When Busloads of Teenage Campers Stay at Your Hotel (Review: Hyatt Place Braintree)

This weekend, I visited family in Massachusetts and stayed at the Hyatt Place in Braintree. It was a convenient location (less than ten miles from my father’s residence), and a category 2 Hyatt hotel (8,000 points  per night). The hotel is across the street from a large mall and next door to a Legal Seafood restaurant and a Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream Shop. What could be better?

The first floor entry and lobby area of the hotel is modern and well designed, with plenty of seating. Staff was friendly and helpful.

The hotel does not have any suites, but my room, a fairly standard Hyatt Place room, had a partition and a sofa, so I was comfortable and not at all cramped.

The hotel is very popular – this past weekend, there were family reunions and wedding parties, among others, staying there.

Breakfast was fine on Saturday morning. I like that the hotel offered a lot of freshly cut fruit.

Later in the day, I saw what had to be around 200 preteen and teen campers load into the hotel. I inquired and was told the hotel stay was part of a summer sleepaway camp trip and that they were staying four to a room. They were well-behaved, but of course, with numbers of that magnitude, they were loud. Breakfast was difficult the next morning. These young guests all arrived at the restaurant at the same time and the lines for food were very long.

We couldn’t get food until after the sea of campers left and this is what was left after the storm. A big shout out to the kitchen staff who must have been working super hard to accommodate all of the guests. They could not replace all of the emptied items, but did their best to make more eggs and cut more fruit for the guests.

I remember being at other hotels that had large groups of guests – often the groups would be served their meals in a conference or banquet room. I wonder whether that could have been done here, or even whether a second serving station area could have been set up for the campers so as not to inconvenience the other hotel guests too much. Or perhaps the hotel could have started breakfast a half hour earlier with a designated time for the campers to eat.

Don’t get me wrong. I like children of all ages. I’m just talking about how the hotel could have accommodated all of its guests. After breakfast, I did speak to manager at the front desk about this, and staff was apologetic and responsive to my complaint.

Moving on….

The hotel has a gym. It is clean, but basic. It could use a few more machines and an overall update. There were two yoga mats. There was no hand sanitizer.

Somehow I assumed that the hotel had a pool, but I was mistaken. I was a little disappointed, as there was a heat wave last weekend and I was looking forward to cooling off in a pool.

I always forget about the new Exhale on Demand feature offered at many Hyatt hotels. Right in the comfort of your own room, you can work out. There is a large choice of classes. Next time, this is definitely what I’ll do!

Despite the few shortcomings discussed above, I had a good stay at the Braintree Hyatt Place and I plan to return.