Review: Park Hyatt Shanghai
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For the beginning of the first of many business trips to China last November (yes, seriously behind in posting this), I spent 7 nights at the Park Hyatt Shanghai. The hotel is located in the Shanghai World Financial Center, which, until the Shanghai Tower was completed this year, was the tallest building in Shanghai. The World Financial Center building is part of a cluster of three super tall buildings (including the Shanghai Tower and the Jin Mao tower) located on the Pudong side of Shanghai, which you can enjoy a view of while walking along the Bund.

The Park Hyatt occupies floors 79 to 93 of the World Financial Center and it's absolutely breathtaking in every sense. I had stayed at the Park Hyatt Tokyo the month before I checked in here, which is a favorite hotel of the travel blogging community, but there was no comparison for me. The Park Hyatt Shanghai is perfection.
I have found Park Hyatts to be a bit stuffy and somewhat old-fashioned in their decorating style from time to time, which I definitely thought was the case at the Park Hyatt Tokyo. However, the Park Hyatt Shanghai was just the right mix of modern and minimal. 

Upon arriving at the hotel, you'll walk in a set of glass doors and wind around a bit to elevators that only go to three floors: floor 1, floor 87 (the lobby) and floor 91, which is where the hotel's restaurant, 100 Century Avenue, is located. From the lobby, you will take another set of elevators down to the guest rooms, gym, and pool area.

Unfortunately, the lobby area doesn't photograph very well, and there are so many employees standing around in case you need anything at all (seriously, there are usually like 5 or 6 just lingering around), getting good photos was nearly impossible. Once you come out of the elevator, you will see the front desk in front of you and lots of seating arranged behind it along the windows for the bar and "pantry". Since the lobby is on the 87th floor, the views from the windows are stunning.

Check in went very quickly. The front desk agent was extremely polite and efficient. I presented my passport and credit card and confirmed I wanted the points rather than the Diamond amenity and before I knew it, I was off to my room. I had been upgraded very slightly to a Park Deluxe King, which as far as I could tell, just meant that I had a few extra feet in my room which fit a long and very random table and two chairs. The guest rooms are on floors below the lobby, so I took the elevator down a few floors and found my room. 

I really loved the abundance of dark wood throughout the hotel. It was used for accents and was all over the place, making everything look very rich and contrasting nicely to the white walls. The hallways were very dark but had dramatic lighting which made things very cozy.

Once I entered my room, there was longish hallway with a closet on my left, then the main room straight ahead. The hallway also housed the minibar and coffee machine as well as the bathroom and the toilet, which was separate and several feet away from the bathroom itself. The bedroom was minimal, beautiful, and comfortable with a TV, a desk and chair, a long somewhat random table, a chaise lounge, and the bed. All of the lights and window coverings were controlled next to the bed, which is something I love in hotel rooms. It's so much easier to push a button once you're already in bed rather than having to bump around trying to find all of the light switches. Pure luxury.

We spent a weekend in LA a while back and decided to stay at Hyatt the Pike Long Beach. LA hotels are typically extremely expensive and we liked the idea of being a bit closer to Orange County, so we went with Hyatt the Pike. The hotel is located right in the middle of downtown Long Beach and it's actually pretty much across the street from another Hyatt property, the Hyatt Regency Long Beach, which is older and larger than the Pike.

The bathroom was gorgeous and bright with gray and white tiles all around and a glass enclosed rain shower. It was one of my favorite parts of the room. 

We had a pretty quiet night and got dinner to go from a nearby restaurant because it actually hurt for me to move at this point. Little did I know that the full body aches meant I was in the early stages of a flu and I was scheduled to fly to China for work two days later.

By the next morning, I wasn't as achy, but I started feeling nauseous, so I wasn't very interested in breakfast. As a Diamond, we had $24.50 each to spend at the hotel restaurant, Bay Street Kitchen, so I went along anyway and tried to find something simple to eat. Chris went for the Cinnamon French Toast and I tried (and failed) to eat the Yogurt Parfait. The restaurant was bright and cutely decorated and service was attentive, so it was still a nice space to sit for a little while. 

After breakfast, we quickly checked out the rooftop pool, which was small, but deserted so early in the morning. It had a great view and some nice seating available and would have been nice if I was feeling a little bit better. 

Overall, the hotel was very nice. It had a bit of a boutique feel to it and it was a good option for our trip. The rooms were quiet and everything was comfortable. Aside from the slight service issue with our check-in taking longer than it should have, everything went smoothly. This hotel is a great option if you're in the area and it has a nicer, more personal feel than the massive Hyatt Regency down the street. 

Happy Travels!

I was lucky enough to be in Maui two weeks ago thanks to some amazing airfare deals from Alaska Airlines over Black Friday.  Chris and I had the most amazing time and even though it was only for three days and two nights, it was worth it to visit such a beautiful place! I had been to Hawaii before, but not to Maui, and after this trip, it is my favorite island so far (I've also visited the Big Island and Oahu). 

The icing on the cake (or the umbrella in our Mai Tai, if you will) was undoubtedly staying at what Chris and I both agreed is the most beautiful hotel we have ever stayed at - the Andaz Maui at Wailea. The hotel is incredibly beautiful and the decor was just our style - modern and minimalist, but with a bit of Hawaiian inspiration. Not to mention, the views are second to none. The Andaz Maui is located on its own stretch of beach and has views from seemingly every part of the hotel. Possibly the coolest feature of the hotel is the tiered infinity pools which cover 4 levels so that it's easy to get a great view no matter where you've spotted an empty lounge chair.

All of that being said, the hotel is also incredibly expensive and it's one of the few in Hyatt's portfolio that is not available for cash and points stays. This means that you're either going to be paying cash (which can easily be $600/night and up) or full points, which will set you back 25,000/night. As luck would have it, Chris had just finished applying for the Chase Hyatt Visa and received two free night certificates for any Hyatt property in the world, so we chose to use those for our stay here. We got even more lucky when we arrived and were upgraded to a one bedroom partial ocean view suite without even asking. All in all, it was perfection.

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When we found out that our award routing would take us to Tokyo for three nights, in Chris' mind, there was only one place to stay - the Park Hyatt Tokyo. The Park Hyatt in Tokyo is actually an incredibly iconic hotel and we found it was very well-known around the city. We never had a problem when telling taxi drivers the name of the hotel in English and they all knew where it was. As its biggest claim to fame, for those of you who have seen Lost in Translation, virtually the entire movie takes place at the Park Hyatt Tokyo and in the hotel's signature bar, the New York Bar.

We landed at Narita around 7:30 PM and grabbed a train and a taxi from the airport, then arrived at the hotel around 9 PM. Despite getting quite a bit of sleep on our Singapore Suites flight, we were still pretty tired. Upon arriving at the hotel, we were greeted by several employees who helped us get our luggage out of the taxi and another who met us and asked for the name our reservation was under. She then proceeded to escort us through the entrance lobby and up to the hotel's actual lobby on the 41st floor of the building. Upon stepping out of the elevator, you will arrive into an atrium area with seating and amazing views of Tokyo. The area is mostly unused except in the evenings when it turns into the Peak Lounge. As Diamond guests, we were able to attend a complimentary happy hour in the Peak Lounge, which happens every day from 5 PM to 9 PM. The happy hour offered a full bar, several bottles of white and red wine and champagne, and a few snacks. The snacks were not substantial, but the happy hour was nice and I would recommend checking it out if you're back from sightseeing early enough.

From the atrium area, she took us right and led us past one of the hotel's restaurants, Girandole, which is where you can get breakfast in the morning, then through the library and finally, into the reception area. At that point, we were met by another employee who took us straight to our suite to complete the check-in process. 

As I mentioned, check-in was completed in our room but I honestly was not a fan of the courtesy. To me, it was incredibly awkward to be walked into our room and to sit down in our living room, then be asked all the standard check-in questions and not be able to just relax once we arrived in the room. Luckily, it was a fairly quick process and of course the staff member was incredibly polite and professional. He explained the features of the hotel, asked us to select our Diamond benefits and then thankfully, we had the room to ourself.

Chris paid cash for a standard room and then used a suite upgrade that he received for participating in the Hyatt Diamond Challenge, so we were upgraded to a Park Suite King. We took a separate elevator that only goes to the guest floors up from the lobby to our room and the same bluish color scheme from the reception area continued into the hallways. Our doorway was flanked by ducks on pedestals, which made it look incredibly special and when we made it inside, the room was incredible. 

We walked in to a completely separate front entrance hall and only after walking through that could you see any of the suite. The layout was well thought-out and had distinct areas, but was only actually separated by an accordion style wall. The suite had a living room with dining table and desk, a large bedroom, an incredible bathroom and even a dressing table and large closet to place our luggage in. 

The room was beautifully appointed and the decor was timeless. There were light Japanese touches throughout, which really made us feel like we were in Japan despite actually being in a Western hotel chain.