Upgraded to the Presidential Suite at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare! [Hotel Review]

Since our 15-hour flight from Auckland, New Zealand was arriving in Chicago after 5 p.m., we decided we would spend the evening at a nice airport hotel before returning to New York the following day. In advance of our stay, I reserved a room at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare, a category 2 World of Hyatt hotel, for 8,000 points. Considering the fiasco we encountered at the inception of our trip, this was a particularly smart move! (see, We Got AA’ed and Nearly Missed Our Dream Trip).

I stayed at this hotel in 2011, at the start of a StarMegaDo3 trip. Unbelievably, I had won my place in that trip in a contest from The Points Guy! (see, And the Winner of the Star Mega Do 3 First Class, Great Seatmate Giveaway Is…).

There was a bit of havoc at O’hare as there had been a computer outage earlier that day. We took the hotel’s airport shuttle from the international terminal (It was a bit delayed because of the confusion at the airport, but otherwise okay). We proceeded to the hotel front desk to check-in. Initially, we were told that we were assigned to a standard King Room. However, I mentioned that I had seen availability on the hotel website of  standard suites for the evening and that, as a Globalist, I should be entitled to such an upgrade. The manager came over and said those suites were in fact all taken. She went back to her computer and did some fidgeting around and then said, I found something for you. We took the keys and headed up to the executive wing (which felt sort of far from the main lobby) and proceeded to our room.

Much to our surprise and delight, our room was the Presidential Suite!

Like other Hyatt Regency Presidential Suites that I have seen, the living room is split into many areas, such as a sitting room, a dining room, a TV room, a kitchen area, a work area and a bar. We of course didn’t need this, but we were tickled to be staying there.

This is the bedroom:

There is a balcony off of the bedroom (which obviously is not the highlight of the suite).

There are two bathrooms. The first is a smaller bathroom, with a toilet, sink and shower, near the entrance to the suite. (I call that bathroom Dave’s bathroom).

The bathroom off of the bedroom was pretty spectacular. From the double sinks to the toilet in a separate room, to the bathtub and toiletries. And then. . .  the shower, which was huge! It was actually two full showers on either side of the large shower room (I’ve seen NYC bedrooms smaller than the shower!). You could choose rainshower, wall shower or even a misting thing.

The Regency Club is on the first floor of the hotel, next to the Front Desk. Food was served until 8 p.m., but the Club remains open 24/7. There were cheese and salad items out, as well as a hot item, Choriizo Empanada.

There was also an honor bar.

In the morning, before returning to the Regency Club for breakfast, we worked out in the Stay-Fit Fitness Center, conveniently located next to the Front Desk and Regency Club. The gym is stocked with high-quality new machines. I was impressed.

Breakfast at the Regency Club was fine with the usual assortment of juices, cereals, yogurt, fruit, nova salmon and meats. The coffee/espresso machine however was finicky.

We had a good stay at the Hyatt Regency. The Presidential Suite made it particularly memorable, but we would have liked it even if we had not had this great upgrade. I wouldn’t hesitate to return here on a future routing through ORD, and would certainly recommend it to others.