this. Customer service lost 1 star for this as they either should've mentioned it and/or apologized and said something was being done. I did not want to complain since that would mean staying longer in the lobby where the smell was the strongest.

When we were walking to our room on the 2nd floor, when we were on that floor, the strong odor of wet dog or dog urine was everywhere so guests be warned, this is a dog-friendly hotel so be prepared for that. I think it was the carpet since no matter where we walked on the 2nd floor, the smell was there. The pool & fitness center are on the same floor, so the wet feet or shoes from pool guests might be compounding the dog smell. This is where they lost another location rating star. My suggestion to remedy this is for the hotel to have an odor inspector taking periodic walks around the floors to make sure there are no unpleasant pet-related odors in the hallways, especially since this is a dog-friendly hotel; it doesn't mean that the place should smell like a dog.

Aside from the unpleasant odors from the lobby and 2nd floor, the hotel room itself was spacious and clean without any weird smells. Thank goodness, or I would've changed rooms immediately. It was a double-queen room since during booking, they were already out of king suites. Front desk mentioned that linemen from Hurricane Helene had booked all single occupancy rooms already prior to our stay.

The room has hardwood flooring with no carpeting (one of the main reasons I chose this hotel) & only a small area rug near the couch. The room did not come with a view, so don't expect one if the reservation does not mention it. The "view" when opening the blinds is the roof with a rusted out drainage area. We decided to keep the blinds closed.

The bathroom looked nice, but the faucet was too short for the sink, so water got everywhere after using it. The shower was roomy, but the water pressure was horrible, so it was uncomfortable.

Room amenities: USB charging ports, single serve coffee machine, 2 mugs, 4 scotch glasses, iron, ironing board, room safe, luggage stand, hair dryer, and mini fridge.

The beds were soft enough w/ comfy pillows. We had a good night's sleep. We woke up at 8:30am to get breakfast at the buffet area. There were about 10 people there. Pretty good selection of food. I chose scrambled eggs and a waffle. My husband chose scrambled eggs, 1 cooked egg, cooked potatoes. We both had hot earl Grey tea. Breakfast was good, the selection had a lot of variety. The breakfast crowd was starting to come in around 9:30 am, which was good for us since we were already leaving by that time. Valet service is fast & simple. Car was ready in about 5 minutes. Checkout was equally fast and hassle-free.

Since the place had an odor issue during our stay and we both have sensitive noses / respiratory conditions, we're most likely not going to return...

This is not the worst hotel I have stayed in, but it was the worst Hyatt in my experience so far. I would recommend staying elsewhere, even though I stayed free on award nights. -At we asked about parking options and the valet told us it is valet only and that overnight street parking isn't allowed and we would get a ticket. We noticed there were no signs on the ample street parking to indicate restricted parking times and later asked a couple local shop staff/owners about it and they let us know that there are currently no restrictions, the city had only mentioned they may consider it in the future. So the valet was misleading at best, and we parked without incident or the $25/nt fee. -At check-in we found that the king room we had booked months in advance was sold out, and we were asked to accept an accessible room instead. We were told it was a view upgrade. The only view we had was a parking lot. -We were changed to room 275. The building is a U shape with the elevators at one end, so we had to walk past about 75 rooms to get to ours at the very end of the U. -Upon entering the dark room, we immediately noticed lack of light fixtures. Even with the two bed lamps, one desk lamp and one sofa lamp turned on the room was dim. -We walked into the bathroom and noticed a couple silverfish hanging out, see photo. We also found a couple ants scouting by the trash under the desk (which didn't have a liner on when we came in). One ant made its way into my stainless mug, pictured. -It wasn't until later that we learned one possible reason. The bathroom floor is slanted and since it is an accessible room the shower has no lip so a wheelchair can enter. Water runs down the floor and pools in the bathroom, and there is no drain. -We used numerous towels soaking up water from the issue above. When I called to get extra towels, it took a couple calls and we had to head out before the first batch arrived. Housekeeping put the towels in our room but did NOT fully close the door, meaning we came back and opened the door without our key!! Someone could have stolen items including laptops, jewelry, etc. Fortunately all items were intact. -The room was not very clean. See photo of dust bunny and speckles of some sort of debris. The water pooling in the bathroom pooled picked up dark sediment rather than being fully clear. -The outlet for the coffee maker did not work. And no, it wasn't a GFCI outlet so I couldn't try reseting it. -Sound insulation is lacking. I had trouble sleeping as I could clearly hear footsteps from the room above us well past midnight. Also, the heater is noisier than average. -The pool that the hotel U is built around doesn't seem to be heated. There is no hot tub.

There were other minor annoyances, but I've gone long enough. Fortunately we spent very little time at the hotel as we had a very full schedule in St Augustine. I am leaving two stars instead of one as the staff would have likely attempted to remedy some of these issues, but it was not worth our hassle to try to bring all these issues up when we had so little time to deal with them. And frankly it's not a big deal if a couple things are off during a stay but this was just too much. Hopefully this new hotel will work out the issues, but I'd suggest...

I am a veteran. I have traveled the world and stayed in many hotels. If you name a hotel, I’ve probably stayed there. This was the WORST experience, I have EVER had staying AT ANY hotel. Here are the reasons:

The front desk staff (especially the woman with a bow around her bun) was EXTREMELY unprepared to answer questions regarding billing, fees, etc. She kept repeating herself, and could not provide explanations or break downs of my charges. I find this is crucial because many hotels attempt to charge you for amenities you did not use. On top of that, her attitude was stoic and nonchalant.

The valet attendants were nice, and polite, but they are not efficient at getting the vehicles in a timely fashion. This is a service you pay $25 a night for and there is not suitable parking around the hotel. I’m not sure if they use this as an excuse to be lazy, but valets are supposed to be quick and orderly. We would wait almost 10 minutes each time for our car.

When it came time for us to use the laundry services, they only take quarters. I didn’t have any cash. When I went down stairs to see if they could help me get change some other way, the same young lady with the stoic attitude and ribbon/scarf around her bun DID NOTHING to try to help or offer since the hotel has NO ATM. It was pouring down raining outside and she suggested I go across the street to the ATM…in the RAIN! It’s across the street so I wasn’t gonna take my car out of valet, wait 10 minutes for valet to get it, then take a 20 second drive, use the ATM, drive back to the hotel so valet can put my car back then get change for a $20 (the laundry is only $3) to wash my clothes.

I went and got a manager who went to the front desk and asked if the young lady could simply charge the $3 to my room so it would be paid and she could simply give me the quarters. SHE EVEN PERSISTED WITH THE MANAGER!!! She kept saying, “We don’t do cash back!” She repeated that 3 or 4 times! It was not even a CASHBACK situation! She was NOT offering solutions; only excuses! She did not want to help. As someone who works in customer service, whenever someone comes to you, your goal should be to improve their experience in any way you can. You must be solution oriented. The manger tried to help but this girl would not budge.

I hated my experience mostly because of her and her attitude along with the additional surcharges and fees that I was not aware of that was insufficiency described to me on arrival when I asked all of my questions. I will NEVER stay at Hyatt again. I believe that woman needs to be retrained! If you’re at the front desk and your face and attitude are the first thing people see, you should understand you are representing the company in a huge way and your level of service and knowledge should be OUTSTANDING. If you don’t like your job, don’t take that out on the guests. I was there for a wedding. I should have gotten an AirBnB instead of trusting Hyatt with such and...