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The Hyatt Place New York/Chelsea is one of the newest of Hyatt’s New York properties with the hotel officially opening its doors in December 2021. The new build property sits part way between Central Park and Lower Manhattan and a few weeks ago, I got to check it out on a layover on my way back to Los Angeles.
The admin
- Length of stay: 1 night
- Cost of stay: $329.45 (including taxes/fees)
- Paid with: card_name + 3 x $100 Hyatt gift vouchers
- Elite status at time of stay: World of Hyatt Globalist
- Points earned from the stay:
- World of Hyatt: 1,846 (1,420 base points + 426 elite bonus)
- card_name: 118
- Upgrade instruments used: None
- Upgrade received: High floor
The cost
There were three reasons why I chose the Hyatt Place New York/Chelsea for my 1-night stay in Manhattan:
- It is a Hyatt property and so got me 1 elite night closer to retaining Hyatt Globalist status.
- It’s centrally located so even though it’s not in one of the parts of Manhattan I particularly like, its location allows me to walk to Manhattan’s more tolerable areas.
- The cost – it was one of the cheapest options I had open to me (that includes looking at properties in the Marriott, Hilton, and IHG portfolios) and this was the overriding factor in my decision to choose this property.
At $289 + tax, the Hyatt Place New York/Chelsea was a relatively “cheap” option for this 1-night stay.
I should admit that had I paid in points rather than in cash, I would have extracted ~1.65 cents in value out of each point that I used and, technically, that’s what I should have done.
I value World of Hyatt points at just 1.40 cents each so when I’m offered more than that, logic dictates that I take it.
So why didn’t I use points?
Well, I have several Hyatt bookings that I need to make for next year, and I know that I’m going to need all the points that I can get to make those bookings, and I know that every one of those bookings is likely to see me getting even more value out of my points than this booking would have given me.
What I gave up on this booking, I will more than make up for with the bookings I make for 2024.
Location/getting there
The Hyatt Place New York/Chelsea is located on 24th Street between 6th and 7th Avenue.
The area immediately around the property is a little shabby to look at, but what it lacks in character, it makes up for with its proximity to a few key New York landmarks.
The Flatiron building, the Empire State Building, Madison Square Garden, and the High Line are all between 10- and 15-minutes’ walk away, and for anyone arriving in from Newark or JFK without too much luggage, the proximity of Penn Station (10 minutes’ walk away) will be a bonus.
The brand
Hyatt Place is one of Hyatt’s “select service” brands which means that the properties that fall under this banner are not full-service properties like Hyatt Regency, Andaz, Grand Hyatt, etc…
Hyatt Place properties are a step down from a full-service property in that, generally speaking, they don’t offer things like a full restaurant, a spa, room service, elite check-in lines, or many other amenities that you would expect from a full service property.
Hyatt’s website for the Hyatt Place brand makes the bold claim that “[a]t Hyatt Place hotels you can rest assured you’ll always have a spacious room, thoughtfully designed around you. With dedicated spaces to work, sleep, and hang out, rooms have features like a comfy Cozy Corner sectional sleeper sofa, large desk, mini fridge, and more.”
Unfortunately, that’s not really true, as the types of rooms that you’ll find at Hyatt Place properties will vary widely depending on location.
The Hyatt Place LAX/Century Blvd, for example, has relatively spacious rooms (rooms start at ~295 sq ft), but there’s no definition of spacious that could be applied to most of the rooms at the Hyatt Place London City East (where rooms start from 215 sq ft) or the Hyatt Place New York/Chelsea (where rooms start from 180 sq ft).
Also, my room at the Hyatt Place New York/Chelsea definitely didn’t have a “comfy Cozy Corner sectional sleeper sofa“.
On the positive side of things, however, most (but not all) Hyatt Place properties offer all guests some kind of breakfast regardless of their elite status or the room rate that they paid.
Elite benefits
I’m fortunate enough to hold top-tier Hyatt Globalist status, but that doesn’t really count for very much at Hyatt Place properties because most don’t really have very much extra to offer top-tier elites.
A guaranteed late checkout up to 4pm is a very useful benefit that’s honored (check-ouht is usually 12pm), but as everyone gets breakfast included at the Hyatt Place New York/Chelsea, and as Hyatt Place properties don’t have suites, all that Globalists can really hope for is a slightly better room than the one they booked.
I, for example, will almost always book an entry-level room when booking a Hyatt stay as I know that unless I get very unlucky and my trip coincides with the hotel being completely sold out, I’m very likely to get upgraded to something a lot better.
Here are the various rooms that the Hyatt Place New York/Chelsea offers:
The room I booked was the entry-level 1 King Bed with no sofa bed.
A week before I was due to arrive, I checked my booking on the Hyatt app and saw that I was now assigned a “Sky View King bed Plus Sofa Bed” and that sounded pretty good.
A day before I was due to check-in, however, that room assignment had changed and I was now assigned a “City View King Bed” which, if the hotel’s own website is to be believed, is a slightly lesser room to the one I had originally been upgraded into.
I have to admit that I didn’t really care and, as things turned out, the City View/King Bed was probably the better room for me anyway (more on this later).
Check-in
I knew that I would be getting into Manhattan between 12 and 1pm so I had requested an early check-in when I checked in on the app the day before I was due to arrive (check-in is usually 3pm).
I got to the property just before 1pm (I walked from Penn Station) and found the small lobby packed full of people. Fortunately (as there are no elite check-in lines) it turned out that most were just waiting for a coach to take them on the next part of their trip (it was one large group) and I didn’t have to wait more than 5 minutes to be served.
It also didn’t take long to find out that my room wasn’t ready and that it probably wouldn’t be ready before 3pm (standard check-in).
That was disappointing, but the hotel had clearly been busy, so it was understandable.
I confirmed my phone number with the front desk (to make sure that I’d get a push notification when housekeeping had finished their work) and because there are no real facilities at ‘select service’ properties like this Hyatt Place, I had to use the restrooms in the basement to get changed out of my traveling clothes and into something more appropriate for the New York sunshine.
While waiting for my room, I decided not to venture too far from the hotel just in case something became available before 3pm and, sure enough, at 2:09pm, my phone buzzed.
It was time to head back and to get a proper look at the property and the room.
The property
The Hyatt Place New York/Chelsea is a 510-room hotel that sits within a 45 storey tower.
That looks pretty impressive, but what the image above doesn’t show you is how shallow the property is.
As this fire escape route plan shows, the property has a central core with 4 elevators and each floor has just 6 rooms on either side of the central core.
Each floor has a single long corridor that runs from left to right (where the red line is in the image above) and this corridor is pretty narrow.
More importantly, on every residential floor, all four elevators open up on to this corridor, and the width of the corridor is all that separates the six rooms at the front of the building (the rooms facing north towards Central Park and the Empire State building) from the elevators.
My room wasn’t one of these, but I suspect that these are the rooms that are going to be most affected by noise from the elevators and from other guests moving around (going to/from their rooms).
These are the rooms I would try to avoid on any future visit.
The six rooms facing south (towards lower Manhattan) are located on their own small hallways leading away from the main narrow hallway (2 rooms per small hallway), and so will get a lot less foot traffic going past their doors.
This was where my room was, and I wasn’t disturbed at all.
Tip: If you’re worried about potential noise from other guests, request a south facing room.
The lobby
The lobby area has a coffee machine which dispenses Starbucks coffee (for a fee) as well as a small ‘Market’ where guests can purchase drinks and snack items (Hyatt elites can pick up their complimentary water from here).
The lobby is also where guests will find the bell desk, a small workstation and a tour desk.
The room – City View/King Bed
My City View/King Bed room was on the 34th floor and on the southeast corner of the building.
At 180 sq ft, the City View/King Bed room can’t be considered spacious or roomy, but despite its relatively small footprint, it doesn’t feel particularly confined or claustrophobic…
… and the view that it offers is fantastic.
This room category doesn’t come with a sofa (or sofa bed), but it does come with a work area which would not have been present had I been assigned the room that I was originally upgraded into – the Sky View/King Bed Plus Sofa Bed room.
The Sky View/King Bed Plus Sofa Bed room and the City View/King Bed room are the same size, so where one room has a sofa, the other has a workspace, and for my needs, the workspace was far more useful than a sofa or sofa bed would have been.
Tip: If you’re going to need somewhere to do some work, avoid the rooms with sofas.
Storage space is at a premium at this property with the City View/King Bed room offering just a single narrow closet for a guest’s clothes.
And any clothes must share space with an ironing board and an iron.
There’s a noticeable lack of drawers in the room and with the bedside furniture not really designed for clothes storage, it can be challenging to find somewhere to store clothes that aren’t suitable for hanging.
As I was only staying for 1 night, most of my clothes remained in my carry-on bag.
On a more positive note, both sides of the best offer power outlets and USB-A ports…
…and there are two more power outlets by the work area (one is taken up by the table light).
The room’s mini fridge is located by the closet and as seems to be the new normal nowadays, it comes empty.
I like this. I would much prefer to have an empty fridge where I can store items that I actually want (you’ll find a Trader Joe’s and a Wholefoods a short walk away from the hotel) rather than a fridge full of overpriced garbage that I really don’t want.
As far as in-room amenities go, guest shouldn’t expect much. I’ve already mentioned the iron and ironing board and to those you can add a small coffee maker, some coffee, two paper cups and two tea bags.
That’s it!
The entrance to the bathroom is at the foot of the bed, and because the gap between the bed and the sliding bathroom door is quite small, this is the one part of the room where its diminutive size becomes more obvious.
The bathroom itself would be best described as ‘compact’, and if you’re the sort of person who travels with a lot of toiletries, you may struggle to find somewhere to put them all.
Unsurprisingly for a room of this size, there’s no bath or tub. But the shower cubicle is a reasonable size, and the water pressure should keep most people happy.
In line with Hyatt’s stated policy, the toiletries on offer are of the large/communal variety so you should bring your own toiletries if these are not to your liking.
The lobby
The lobby area has a coffee machine which dispenses Starbucks coffee (for a fee) as well as a small ‘Market’ where guests can purchase drinks and snack items (Hyatt elites can pick up their complimentary water from here).
The lobby is also where guests will find the bell desk, a small workstation and a tour desk.
Dining/breakfast
The Hyatt Place New York/Chelsea has a bar/eatery (called the Placery) on the 2nd floor of the building which serves drinks, burgers, pizzas, pastas, sandwiches and salads from 4pm seven days a week (link to menu).
Seating is available both inside and on an enclosed terrace and this is one of two locations where breakfast can be taken.
Breakfast is served on the lobby level and on the first floor but while both floors offer the same buffet, the first floor offers by far the nicer of the two spaces to eat. The first-floor area is windowless and dark while the first floor area is what you see above.
This is the buffet breakfast offered by the Hyatt Place New York/Chelsea.
I’d like to be able to say something nice about the breakfast, but the reality is that it was mostly terrible.
The fresh fruit was fine, and the bagels were just about acceptable but the rest was poor quality, overcooked, dry, rubbery and/or lacking in any nutrients whatsoever.
I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express and at a Best Western earlier this year (both were in the middle of nowhere) and while the breakfasts at both of those properties were pretty bad, neither was as depressing as the breakfast here.
Tip: Even though it is included in the room rate, do not bother with the breakfast at the Hyatt Place New York/Chelsea. You’ll save yourself time (and probably heartburn) if you just make peace with the fact that eating out is the much better option.
The gym
The property offers a gym on the lower ground floor (‘the cellar’) and while isn’t not particularly large and while it doesn’t have any natural light, it’s pretty well equipped and should meet most people’s needs.
Overall thoughts
On the positive side of things…
- The staff at the Hyatt Place new York/Chelsea is friendly.
- The property’s location is good if you’re there to see the sights and/or if you’re using transit to get in from JFK or Newark.
- The City View/King Bed room is comfortable and offers a fantastic view.
- This is often one of the less expensive chain hotels (Marriott/IHG/Hilton/Hyatt) in Manhattan.
On the negative side of things…
- The lack of storage space in the room (just one narrow closet) may be bothersome.
- The breakfast should be avoided – it’s terrible.
- If you get a room facing north, you may be disturbed by other guests due to the proximity of the elevators.
- If you need to work in your room, you’ll have to make sure that you get a room without a sofa.
So, for a short stay (1 – 2 nights), the Hyatt Place New York/Chelsea will probably be fine for most people if you can book it at a cheap/reasonable rate (by NYC standards).
For anyone staying longer or looking for anything more than a place to sleep and a good location from which to explore Manhattan, paying a bit more for somewhere with a bit more space and with less of a budget feel to it would probably be a good idea.
Hated this hotel for a simple reason: the elevators. Four small elevator is just not enough for the size of this hotel. It would often take upwards of 25 minutes to get an available car that wasn’t packed to the gills, and I visited in February… not exactly peak time in NYC.
I must have been there on a slow couple of days – that sounds terrible.