Review: Hyatt Regency Portland At The Oregon Convention Center

Background:

My friend and I needed a hotel near downtown Portland as we were going to visit our friend before he starts grad school in the fall. Since he has a car up here, we didn’t need to find a hotel right in the middle of the city. The Hyatt Regency Portland at the Oregon Convention Center had the lowest price for a 4 star hotel in the area, so we decided to book this property. On top of that, the hotel opened in late 2019, and closed a few months after due to the pandemic. It only reopened in May of 2021, so we would practically be staying at a brand new hotel, which is pretty awesome. We booked a nice package that had a 3rd night free + breakfast, which brought the average rate to about $140 per night including taxes. I was curious to see what breakfast would entail, as the restaurant was closed during this time. When I checked in, I was told it would be a $20 credit per day per person for 2 at the Market.

Quick Takeoff Points:

Date of Stay: June 2021
Room Type: Deluxe 2 Queens Room
Pros: Brand new hotel with modern, clean rooms for a comfortable stay.
Cons: Location not the most desirable, unless attending a convention, awkward bathroom design.

Arrival:

After my friend dropped us off, we checked in the hotel around 6PM. It was quite empty, which I expected since there aren’t any conventions going on. The lobby is quite spacious, and the centerpiece is the Lobby Bar, which looks really nice.

We were quickly helped by a nice front desk associate who also helped recommend us to hike at Silver Falls (which was amazing!) for the one day where it wasn’t going to be 100 degrees. We got stuck travelling during the big Pacific Northwest heat wave, so most days in Portland were 100+, a rarity for the city. On the bright side, our room AC worked very very well.

As a Discoverist member, which I have from my Hyatt Credit Card, I’m normally granted 2PM late checkout. Since the hotel was on the emptier side (no conventions running), they were happy to extend to 3pm and it was perfect as I had a late flight out of PDX.

The Room:

We were assigned a room on the ninth floor, at the end of the hall. I was first super excited as I thought we might have a lot of windows for being on the corner, but alas it was quite uneventful. You’ll see in a second.

It’s a very modern open concept sort of new style room. Once you enter, you have an open closet space with hangers, a built in luggage shelf, iron board, fridge for your personal use, Keurig machine and safe all right there at the entrance. Two bottles of water are provided for Discoverist members and up, otherwise it was $3 per bottle.

To the left is the bathroom and it looks nice and then you realize it’s missing a door. Okay then!

On top of missing the door, the glass to the toilet is quite see-through as well as the shower. Not sure what the designers were thinking given it’s a convention center hotel. I suppose maybe they want every attendee to get their own room and not share?

Alright I know that the soap dispensers are the direction that most hotels are going in, but I really don’t like them, and this stay proves my point even more. Yes I want to save the environment, but when the dispensers start rusting and get into the shampoo and body wash, it becomes a cleanliness issue. Not sure if it’s the design of these bottles, but each one had brown rust that oozed into the liquids. Yuck! My friend and I had to pump out a good amount from the bottle before the entire rust residue was gone.

They added this stool in the shower, which seems like a great idea but only if the stool is sturdy enough. Sadly this stool wasn’t and both my friend and I saw it as more of a safety hazard. Once you put your foot on it, the stool kinda tips over and in a slippery shower that is not a great idea. Nice try though…

On the bright side, the towels were clean, and the rain showerhead + wand were great.

Now on the topic of the missing bathroom door. So the only door you’re getting is this sliding door that separates the bedroom from the bathroom/closet/fridge area.

This poses quite an issue. If someone is taking a shower and closes this sliding door to get ready, the person in the bedroom is now trapped from accessing the luggage, closet, fridge, and Keurig. Not the best design for friends or colleagues sharing a room. I consider this a design fail, especially for a hotel near the convention center. More of a couple’s room design.

Also, my friend complained about the toilet paper, and I totally agreed. The toilet paper was one ply, quite disappointing. At first I thought I was being extra, but my friend confirmed my suspicions. I feel like hotels have been cheapening on TP as I was disappointed with the TP at my last hotel stay at the Ritz Carlton Bacara. Or maybe my TP standard is just too high #CharminAnyone?

On to the room itself, the room featured two large queen beds, a narrow desk with chair and larger sofa style chair and table near the window. As it is a newer hotel, there were plenty of charging ports and my favorite feature of the room were the motion activated nightlights under the beds. An amazing feature to have!

The beds were decently comfortable, what one would expect for a four star hotel. The TV was 65 inches, so a pretty good size for the room. I did find it a bit funny that the beds didn’t look fully made when we checked in…maybe it was the shape of the sheets? It didn’t look like anyone slept in the beds, but it also looked a bit messy as shown in the picture above lol.

Back to being on the “corner room”, we gained a tiny extra window. Sad. The architects could have utilized the corner location and make it much nicer! But also, we didn’t get a view upgrade so it didn’t really matter much as the view was ehh.

As mentioned at the beginning, the AC worked really well (thankfully!) and the room was very quiet. Not sure if it is due to good insulation, or because the hotel was empty. Overall, I liked the new and clean room minus the bathroom design and rust in the soap dispensers.

You can also check out a YouTube video of the room below.

Service and Amenities:

At this time, the only venue open for food is the Market and it’s open from 6am to 10pm. The fitness center was open too. Currently, the Regency Club is closed. Normally, the hotel has their restaurant Unity-Q-In as well as the lobby bar Spoke and Fork open.

We used our $20/per person breakfast credit at the Market. We did hit a little snag on that, as the market serves as a sundries store as well as a Starbucks-esque location. You could use the breakfast credit for anything that was food, so anything from the cafe and even chips, candies and bottled drinks from the sundries. But one day we bought a chocolate bar that seemed to ring up as “retail”. So when I checked my bill at checkout it wasn’t deducted off. Thankfully, the front desk took care of it.

The market had two hot items, a breakfast Sandwich with ham and egg ($8) and a Veggie Harvest Breakfast Burrito ($7). Both were surprisingly excellent. Thankfully they were both delicious because they were the only two hot breakfast items at the moment!

All the staff encountered at the hotel were very nice and helpful, no issues here!

Location:

The hotel is located right across from the Oregon Convention Center, and near the Moda Center for sporting events/concerts. There’s also a MAX light rail station right outside the hotel to take you around the city. In terms of the nearby area, I wouldn’t want to really walk around the area at night, and the Lloyd Center mall a few blocks down is getting to become one of those “abandoned malls”. For my trip I didn’t mind the area as my friend picked us up and drove us around the area, but for others you might want to see if the location suits your needs.

Valet parking is offered at the hotel and it is $36/night. The hotel doesn’t advertise self-parking on their website, but I think I saw a large structure lot across the hotel that might be used for the convention center as well.

The Verdict:

Overall, the Hyatt Regency Portland at the Oregon Convention Center was a nice place to stay when visiting my friend in the area. The new modern rooms were very comfortable and clean (minus the soap dispensers). I wouldn’t mind giving the hotel another try if my travels bring me back to the Portland area.

Have you stayed at the Hyatt Regency Portland at the Oregon Convention Center before? What were your thoughts? Comment below!

Happy Travels,

Ty

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