Grand Hyatt DC Review
The Grand Hyatt is one of Hyatt's best-located properties for Washington, DC visitors looking to stay downtown or visit the museums and monuments along the National Mall. This hotel is extremely popular for large conferences and conventions, featuring tons of meeting space. All these events can cause demand to surge, but with over 900 rooms, you can almost always still snag a room no matter how busy. While the rooms aren't particularly luxurious, this hotel did just undergo a renovation with fresh new rooms and a redesigned club lounge. For this Grand Hyatt DC review, I had the opportunity to check out one of their brand new suites.
Grand Hyatt DC Location
On the corner of 11th and H Streets NW, the Grand Hyatt DC is very well located for those who need to be in downtown DC. The hotel is a couple of blocks away from Capital One Arena, where you can catch hockey and basketball games as well as big concerts. An Uber or Lyft ride from Reagan National Airport costs less than $30 without traffic.
The hotel is also next to the Metro Center stop on the DC Metro. In fact, you can access the subway stop from the Grand Hyatt's lobby without ever leaving the building. When facing the hotel's elevators in the lobby, there is a set of glass doors to the right that lead into an adjacent office building lobby that has its own entrance to the Metro. And when getting off the subway at Metro Center, you want to follow signs for the 11th and G Streets exit to go into the hotel.
Access to the subway without exposure to the elements can be clutch during peak DC summer months and during the winter. Metro Center features the red, blue, orange, and silver lines of the Metro. The blue line takes you to Reagan National Airport, the silver line takes you to Dulles International Airport, and the red line takes you to Union Station.
The National Mall and most of the Smithsonian museums are within walking distance. The hotel is also just a short walk from the White House.
Grand Hyatt DC Review: Booking Cost
At the time of my stay, this Grand Hyatt Washington was a category 5 property following the March 2024 changes. Award nights cost 17,000 points off-peak, 20,000 points for standard nights, and 23,000 points for peak nights.
Cash rates vary widely depending on whether any conferences are taking place at the hotel or if any big events are happening in DC. For my stay, I paid around $200 per night, which was a much better option than redeeming World of Hyatt points.
If you want to book this hotel on points but don't have World of Hyatt points, you can transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards to Hyatt.
Following its renovation, the Grand Hyatt Washington has 902 rooms, including 31 suites. This is an increase from 897 rooms and 26 suites, meaning they split some suites in half to create more suites that are much smaller. Even with additional suites, this is still a pretty small suite-to-room ratio for a hotel this size. The rooms face either the exterior of the hotel or the hotel's large atrium.
Lobby and Check-In
The massive lobby offers many different seating areas for guests to congregate. From the lobby, you can access one of the hotel's restaurants, a Starbucks, a souvenir shop, and the check-in and concierge desks.
The hotel has six check-in counters and at least three counters are typically staffed, meaning you rarely have to wait much for assistance. As expected, World of Hyatt elite members have a dedicated line. I consistently find the elite member line staffed.
The Grand Hyatt's lobby is typically bustling with activity due to the many conventions and meetings it regularly hosts.
At check-in, Globalist members receive a sheet of paper with information about the Grand Club lounge, located on the 12th floor.
The hotel has 6 elevators servicing all 12 floors. The elevators were all redone as part of the renovations, making them incredibly fast. Gone are the days of long wait times for an elevator to get to your room.
Grand Hyatt DC Review: Conference Suite
The rooms are ample and comfortable, but nothing extraordinary, even after the renovations. I paid cash for my stay and applied a suite upgrade award to stay in a Conference Suite. This suite is labeled as a “standard suite” on Hyatt's website, meaning that a suite upgrade award should work. When I called to apply the suite upgrade award, the Hyatt concierge on the line said the room was not eligible for a suite upgrade award. I mentioned the website labeled it as a standard suite. So the concierge put me on hold and called the Grand Hyatt DC to inquire. After a few minutes, the concierge got back to me and said I was all set with the Conference Suite.
It turns out the so-called Conference Suite is no more. This is clearly one of the suites that became smaller with the renovations. Looking at this photo, how do you have a conference here?
I went back to the front desk to ask if there had been a mistake. But the front desk manager confirmed that the suites have changed but they have not updated the hotel's website to reflect these changes. I was disappointed, but ultimately just needed a separate space to hang out after my kid went to sleep. If I were in town for a real conference where perhaps I needed a conference table to conduct actual business, I would have been much more upset.
For comparison, here is what the description of the suite looked like on the website at the time of my stay. Note that conference table and large sitting area in the first photo. In retrospect, I could have noticed that the website was showing the old bedroom, but I had no reason to believe that a renovation also meant slashing the suite in half.
Disappointment aside, the suite was a standard one-bedroom suite and served its purpose. The living room is a decent size, featuring a sofa and a chair, with an elegant coffee table. The writing desk causes the TV to be off center, which can be awkward for those wanting to watch something. The TV cabinet features a mini-fridge, coffee maker (with complimentary coffee pods and tea), a safe, and some cabinet space.
The glass writing desk does not feel particularly modern, though it isn't dated either. Bizarrely, there is no outlet anywhere near the desk! Even if one were to move the heavy TV cabinet, there is no outlet available behind it either. It was baffling to find a desk in a renovated room without a single outlet anywhere near it. Even stranger, the old writing desks before the renovations had a plethora of outlets right on the desk. Such an odd regression.
The living room also has its own separate half-bath.
The bedroom offers lots of space with a queen bed, a reading chair, and a bench cushion beneath the TV. The bedsides are embedded with multiple outlets of different kinds.
The bedroom has a large closet with a lot of space in front of it that seemed to go to waste. As expected, the closet has a pair of robes and two pairs of slippers, though I was surprised to not find a folding luggage rack.
The modern bathroom is spacious but lacked any of the amenities one would expect at a nicer property, such as cotton swabs or cotton balls. The bathroom features bulk Balmain toiletries as well as soap bars.
Oddly, the makeup mirror on the wall did not have its own lighting. The shower stall looks rather sub-standard with plastic flooring, while the dismal water pressure won't go unnoticed.
In general, the room was solid, with the only significant complaint being the awful water pressure.
Grand Hyatt DC Dining
The hotel has two restaurants: Cure Bar & Bistro and Cabinet. Cabinet serves breakfast and is located one level below the lobby. Globalists do not receive complimentary breakfast at Cabinet since they have access to the Grand Club lounge, which also serves breakfast.
Cure Bar & Bistro is located in the lobby and serves lunch and dinner. This restaurant also features a bar, which is often quite full from the constant flow of conferences and meetings. With so many excellent restaurant options in the neighborhood, visitors are better served exploring those options instead.
The hotel also has a Starbucks in the lobby, which customers can access from the lobby directly or from H Street.
Grand Club Lounge
The Grand Club lounge for Globalist members is located on the 12th floor and was also subject to renovation. The lounge serves breakfast in the morning, snacks throughout the day, appetizers in the evening, and dessert at night. Alcohol is also available for purchase.
Breakfast usually offers plenty of variety, including fruit and yogurt options, cereal, some pastries, scrambled eggs, egg frittata, and bacon and sausages. Snacks during the day include cereal bars, fruit, trail mix, cereal, and yogurt. The lounge has one coffee machine and no longer offers regular coffee from a dispenser for guests to self-serve. This leads to long lines for coffee during breakfast hours. There is no reason for the lounge to not offer drip coffee as an alternative to the machine.
Evening appetizers usually include sliders, a warm pasta dish, a couple of salads, crudités, a couple of cheese and cured meat options, and a vegetarian sandwich option. Dessert options at night usually include small pastries, a couple of baked goods, and (delicious) cookies.
Alcohol prices aren't bad, and certainly cheaper than at the hotel bar or any other bar nearby. A light beer costs $4. Wine pours cost either $2, $5, $7, or $11 depending on the wine and the size of the pour. The liquor options are also pretty good and roughly within that same price range.
The service at the lounge mostly consists of the staff replacing the self-serve food items or clearing dishes. Overall, the staff is friendly and attentive.
The redesigned lounge looks modern and way more spacious than before, with brighter tones throughout. I appreciate the variety in seating options with regular tables for two and four guests, high-tops, and bench seats with small side tables.
Grand Hyatt DC Review: Amenities
The Grand Hyatt DC has 42,000 square feet of event space. Most of the meeting space is located in the lower levels underneath the lobby, where a true maze of hallways and escalators connect several rooms of varying sizes. The event space is quite modern, with renovations take place a few years ahead of the rooms. There is also a FedEx store one level beneath the lobby.
The gym is a few levels beneath the lobby. Finding the gym is half the battle as you navigate two escalators and another set of stairs. Nonetheless, the gym is spacious and offers everything most folks would need for a workout on the road.
Grand Hyatt DC Review: ToP Thoughts
The Grand Hyatt Washington's biggest appeal is convenience. The hotel's location can't be beat for Hyatt loyalists looking to tour the National Mall and its museums while still being close to great bars restaurants. Being adjacent to a Metro stop is also a huge plus for moving about the city. The Grand Club lounge is a good resource for quick snacks throughout the day. While the renovated rooms are not particularly breathtaking, the hotel's convenience is second to none.
