For major cities throughout the world, status symbols are not measured in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), quantity of monuments or other quantitative measures. No, cities gain status in a much more superficial way: the existence of a Park Hyatt hotel.
Park Hyatt hotels are what separates the haves from the have nots. They are a source of pride for the cities that have them and envy for those less extravagant.
While none of what I have written above is likely true, I thought it would be fun to introduce the Park Hyatt for what it is: classy.
Among the finest of the Park Hyatt hotels is the Park Hyatt Milan. This is a place where you can spend €29 (around $40 USD) on a club sandwich and order Dom Pérignon by the glass. In spite of these facts, I knew I had to stay at the Park Hyatt Milan during my visit to Italy’s most fashionable city in December of 2013.
For this trip, I transferred 66,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points into my Hyatt account and booked 3 nights using Hyatt’s old award chart. This was a level 6 property at the time, meaning it cost 22,000 points per night for a standard room. After the Hyatt award chart devaluation and addition of a level 7 property, this same stay would have cost 90,000 points with Hyatt. Was the hotel worth the 66,000 points? Would it be worthwhile at 90,000 points for 3 nights? Read on to find out!
Trip Background: In early December of 2013, Mr. and Mrs. Jeffsetter took a three night trip to Milan, Italy. Part mileage run, part weekend getaway, part desire to see another Christmas Market in Europe. Put it all together and we had an excellent time in Milan. What follows is a series posts over the next few weeks about the Milan trip, including: Booking Business Class Tickets to Milan, Alitalia Business Class Lounge at JFK, Alitalia Magnifica Business Class from New York to Milan, The Park Hyatt Milan Hotel, Christmas in Milan, Skyteam Lounge at Milan MXP Airport, Delta International Business Class Milan to New York.
Note: I am going to try a new review format here and see if it works better. The way I was doing reviews in the past meant it took way too long to publish a review and I eventually stopped doing them. Rather than individual photos with comments, I am going to try and show photos in galleries and then describe the hotel. Let me know if you like how this works!
I want to start off by saying that the Park Hyatt Milan is a very nice hotel. It’s the type of place where you are supposed to be greeted by name by everyone who works at the hotel. It’s the kind of place where every detail is supposed to be important and the service is out of this world.
My problem is that I didn’t feel that any of the above was true at the Park Hyatt Milan. While everything was very nice and had a “high end” feeling, I just did not feel the love from anyone associated with the hotel. Perhaps it was because we were there using points for our stay, but the hotel staff just did not feel all that friendly.
In fact, it was pretty much just an ordinary hotel for me, with a beautiful facade that meant it could charge €650 a night for a standard room and €29 for a club sandwich. With outstanding service, a hotel may be able to justify those rates. The price of good service is baked into everything.
With average service, a hotel like the Park Hyatt Milan becomes overpriced. For me, once I have determined that something is overpriced or not providing value, it’s hard to look beyond that and give an objective review.
The Room
The room was very nice and large by European standards. The bathroom was especially huge and among the nicest hotel bathrooms I have ever witnessed. For both Mrs. Jeffsetter and I, our favorite thing in the room was the Amenities by Laura Tonatto. It is quite possibly the best smelling Shampoo/Conditioner/Lotion in the world. The only problem being that I believe it is exclusive to the Park Hyatt Milan and you can’t buy it anywhere else. Bummer!
The Food and Drink
The food was excellent but overpriced. For dinner one night I had the aforementioned Club Sandwich, which cost the price of two large Pizzas in the US. It was good but not great. Mrs. Jeffsetter had the beef Tagliata and it was phenomenal. We also had Canapes during our complimentary high tea time and they were decent. We slept through breakfast all three days at the hotel, so that does not factor into our review.
The hotel did give Mrs. Jeffsetter and me a complimentary bottle of Prosecco that we thoroughly enjoyed at various moments throughout the trip. This was a nice touch by the hotel staff and something we greatly appreciated.
The Verdict
I am sure that others have had better stays at this hotel, but our experience was simply average. I would stay here again using points, but would absolutely not pay standard prices for this hotel. If you want to stay at a really nice hotel in one of the best locations for Milan tourism, then you should consider the Park Hyatt Milan. Just make sure that you do it using your points to get the most value!