Hotel Review: Hyatt Regency Coconut Point, Part 1

The Hyatt Regency Coconut Point has been on our radar for a few years.  Located on the West coast of Florida, it was an ideal location for our preferred type of family vacation.  It’s not that we don’t like big, popular destinations.  But, when it comes to things like pools and beaches, we’re pretty agnostic to the location and actually prefer something a bit quieter.

Coconut Point fit that to a “T”.  Located about 20 minutes south of Fort Myers airport (2 hours south of Tampa and west of Miami), we had nonstop flight options from BWI.  We rented a car and arrived at the property without much trouble.  While the hotel offers valet service there’s plenty of self-parking available.

The lobby is actually a series of rooms when you enter.  You first arrive in a general meeting area inside the front doors, surrounded by a handful of shops.  It’s a short walk to the front desk and another large foyer with a variety of soft seating.  When we originally made our reservation, the first night of our preferred dates was sold out.  We had a reservation for the Hyatt Place literally just down the road, but it looked like a few rooms had opened up last-minute at the Regency.  We swung by the front desk and they quickly confirmed they could help us out.  A short call to the Diamond line yielded a new award reservation at the Regency and a free cancellation and refund of our points from the Hyatt Place.  Alas, I wasn’t able to notch that Hyatt Place on my list of unique Hyatt properties (over 100 and counting), but it was worth it not to have to relocate.  We were happy to have the property help us out, but we were nowhere near done with them going out of their way to help out just a bit more on a number of items.

We had requested connecting rooms ahead of time, something that’s pretty much a “must” for us on vacation.  I wasn’t expecting a suite upgrade given the high occupancy, but was surprised when they upgraded both our rooms to connecting club rooms.  At the last-minute, my father had decided to join us for a few days on vacation.  I asked the front desk, “Would it be possible to move my father’s reservation to a room on the club floor so it’s easier for the kids to run down the hallway to him?”  Certainly not a deal-breaker, especially given the last-minute request and the fact that club rooms would have required us to redeem more points.  The answer was a quick, “Absolutely.” And, just like that, he had the room directly across the hallway from us.

The differences between a club room and a standard room aren’t significant, and all the rooms at this property are quite nice (hence the reason I’m usually not willing to spend more points for a club room).  All the rooms appear to have balconies, easily big enough for two people to relax.  The club rooms come with a Keurig machine loaded with a variety of options.  I’m not a coffee guy but Mrs. Pizza is a devout disciple of the coffee world and appreciated this touch.  The resort fee includes bottled water in the rooms as well.  More on the resort fee later.

The rooms have some little touches that I’ve seen in Grand Hyatt properties, like small motion lights for finding the bathroom at night and pinpoint LED lights above each side of the bed for reading while someone else is trying to sleep.

HD TVs and a desk occupied both our room with two queens and the one with a single king bed.  The king bed room gets a very comfy seating option that the kids really enjoyed.  There were plenty of plugs everywhere in the room. Importantly for families, all the rooms have refrigerators.

The bathrooms were spacious, clean and bright, both with tubs and double sinks.

Since we were located on the club floor we made plenty use of the club, both during the morning and evening.  The club has the capacity to hold 50 or 60 folks pretty easily as well as a handful of tables on half a dozen private balconies.  On some of the peak days during our stay, the staff moved coffee service into the hallway and rearranged the furniture to make it easier to pack people in.  Despite all that, we never showed up at a time where every table was full.

Breakfast in the club consisted of fresh fruit (both whole and cut), smoked salmon, bagels, pastries (donuts!), cereals, oatmeal, domestic and imported cheese and a different specialty item each morning.  There were breakfast sandwiches, egg frittatas and other such items.  Breakfast was a well-rounded collection that different leave much lacking.  The staff was very attentive, offering to make specialty coffees and pour drinks.  The lounge also has a self-service specialty coffee machine for when the lounge is in between service times.

Evening service was pleasing as well.  There was the expected cheese and vegetable options, but done with more style and greater variety than your typical Hyatt Regency.  For example, there were both raw and steamed vegetables available, and a wider array of baby vegetables as opposed to the standard carrots and celery.  There were always at least two cold appetizers (my favorite was the tomato and mozzarella with pesto in a phyllo cup) and one or two hot items.  The pigs in a blanket stuck out as the only “non-gourmet” item at night, but they worked just fine for our son.  There was also a plate of charcuterie and a selection of breads and crackers.  Dessert had the basics like cookies but also had a couple of rotating platters of smaller gourmet items from the kitchen.  In the evenings, all drinks were free from 5pm to 7pm.

There’s a grocery store/ice cream shop/coffee shop located in between the two lobby areas on the main floor that we visited quite a few times (including ice cream for breakfast for Charlie).

The shop has a good selection of DVDs that are free to rent during your stay and use in the DVD players found in your rooms, another small plus for quiet evenings, including one where the kids watched a movie with their grandfather (who mostly snored through it).

Bottom Line It For Me, Ed

I’ll cover the pools, beach and other amenities in future posts, but we couldn’t have been happier with the rooms and the service from the front desk and lounge staff.  Even when we hit one small service snag, the staff was quick to respond with free breakfast for our entire party of 5 in the main restaurant.  In short, they couldn’t have been more accommodating and we couldn’t have been happier with the rooms and lounge.

The hotel is a Category 4 in the Hyatt Gold Passport program, which translates to 15,000 points per night.  We weren’t charged the resort fee on any of our rooms, which was a nice plus for our award reservation.  And, since the property is a category 4, you can use the free night award you receive upon renewing the Hyatt credit card here.

When you consider all the other amenities this property offers it strikes me as a bargain for award redemptions.  Stay tuned for pools, beaches, life-sized Connect 4 and S’mores.

The post Hotel Review: Hyatt Regency Coconut Point was published first on Pizza in Motion.