I usually don’t blog my average domestic stays, or even my average international ones, but when I snap a few photos and since I write more for myself than my readers much of the time (sorry!) sometimes I feel like it’s worth posting only to remind myself. I admit, I frequently search my own blog for links and offers. That’s one of the reasons I started the blog way back in 2002, as a way of memorializing the things I had learned about travel so that I could refer back to them later. So here I am, writing about of all things the Hyatt Regency Baltimore.

This was my first US Airways hit, as I mentioned yesterday. The one-night stay would have earned less than 1000 Hyatt Gold Passport points, so I wasn’t really giving up anything in taking 500 US Airways miles. I figured out on Friday that I needed to be up in Baltimore Saturday evening and Sunday morning, and I didn’t feel like making the extra roundtrip drive, so I booked a reasonable AAA rate at the hotel.

I just quickly booked the first room on the list, I saw it was a room with two double beds, but it was a one-night stay, I figured that as a Hyatt Diamond I’d probably get a harbor view and I put a request in the comments for a King.

When I checked in around 2:30pm I was told that I had been upgraded to a club floor room. I asked about a harbor view, they offered me one on another floor. But told me that in either case, view or no, they were sold out and had no kings available.

“But I am a Diamond Guest.”

(Kidding.)

I asked them to see what they could do, some typing away and they found me a Queen bed room that wasn’t ready yet, “We’ll call you once it’s been cleaned.” Ummm.. I gave a puzzled look and some more typing, they came up with a king-bedded room. I never mentioned status but the check-in clerk said, “We value our diamond guests.” Now about the giraffe…

No giraffe, but I was proactively asked at check-in whether I’d like late check out, I do much like that it seems to have become brand standard at full service Hyatts not just to honor late check out but actually to offer it. That leaves out any possibility, more or less, of a question of whether or not it’ll be honored and really puts Gold Passport a step ahead on the late checkout benefit. Now if only they’d mirror Intercontinental Royal Ambassador’s early check in benefit (see, I’m never satisfied!).

The room was fairly small but there was a nice couch in the window and a fairly modern bathroom, no complaints about the room.

The club lounge, on the other hand, wasn’t much bigger than my guestroom. Very cramped space! And the evening offerings were probably the sparsest that I have ever seen, just veggies and a single kind of cheese. That’s it. There were some beers and white wine in the self-service fridge, but it wasn’t really a space I wanted to hang out in.

Wound up ordering a late room service dinner, they brought it up in less than 25 minutes. When I pointed out that the order was wrong they offered to fix it right away, I admit I was tired and hungry and didn’t want to wait. Without prompting they offered to leave it and just waive the charges. More than fair.

I had been informed at check-in that I could take breakfast either in the lounge or I’d have a $40 credit in the restaurant. I went down to the restaurant around 9:30am on Sunday morning, but there was a fairly significant line to get in, and looking around I wasn’t that impressed with the buffet offering or menu, so I headed upstairs to the club lounge. No hot offerings but otherwise pretty standard Hyatt, lox, pastries, fruit, at least now there were two cheeses (one was clearly the leftover from the night before, it was the exact same size remaining as what I had seen). But the lounge is so small that it was pretty cramped, and loud. I had a quick breakfast, sat down by the window (bussing the plates from the previous guests), and waited in line four people deep for the coffee machine. I finished my breakfast, and when I went for more coffee another hotel guest took my seat, even though my newspaper was still sitting there. Ok, a good hint that it was time to get moving!

Overall, everyone was nice and the hotel did the trick, especially for location.