For our recent visit to Armenia, we stayed at the Hyatt Place Yerevan. It was a surprise in so many ways.
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Location
Just inside an archway off Republic Square, the Hyatt Place is truly in the heart of Yerevan. Its location set back off the square helps to keep noise and lights from the busy square at bay but still offers the most central location possible.
Address: 26, 1 Vazgen Sargsyan St, Yerevan 0010, Armenia
Phone: +374 1122 1234
Property
The hotel offers a variety of amenities including a business center, and a fitness center though during our stay we walked enough miles around the city (as walkable as any city in Europe) that it was not a place we visited. Unlike most other Hyatt Place hotels we have visited, this one is built into a large mid-rise as opposed to a standalone outside of the town center.
The hotel offers free parking and both smoking and non-smoking rooms.
Lobby
The lobby expands across three sides opposite the lifts, and restaurant. At one end, the business center offers a number of printers and several desktop computers, mostly used for printing boarding passes. The lobby was consistently well attended by both hotel guests and those visiting or for meetings.
Bar and Restaurant
The bar was fairly expansive (baked goods and to-go food were available opposite) and heavily trafficked most days. Some smokers were in the lobby, but that’s true for just about everywhere in Armenia, not just this hotel bar.
This is one of the only Hyatt Places in the world (maybe the only one) with an actual chef working in-house. I was shocked. More on that shortly, but to say the least, genuine Armenian cuisine was available.
Staff and Service
The staff during our stay was always willing to help even in the area for which it wasn’t possible to assist. Despite a lack of concierge they made dinner reservations for us, had an extra bed made for our daughter prior to our arrival. Several of the staff members were really sweet, personalized our stay, and went out of their way to give us directions or make a suggestion to improve our stay.
We visited during COVID and the staff was able to print several copies of all of our travel declarations prior to our trip home. This is something we could have done ourselves, but they were happy to assist and placed each in an envelope for our convenience.
Globalist Benefits
The property didn’t have an upgradable suite but we were given a corner room on a non-smoking floor that had a substantial amount of space. This helped in particular with our excessive luggage for our long stay. The hotel welcomed us with a plate of cheeses, fresh honey, and nuts along with a small bottle of wine.
Breakfast
Without a doubt, this is the single most impressive free breakfast I have ever seen at a Hyatt Place. The aforementioned chef was so genuinely proud of his food and spoke enough English (I don’t speak any Armenian) to convey that one of his favorite items we really needed to try. The spread was set for a small army with a huge expanse of charcuterie, a number of hot and cold items, baked goods as well as fresh juices. I was flatly shocked to see staff adding new items at five minutes to close with just four of us left in the dining room.
Many mornings, the restaurant was so busy that one might struggle to get a table and seating spilled into the lobby.
Room
When we arrived in our room, a mirrored wardrobe was opposite the bathroom doors. The room was much larger than most Hyatt Place guest rooms but was about what we expected in terms of decor and layout. There is typically a small partition between the couch (made into a bed for our visit) and the bed but it was not present in this one.
One complaint was that the heating in the room (we visited in January) was simply too hot. The thermostat indicated it was 72 (Fahrenheit) but we could only control the fan speed. One night, despite sleeping with the window open (it was freezing or below most nights) it was hot enough to wake me from my sleep. Once we called down, they were able to turn down the temperature but guests might note that neither the air conditioning nor heat is controlled in the room. Friendly staff and quick service aside, a simple note to contact the front desk to change the temperature would have saved us a few days of uncomfortable temperatures.
Bathroom
The bathroom was one of the most impressive Hyatt Place bathrooms I have seen and put some full-service hotels to shame. The shower was large and robes were waiting for us in the bathroom.
Internet
While most aspects of our stay were wonderful, we did have an issue with the internet throughout our visit. When it was up, and operational the speeds were very fast and we could download, stream, and operate online as we would anywhere else. However, a constant connection was part of the problem. The main wifi network would drop from time to time which would leave some devices struggling to reconnect.
Due to their gateway, I would lose internet throughout the middle of the night and have to log back in again each day. Frankly, there were several times where speeds were maintained at 0.20/mbps which caused me to switch to my wireless plan. Sometimes this happened without me noticing and I paid more than $60 for additional download capacity to my wireless provider due to the internet dropouts when wifi disappeared.
I notified My Hyatt Concierge who handled it with the hotel on my behalf. The property really went above and beyond to try to resolve it even going so far as to install our own router in our room. Sadly, this did not help us overcome the situation because it was not an issue in the strength of the signal, but rather the consistency and speed of the internet coming into the hotel. I have never, ever had a hotel move a router into my room to improve signal so while it would be irresponsible not to mention the issue, the staff at the property did literally everything in their power to make the situation better and that’s all I could really ask for and more.
Value
Armenia is generally very affordable for European and North American visitors so the value has to be measured in relation to other hotels in the area. The Hyatt Place appropriately finds itself in the lower third of the pricing structure for hotels in the city of Yerevan, averaging about $70-80/night (USD.) For centrally located hotels, this is one of the more affordable values available especially for those who would take advantage of included amenities like free breakfast.
As a Category 1 hotel (5,000 points per night), the hotel is a good value in the World of Hyatt program and about what is expected in relation to the cash price per night. We were able to stay for an extended period of time on points which helped us accrue critical status nights for the year and accumulate valuable bonuses that reduced our cost even further.
What do you think? Have you stayed at the Hyatt Place Yerevan? How was your experience?
Good info on the hotel. But I’m more interested regarding the highlights of the trip. What did you see and what modes of transportation. I have been looking into a trip there this year myself.
Is more to come?
Kyle, thank you for your several posts about my home country Armenia. It brings a lot of memories. Please keep up the great work you do.
My wife and I stayed there in 2019 six months before the pandemic so it seems many years ago. But it was an uncrowded hotel and the friendly staff spoke English well and one spoke Spanish as well. The buffet breakfast was par for the course with some local dishes to accompany the standard American fare. The hotel was located in the middle of the city center and close to restaurants and tourist sites. It is a friendly country and many folks spoke a little English. Everyone seemed to have a relative in California. When asked, most were embarrassed about the Kardashians having an Armenian name.
I have stayed there and found it a terrific value given the location and cost. I don’t recall any internet issues, but I wasn’t trying to work and wasn’t in my room that often. It was easy to walk around the city to most locations and for those sights further afield, ride share prices were so slow I felt like I was cheating the drivers :). Highly recommended.
What did the chef insist you try?
Just trying to make sure I understand here but you could have the room pretty much as cold or hot as you like but they could only adjust the temperature from some outside location? I like sleeping in a very cold room so any information is appreciated.
I find that these cat 1 hotels across all brands generally offer better service then full service. When it’s in small countries that don’t get a ton of foreigners staying.
Great review! Incentivizes me to make a trip to Yerevan after my next Euro business trip. And also to flip more spend to Hyatt in general – a hotel chain rapidly becoming the favored choice of in-the-know road warriors.