In October 2022, we traveled to Australia and visited two cities, with Canberra being our first stop. After browsing through the small pool of luxury hotel options in the city, we decided to go with Hyatt Hotel Canberra – A Park Hyatt Hotel, due to its proximity to many of the attractions we had planned to visit.
Hyatt Canberra Stay Details
Table of Contents
Hotel Background and Information
Hyatt Hotel Canberra – A Park Hyatt Hotel, the first hotel in Canberra, originally opened in 1924 to house politicians and was known as Hostel Number 1. The hotel was renamed Hotel Canberra in 1927 and remained as a hotel until 1974 after which it was closed.
For eight years between 1976 to 1984, the property was used as an annexe for Parliament House, before being restored as a hotel and re-opened in 1988 as Hyatt Hotel Canberra.
Due to its historical significance in Canberra’s development, Hyatt Hotel Canberra was added to the interim ACT Heritage Places Register in 1988.
The hotel has 252 rooms including 13 suites as follows:
Hyatt Hotel Canberra is a 10 minutes drive from Canberra Airport (CBR) and is located in the parliamentary triangle, where most of Canberra’s major attractions are located. Of the attractions that are not within the hotel’s vicinity, the Australian War Memorial, Mount Ainslie, and the National Carillon are 6 minutes away by car, while the old bus depot markets are a 5 minutes drive from the hotel.
Distance of major attractions near the hotel:
- Lake Burley Griffin (Behind the hotel)
- Old Parliament House (9 mins walk)
- Questacon – National Science and Technology Centre (12 mins walk)
- National Library of Australia (13 mins walk)
- National Portrait Gallery (15 mins walk)
- Parliament House (16 mins walk)
- National Gallery of Australia (18 mins walk)
The hotel is not near any local dining venues and the nearest dining cluster from the hotel is at civic square, a 6-minute bus ride (bus service 4, 5, 7, 10) from the hotel.
Booking Process and Pricing
For our stay, we booked a Hyatt Privé rate via Classic Travel, which is a luxury travel agency in New York City that allows reservations to be done online (this rate is bookable via other luxury travel agents as well). The Hyatt Privé rate is based on the standard rate and offers additional perks such as daily breakfast for two as well as a hotel credit of USD 30 per stay.
We had decided to book the Hyatt Privé rate for this case as the cheapest rate on the hotel’s website was not much lower than the Hyatt Privé rate and that rate does not include breakfast. Thus, it made sense to pay slightly more in exchange for a daily breakfast for two and the hotel credit.
Check-in & Lobby
Our Uber pulled up at the hotel’s porch at around fifteen minutes past noon and there was no doorman to assist with the luggage. One other couple was checking in at that time and thus we waited for around five minutes before we were attended to.
Check-in formalities were quickly completed but we were told that our room was not ready at that moment and asked if we preferred to check in first or later. Upon letting the front desk staff know that we would rather check in first, the staff told us to wait for a short while and a room was made available around fifteen minutes later.
We were given a one-category upgrade to a one king-bed deluxe room but this was not communicated to us at check-in; the front desk staff did not go through with us the hotel amenities and breakfast arrangement during check-in either.
After receiving the card key, we began our long walk to our room, where we had to walk through The Tea Lounge, and past the Promenade Café en route.
Room: One King Bed Deluxe
The hotel has four levels in total and we were assigned a room on level 3, facing the large atrium in the main hotel building. The one king bed deluxe room we got measures 41 Sqm (441 Sqft), and was almost identical to the lead in category one king bedroom except that our room had French doors which opens up to a courtyard view.
Upon entering the room, to the left is the bathroom as well as a built-in wardrobe, with the television console and work desk in the view from the entrance. The light switch can be found to the right of the entrance.
Shortly after we entered the room, our welcome amenity (a bottle of Shiraz) was delivered to our room. We were told that the welcome amenity came with our package which led us to presume that it is a Hyatt Privé perk.
Back to our room, the bathroom, which is mostly clad in marble, has a single vanity, a built-in bathtub, as well as enclosed showers.
The single vanity has a reasonable amount of countertop space and there is additional space under the countertop where the toiletries and the hairdryer were placed.
The sink is equipped with an old-school faucet which we did not like as it takes some time to get the right temperature. There are power outlets for shavers right by the sink.
As mentioned earlier, the toiletries were placed beneath the vanity countertop and consisted of a shower cap, two dental kits with Colgate toothpaste, a sewing kit, a shaving kit, a vanity kit, a sanitary bag, shoe shine, and a bottle of body lotion.
The body wash, shampoo, hair conditioner, and body lotion comes in small bottles, and together with the bar soap are from Appelles, an Australian brand that was established in 2011.
The hairdryer, along with the weigh scale is placed on the left side of the vanity, under the countertop.
To the left of the vanity is the enclosed shower area. The shower consists of a rain shower head as well as a handheld shower head and is controlled by an old-school faucet.
There were several issues with the shower; water pressure was weak and the water temperature was inconsistent and would fluctuate between hot and cold water during our shower.
Water also leaked out of the shower area as the shower doors cannot be shut fully which meant that the immediate area outside the shower tend to be wet after our shower.
Opposite the shower area is the old-school toilet seat which does not come with a bidet.
On the other side of the bathroom is a built-in bathtub, which seems to have enough space to fit only one person.
Next to the bathroom is the built-in wardrobe, which is found along the walkway to the bedroom.
The room’s safe, iron, ironing board, bathrobes, bedroom slippers, as well as spare pillows can be found in the wardrobe. We were told by the doorman that an umbrella should be in the wardrobe in every guest room but unfortunately, none can be found in our room.
The laundry price list reads as follows:
The bedroom has a king-sized Sealy bed just around the corner from the walkway. In addition to the bed, a work desk, sofa, a large mirror, and a television can be found in the bedroom.
The bed is flanked by two bedside lamps and tables and is where the complimentary bottles of water are placed.
A Bluetooth speaker cum alarm clock can be found on one side of the bed. There is also two Type I power outlets (230V) and one USB-A outlet just above this table.
A phone is placed on the other beside table. Unfortunately, there are no power outlets on this side of the bed, making it a minor inconvenience as we could not charge our mobile devices on this side.
At a corner across the other end of the room is the work desk and where a study lamp and a phone are placed. The chair provided did not look comfortable for prolonged seating.
In the desk’s drawer are the convenience menu and pillow menu.
Two Type I power outlets (230V) can be found near the work desk providing enough power sources for our charging needs.
Guests enjoy complimentary WIFI and we did a test on the WIFI speed as follows:
Placed right next to the work desk are the television and the television console which is also where the coffee machine and minibar are located.
At 55 inches, the television is large enough to be viewed from across the room. Having said that, the viewing angle was not ideal when we tried to watch television from the bed and had to move the television to get a better view.
There is a reasonable number of options of local and international television channels as shown below.
The minibar is housed in the television console which is where the kettle, glasses, utensils, snacks, complimentary coffee and tea, and minibar fridge can be found.
There are six complimentary coffee capsules from Espressotoxia System, four packets of Moccona coffee, two packets of Caffe Aurora decaffeinated coffee, and nine La Maison Du Thé teabags which is very generous of the hotel.
The minibar fridge has a selection of soft drinks, water, and alcoholic drinks and the prices are as follows:
Diagonally across the television is a small seating area that consists of a two-seater sofa and a coffee table.
Adjacent to the seating area is a set of French doors that opens up to a view of the courtyard.
Facilities & Activities
Hyatt Hotel Canberra – A Park Hyatt Hotel is equipped with the following facilities:
All of the hotel’s fitness facilities are located at The Clubhouse, a building that is an unsheltered short walk from the hotel’s main building.
The Clubhouse is open to the general public with club membership and thus is not exclusive for hotel guests. Despite that, The Clubhouse seem to be only half full at most on both occasions we dropped by.
Facilities in The Clubhouse consist of a tennis court, a relatively well-equipped gym, and an indoor heated swimming pool.
The indoor heated pool has a long rectangular shape with a depth of 1.3 metres which is suitable for doing laps. There are no loungers within the pool area and only a few chairs are placed around the pool. Seating will be inadequate should the pool get busy.
The pool area also has a small jacuzzi at one end of the pool…..
….as well as a sauna beside the jacuzzi.
Restaurants & Breakfast
There are three dining venues in Hyatt Hotel Canberra – A Park Hyatt Hotel as follows:
Located by the lobby, The Tea Lounge is the hotel’s morning and afternoon tea venue and serves cocktails and light snacks in the evening. We did not eat at The Tea Lounge during our stay but did notice that the venue was busy each time we walked past en route to our room.
Promenade Cafe is the hotel’s all-day dining restaurant and is the only restaurant we visited during our stay. The restaurant offers a seafood buffet for dinner and an ala carte menu outside breakfast hours.
We visited the restaurant for breakfast on both mornings of our two-night stay and we were seated after a short wait. The restaurant was busy but not full on both mornings.
After we were seated, our drinks order was taken but despite that, our order took a while to be served. There was only one made-to-order station in the restaurant, and that was the egg station.
Breakfast consists mainly of continental items, with a few hot items and some pastries on a buffet line. The items on offer seem to be the same on both days we were there.
We felt that the number of hot items was rather limited and it would be good if the hotel had offered more options. The pastries were mostly placed in another section of the restaurant and could be easily missed as their availability was not made known by the staff.
The food was average in general and we would not pay for the breakfast due to the limited selection and average taste if it were not included in our package.
As we had some credits to burn, we ordered some items from the in-room dining menu. In-room dining is available from 0600 hrs – 2200 hrs on Sunday to Thursday and from 0600 hrs – 2330 hrs on Friday and Saturday. For reference, the menu is as follows:
As we were not hungry, we only ordered an ice cream and a bottle of cider. Our order came within 20 minutes and both items were unmemorable.
Overall Impression
We had an unmemorable stay at Hyatt Hotel Canberra – A Park Hyatt Hotel.
To sum things up:
Despite the lack of luxury options in Canberra, we would not return to Hyatt Hotel Canberra due to the dated rooms and the lack of dining options in the hotel’s vicinity. We would instead try out other properties near civic square if we were to return to Canberra as the hotel’s price point pretty much covers most accommodation options in the city.
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