Review: the Hyatt Regency Amsterdam hotel

This is my review of the Hyatt Regency Amsterdam hotel.

I was over in Amsterdam recently for World Aviation Festival, which has a surprisingly strong loyalty focus. I took the opportunity to try two hotels which had been on my radar for a while – the relatively new Hyatt Regency Amsterdam and the fully refurbished Sheraton Amsterdam Airport hotel.

These are both ‘real life’ reviews. Because I was not there primarily to review the hotel, my stay was like your average work stay – I didn’t get to see all of the facilities, I didn’t get any tours, I didn’t eat in the restaurants and I wasn’t in the hotel for long. However, I still think the review has value.

I ‘paid’ for the Hyatt Regency Amsterdam using a free night voucher I received from the criminally underrated Hyatt Brand Explorer offer. As I explain here, you receive a free night (up to 15,000 World of Hyatt points) for every fifth Hyatt brand you stay at, with no time limit.

Where is Hyatt Regency Amsterdam?

If you know the InterContinental Amstel, then you will know where the Hyatt Regency sits. It is a couple of minutes walk from the InterContinental and the citizenM hotel which is virtually opposite.

Location-wise, it is literally on the edge of the canal network.  You need to think about the location if staying here.  The good news is that one of the very few central Metro stations is virtually outside the door (Weesperplein).  It is a 30 minute walk from Centraal Station and 20 minutes from Dam Square (shopping area). It is convenient for the airport via a change at Amsterdam Zuid.

It is most convenient for the museums (Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh) and the luxury shopping area surrounding them.  In the past I have tended to do one-way wandering / sightseeing trips, ending up at Centraal Station and then getting the metro back.

What the Hyatt lacks is the InterContinental’s location on the banks of the Amstel river. You don’t have water lapping against the restaurant at the Hyatt – the hotel overlooks a fairly busy (for Amsterdam) road. It’s actually a novelty in Amsterdam to stay in a hotel which does have cars going past!

The CGI image of the hotel above does not show it in full. The hotel also includes a historic building – just visible on the right – and the building doesn’t feel as aggressively modern as the picture implies.

All you need to know is that this is a newly built hotel, not a conversion or rebrand, and everything is shiny, new and fresh. This alone is a good reason to stay.

Inside the hotel

As I have mentioned before, I have top-tier Globalist status for 2022. Our hotel booking partner Emyr Thomas was able to gift it to some of his highest spending clients and I made the cut.

A Globalist is guaranteed an upgrade to a ‘standard’ suite if one is available at check in. Unfortunately the hotel was full (it showed as sold out online) – not surprising with a bunch of aviation professionals in town!

I booked a King and ended up with a King Deluxe.

This turned out to be more than acceptable for my brief stay. A King Deluxe is listed at 40 sq m versus 23-30 sq m for a standard room. There is plenty of space as you can see here:

My room was a corner room which mean that the floor to ceiling windows wrapped around, creating an impressive view out. Sadly it was only of the street ….

You’ll see a decent desk above, which I always appreciate.

The bathroom was a good size, with double sinks, a bath and a standalone shower. The loo had a separate frosted door.

If you look at the bath you will see blinds next to it. These lift up, so that you can see directly from the bathroom into the bedroom, albeit via a glass wall. One benefit of this is that you can put on the lights in the bathroom and brighten up the bedroom, which suffers from the usual European hotel issue of minimal lighting …..

Toiletries were by Pharmacopia.

The room came with a coffee machine and kettle. My only room gripe is that some space was wasted by an internal corridor which wasn’t necessary, not that the bedroom or bathroom areas necessarily needed to be any larger.

The club lounge at Hyatt Regency Amsterdam

The hotel has a surprisingly large and impressive club lounge. If the price premium is modest and you think that you will be around for the evening snacks and drinks, it is a decent upgrade.

You can also, remember, use a very modest number of World of Hyatt points to book a club room upgrade at the time of booking. If a promotion is running it may be cheaper to buy Hyatt points to do this rather than paying for a club room for cash.

My only complaint is that the lounge stopped serving food and wine at 7pm. This is far too early for most business travellers, especially as you are unlikely to be working within walking distance of the hotel. The Sheraton at Schiphol Airport does the same and it annoys me.

However, I should add that the person running the club lounge was extremely personable and helpful. Seeing my frustration at having missed out by arriving at 7.15pm (my plan was to grab a quick snack and then do some work) she went into the kitchen and prepared a plate of meat, cheese and salad, together with some great bread and a glass of wine. She had absolutely no obligation to do this for me.

The restaurant

Whilst I had lounge access via my status, I had breakfast in the Mama Makan restaurant. As the hotel was full it wasn’t possible to take any good photographs so here are two accurate PR shots.

and

In the evening the space operates as an Indonesian restaurant. As you can see, the hotel has spent a lot of money on the Asian-themed interiors. It was possibly a little OTT for breakfast but I’m sure works well in the evening!

Conclusion

As I said at the start, this is only a quick overview of the hotel. My conference schedule meant that I didn’t try the bar or restaurant, except for breakfast.

What I hope you take away from this review is:

• the location is a little out of the centre but still fully walkable to everything you are likely to visit

• the hotel is new and well designed, with spacious rooms and a smart restaurant

• there is an impressive club lounge but the food and wine service in the evening closes a little early for my liking

The hotel website is here if you want to find out more.

If you are booking for cash for 2+ nights, a special Hyatt Prive package via our hotel booking partner Emyr Thomas is likely to be better value than booking online. You can learn more about Hyatt Prive here.

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World of Hyatt update – April 2024:

Get bonus points: World of Hyatt is not currently running a global promotion

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