BDU: Park Hyatt Sydney

BDU: Birthday Down Under - Trip Planning
BDU: Flying to Sydney
BDU: Park Hyatt Sydney
BDU: Sydney Activities
BDU: Sydney Opera House
BDU: Flying to Uluru and Back
BDU: Uluru and Kata Tjuta
BDU: Park Hyatt Melbourne
BDU: Melbourne Activities
BDU: Flying to Fiji
BDU: Hilton Fiji
BDU: Snorkeling Trip
BDU: Flying to Los Angeles
BDU: Hyatt Regency DFW

As I mentioned earlier, I spent a good six months or more reading about points and miles before my mental plans for this birthday trip started taking place.  One place that popped up frequently on the blogs was the Park Hyatt Sydney.  There were numerous references to how fantastic it was and how much everyone who stayed there enjoyed it.  Since it's also the #1 ranked hotel in Australia, it's not hard to believe that's true. It's located in the shadow of the Harbour Bridge and some rooms have direct views of the famed Opera House so who wouldn't enjoy that?  So of course that became one of my goals.

Even though D and I had been to Sydney before, I scheduled four days for our stay here because I knew that despite lie-flat beds, we'd still be a bit jet lagged so an extra day to laze around would be a good thing.  Once our dates were locked in I applied for the Chase Hyatt Visa card.  Once meeting the minimum spend, the card offers two free nights at any Hyatt worldwide.  Then I transferred Ultimate Rewards points (earned from the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Freedom and Chase Ink cards) to my Hyatt account and used those points to pay for the other two nights.  Though we just had a basic Twin Harbour View room, it would normally retail for over $800 per night. I'd never pay that, of course, so was very glad I had points to cover it!  Sadly we couldn't get an Opera View room.  I did email the hotel and mention this was a birthday trip, hoping they could nudge us to one of those rooms but there is a maximum of two people per room for the Opera View.  As it turned out we could step out on our balcony for a view of the Opera House anyway so it wasn't a huge deal.

The hotel practically underneath the Harbour Bridge

The airport shuttle drove us right to the front door of the Park Hyatt.  As the bellman took care of our large bags, we stepped just inside the front door where there were several associates waiting to help us.  We were concerned that we would arrive before our room was ready since it was still before 9 AM at this point.  I had emailed the concierge before our arrival in hopes that they could plan for us.  Fortunately that worked and our room was ready.  The friendly associate escorted us up to our room on the third floor where they already had the room set up for us with the roll-away bed.

Twin beds plus a rollaway

Our Harbour Twin room was quite large.  It was so big that even with the third bed it did not feel cramped.  The living area furniture was arranged a bit closer together than it would normally be but we didn't spend a lot of time sitting on it anyway.

Seating area

Opposite the beds was a low chest affixed to the wall that ran nearly the whole length of the room.  The TV was situated on top of it and we used the chest as a luggage stand.

TV and cabinet

At the end of the chest near the window the desk had been pushed up against it in an effort to make room with the extra bed.

Desk, probably shoved out of the way to make room for the extra bed

The balcony was pretty narrow but we only had to lean out a little and look to our left to see the Opera House.  That made for a treat one night when we found there was a fireworks show going on in the Harbour!

The bathroom was quite large, as seems to be standard for Park Hyatts.  We loved the double vanity that was large enough for all three of us to set out our personal items.  There was also a shelf underneath with extra towels and washcloths. The door to the bathroom was a pocket door and there was another floor-to-ceiling sliding partition that opened up into the room and made the bathroom feel even larger.

Sliding panel between the beds and the bathroom

Vanity and sinks

The room with the toilet was nothing special though we were glad the door was solid wood and not just frosted glass.  We did giggle at the heated toilet seat though - a first for all of us.  It might have made sense during the winter but the temperatures were in the 70s and 80s while we were there so we kept turning it off.

A heated toilet? Yep!

Behind a glass partition and door was the area where the tub and shower were located.  The tub was quite large and was against the back wall with a mirror up above it.  The rainfall shower was just in front of it such that when you stepped through the glass door you were essentially standing on the floor of the shower.  We would *really* have preferred it if the glass wall and the door were opaque or darkened such that those standing by the sink couldn't see into the shower room.  That would have made the rest of the bathroom available when someone was showering.  But they didn't ask us when they were decorating the rooms and, in truth, a roomful of women is probably not their target audience.

Dual rainfall showerhead and handheld

The tub with mirror behind.  The towel above the tub is the same one
shown beside the showerhead

The toiletries were Bergamote 22, which is the standard brand for Park Hyatts.

Bergamote 22, the standard toiletries for Park Hyatt

The hotel does have a rooftop pool. It's actually quite small but has nice views.  There were several people around the pool on my one visit there so I did not take photos.

From the pool area it was a short walk down a flight of stairs into the gym.  I was surprised at how complete the gym was.  The entry area had this centerpiece and several newspapers for reading while using the cardio equipment.

Gym Entrance

Cardio machines

There was a separate area for yoga or stretching and/or balancing activities.

Balance/Stretching/Yoga area

And there was an area with weight machines

Weights area

This hotel did have one thing I'd never seen before: a machine that would bag your wet umbrella!

Doesn't everyone need a bag for their wet umbrella?!

Our shuttle company recommended we check with them to reconfirm our pick-up times for our flights on Tuesday.  Since we never did figure out the phone system in Australia (sometimes 7 digits, sometimes 8!) we got the concierge, Jonathan, to check for us.  Good thing we did because they had no record of our reservation!  He even called the  American company through which we made the reservation (Viator) to find out what was going on.  Apparently this happens a lot and though Viator had our reservations somehow they had failed to communicate with Sunbus Sydney, who would actually be carrying us.  I'm just glad it worked for our airport pickup as we had not double-checked with them there!  Jonathan even reconfirmed our pickup at the airport in Melbourne for us.  He was super-helpful and I was glad that all the good things I'd read about him on Trip Advisor turned out to be true!

Next up: what did we do in Sydney?