GRAND HYATT BERLIN

Perfect hotel for the family. Rooms are well equipped and modern. Great bath /shower water closet to satisfy all needs. The grand club is outstanding. Eggs to order in the am and wonderful bakeries. Vox bar is a classic start to the evening. You will love the location.

Great location and very nice amenities and spa. Staff was very helpful and accommodated several requests on a timely basis. Good value relative to other nice hotels near by, and easy to visit historic sites on foot.

My first trip to Berlin, I decided to go for the Grand Hyatt. The rates are reasonable, and hey, it’s a Grand Hyatt, and I have great stays recently at Hyatt properties so can’t go wrong. Besides, I will be out every day sight-seeing and explore this exciting city. Who cares if it is not super luxurious' Arrival I arrived by taxi from the Train station after a grueling 6 hours train ride. Check-in was quick and friendly and I am soon on my way to the room. No escort to the room and no upgrades, but that was expected. Before my arrival, I asked my previous hotel to courier my excess baggage and a misplaced item to Grand Hyatt. They all arrived on time and were placed already in my room upon checked-in. So far so good. The Grand King “View” Room This room type is the standard room ( Grand King ) except it has a view. The view is nothing much with a choice of facing a nearby shopping mall / office building or a little better, face the Berlin Philharmonic concert hall. I wonder what the room without view will be, possibly facing the back of an office building. The room size was advertised at 35 to 40sqm and I was rather concerned it will be too small. However, I find the room spacious because unlike my previous hotel, the Sacher, the Grand Hyatt follows a minimalist interior design and everything is well laid out and thoughtfully hidden. There are no bulky furniture to crammed up the room. Even with the small size, the room boost a full size bathroom with shower and a large bath-tub, a large closet with space for luggage, a comfortable working table and chair, a B&O TV which I did not switch on, minibar and more. The bed is comfortable with a king size duvet and nice pillows. Shower water pressure is good and the include toiletries smell nice. However, there is no overhead shower, only hand-held shower. Internet is fast only if paid for an upgrade. The hotel provides generous supply of mineral water which were replenished daily. Complimentary tea and coffee making facilities included. For just sleeping and shower, this room is ideal. However, there were some issues with the room. More on that later. Common Areas and Location The hotel is located in the heart of modern Postdamer Platz, which is an excellent location with many restaurants nearby and superb transport connection ( U-Bahn, S-Bahn, Train ) to the rest of the city. The Sony Centre and the Berlin Philharmonic are just located right across the street. A short 10 mins walk brings one to the Berlin Mall. Another 5 mins stroll and we are at the Reichstag and the War Memorials. For sight-seeing, this location is excellent and saved me a lot of time. The hotel common areas is what is expected of a Hyatt. There is a full size gym and spa, with a rooftop terrace that offers great view of the city, a restaurant that serves both fine dining and breakfast and also a bar. The lobby is quite impressive, and decorated with many contemporary art pieces. I love the fact that there is a separate elevator that provide quick access to my room. The F&B standard in this hotel is not really high. Breakfast was disappointing and the same stuff was served everyday for all 4 days of my stay that it got really boring by the 4th day. Selection was inferior and quality of food distinctly lacking esepcailly when compared to to what was offered by my previous hotels in Munich and Berchtesgaden. Service Generally, the service is like a good 4 star hotel in Asia. Not really 5-star in my books. Staff are quite attentive and polite but they basically follow the rule book. In the morning breakfast, there were a lot of new ( and I guess temporary staff ), some of them do not really understand English. For example, I asked for latte coffee and was brought a glass of milk. They do not understand what is waffles. Stuff like that. It was quite a hassle to order things not on the buffet table. A separate menu on the desk will solve this problem. Most service calls were attended to, but it’s not fast, on average 20 mins wait. This is understandable as the Grand Hyatt Berlin is a large hotel and it was nearly full during my stay due to some sports tournament. I had some problems with my room. In the first room, after I checked-in and when I used the bathroom, I noticed the tap at my basin was badly rusted and corroded. It was so corroded that rust will basically flaking off the tap and I wonder if it entered the water supply. So I reported this to the frontdesk staff in the morning and asked them to change the tap and if not, I will insist on a room change as I am concerned with hygiene and safety. After their technician looked at it, they could not replace the tap and offered me a room change instead after I was back in the early afternoon. I accepted and asked to move my luggage to the new room. However, the new room was not ready as the occupying guest had not checked out yet. So I said in this case, fine, I will move the room after I came back from my afternoon sight-seeing. However, this was apparently unacceptable to the Frontdesk Manager as he asked that I packed my bags so that the luggage can be moved to the new room once ready ( while I was out ) because my current room will be occupied by another guest. Hmm… that’s very questionable practice as it means the hotel will basically take my defective room and offer it to another guest hoping that the guest won’t complained. Or rather, they don't consider a rusty tap to be unacceptable and still wanted to sell the room. Nevertheless, I agree to this as well as I am determined not to get upset which will spoil my holiday. When I returned, my luggage has been re-located to the new room. Unfortunately, there is again another issue with the room. The air condition was faulty and noisy. This time the housekeeping Manager offered yet another room change because the “Engineering personel” has gone home. I declined it as I was tired of changing room so I just bear with it and told them to fix it the next day. Other service issues include no turn-down service for all 4 nights ( maybe they don’t offer that ), and housekeeping staff will just enter the room without pressing the bell first so it is necessary to ensure the DND sign is always on. Upon check-out, the same front desk Manager did apologies for the inconvenience caused. I find that basically for more complicated request, it is necessary to speak to the Managers who can get things done. Conclusion Despite the service mishaps, and some issues with the room, I overall enjoyed my stay. The location is great and the rates are very reasonable. While not really luxurious, it’s a comfortable hotel to retire back after an exhausting day so it does all the basics right. Besides, Berlin is such an exciting city with much to see and explore outside, why spend more to spurge on a luxurious room or suite' The breakfast can be improved though. Overall 4 out of 5.

Very nice hotel with great staff - front desk guest services team is very helpful and friendly. It was a great 4 day stay May, 2017. Rooms are very clean and luxurious. We had free wi-fi and glass bottled water daily (we're Discoverists with Hyatt). We ate lunch one of the days outside on the patio which was very enjoyable - they were also gluten free friendly. The property has a nice roof top pool with great views of the Berlin skyline. We chose this hotel given it's proximity to some of the tourist attractions - very close and walkable distance to Brandenburg gate. This hotel has an ideal location in the city - we were pleasantly surprised by the boulevard outside the exit - it has tree top canopy lined walkways with a wide variety of moderate to upscale restaurants. Across the street is a shopping mall which has a grocery store in the basement to get food, snacks, water, etc. as well as a McDonald's and Starbucks - which is ideal for us as we're not huge breakfast eaters - more like a granola bar and coffee! The only downside of this property is the beds are the traditional "European Firm" and the pillows were as thick as a few pieces of paper - so ask at check in and they should be able to provide you with a mattress pad and stuffing for the pillows.

This modern 5 star hotel is centrally located. The staff speaks English very well. Breakfast is very nice, even though the breakfast area was a little hard to find the first morning. Perfect location for a weekend in Berlin.