TETRA Hotel, Autograph Collection — Hotel in Sunnyvale

My wife and I stayed here on Saturday, April 23rd, 2022, as we had an event we were attending inside of the hotel. We found out upon checking in that this hotel has only been open for a couple of months. I do a lot of traveling and have spent hundreds of nights at various Marriott properties around the world, so I was looking forward to this new Autograph Collection hotel.

The entrance and lobby is very modern, spacious and looked great. You can tell they took some Asian influences as the furniture is of the minimalist variety and worked well with the interior.

The thing that struck me was when we got upstairs. As soon as we got off the elevator, I told my wife that the hallway looks a lot like our favorite Autograph Collection hotel in Tokyo, which is the Prince Sakura Tower in Shinagawa. In the hallway, there is a small and discreet ice and water hydration station where you can fill up water bottles. When we got to our room, I was stunned. The room was beautiful and the layout almost exactly matched the Sakura Tower with plenty of floor space and a small couch. The lighting in the room is much better than most hotel rooms I've been in, and the large windows also help with that during the day. The closet had plenty of hangars, the drawers were deep and a nice built-in desk, as well as a spot to put a suitcase to unpack. There was a safe, and a pullout drawer refrigerator with a couple of bottles of water in there when we arrived. The bathroom had light colored tile on the floor, was brightly lit, and had lots of space for two adults to walk around (including inside of the massive shower, which was a bonus later in the evening). No bathtub, but the shower more than makes up for it. There were plenty of thick plush towels as well, and there were other amenties inside of the bathroom that we didn't use, so I'm not sure what they were (probably a hair dryer and other things). The toilet seat was a little bit odd as it was kind of rectangular shaped, but you get used to that pretty quickly.

The event for my daughter's elementary school fundraiser next to the lobby was great. The Tetra Hotel staff were very nice and were constantly walking around and cleaning up empty plates and glasses. The finger food was absolutely delicious, and again had an Asian flair to it (Katsu and egg salad sandos, and many other dishes...lots to choose from).

While I didn't have a chance to try it, there is also a Japanese whiskey bar off of the lobby. I need to go to that next time!

We were on a high floor that night and the hotel room was very quiet, and the bed was very comfortable. I have to say that the Tetra Hotel is probably one of the nicest I've been to here in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I've stayed in a lot of hotels here over the years. It is close to major freeways and most of Silicon Valley can be reached within 15-30 minutes from there. What an excellent addition to the Marriott chain. This place is perfect for the business traveler, a couples or family vacation and...

Tetra is a high effort, well staffed hotel. I mean, check out this list of amenities that you aren’t likely to find at other places, especially other Marriotts (except in Japan; Tetra is Japanese inspired):

included fuzzy slippers that are higher quality than Andaz slippers and Japanese hotel slippers Theragun Mini, a handheld massage gun (some rooms only) CONSISTENTLY excellent service, more on this later. Shoutout to Patricia, Thao, and Jenny thick walls so it’s quiet wonderfully designed shower featuring two heads that keeps in heat. Those of us with large showers and bathrooms know how cold it can get— the shower here is a little smaller and sealed well, so it stays comfortable throughout. Leaves me wanting a smaller shower myself precision kettle, allowing you to make tea and coffee at ideal temperatures, as they typically do not want to be made at boiling. High quality, handmade drinkware is included high quality tea and instant coffee. This isn’t Lipton. They give you Harney & Sons— not cheap, and well regarded as other tea drinkers know. Coffee Manufactory’s instant coffee is the first and only drinkable instant coffee I’ve had a very soft, well padded, warm robe (that you can buy for $99) Dyson Supersonic hair dryer; while Dyson is kind of overpriced and never top tier, this is easily the best hair dryer I’ve ever used in any hotel. There is nearly no competition high quality materials and design throughout the entire hotel, from the runway-like driveway to the integrated light strips in the ceilings fabric, reusable laundry bags in-room steamer for your clothing excellent housekeeping: I left an item in the bedsheets and they gave me a call the next day

These are more amenities than most Ws and Ritz locations I’ve been to in the states. The rooms look better than most Ws and Ritz locations too.

The Tetra is a genuinely beautiful, incredibly well run property. Most Marriott hotel owners clearly phone it in: tepid staffing (one person only at the hotel, so they cannot respond swiftly. Stressed staff does not much care, as one would expect), cheap materials, lackluster design, and poor customer care. Tetra does not do this— somehow, whoever runs this place actually seems to care.

This reflects in the staff. Thao, Patricia, and Jenny are all wonderfully kind and thorough. Front desk staff can be hit or miss when the hotel management itself is poor, and the fact that I have had multiple great service experiences is unique. The other staff I’ve briefly interacted with have all been cool too so I suspect they’re all great. Whoever’s doing night audit is on point and gets stays posted quickly and accurately. The rooms controller Amanda is great at her job too.

Beyond that, the in house restaurant serves actually good food/breakfast and the rooms are very very quiet. It’s difficult to see how Tetra could improve upon what is...

I would give Tetra five stars but I feel that I have to acknowledge a handful of issues. This is a new hotel so I anticipated some issues and all of them realized themselves over our three day stay. First the good stuff. The property is beautiful with a beautiful lobby, a stunning restaurant, a modern cafe and a beautiful bar. There's an outdoor lounge area with a variety of seating areas, some cozy ones and fire pits. The pool is off the third floor and there are seating areas and fire pits there as well. Check in was excellent, the front desk staff was very welcoming and professional although there seemed to be some confusion about some internal workings between the two people on duty. Our Junior Suite - Mountain View was beautiful with floor to ceiling windows on two sides, it felt like we were staying in the treetops. The modern design is airy and very pleasing, it felt very quiet and refreshing. The tall ceilings really make this space feel significant. Once we settled in, the hotel brought a complimentary bottle of champagne to our room, that was such a nice surprise and really made us feel welcomed. There were some kinks though that need to be worked out. The most glaring to me is that the central air vent in the room blows directly onto the bed, like literally right into your face. Fortunately the weather was mild at night so we were able to shut the air off without getting too hot or too cold. We requested an extra blanket which they immediately brought to the room with two complimentary bottles of mineral water. There's a nightlight in the bathroom which stays on all the time, which is great except that it lights up the entire suite (the bathroom walls are a beautiful white glass but the light comes through them). The lights in the living area and the bathroom are on timers so they keep shutting off after thirty minutes. We loved the large TV but we had to keep standing up every thirty minutes to turn the lights back on, the switch is all the way by the front door. In the bathroom, the light would shut off even if you are in the shower or using the toilet. The cafe sells bottles of wine but not champagne. The lobby shop has various sundries but not any feminine products. The lobby restaurant and cafe are both excellent. The lobby bar has a limited selection, they are trying to keep with a theme but I think they should rethink the limited selection of spirits and wines. Overall, I would definitely stay here again. I'm assuming that the kinks will be worked out. It's a great little oasis, there's hiking nearby along the bay and it's a short drive or taxi ride to Murphy Lane which is a walkable area of...