Earlier this year the Rewards Canada family spent an awesome 5 days at the Hyatt Regency Indian Wells Resort & Spa in the Palm Springs area. With short direct flights from Calgary, Palm Springs is a regular destination for us however each time we've gone we've always stay in Marriott/Starwood branded hotels. We thought we'd change it up this time and move further out from Palm Springs by staying in Indian Wells at the Hyatt Regency.
The hotel is beautiful with a nicely landscaped entrance area, a main building with regular rooms and also several dozen one and two bedroom villas. The nicely manicured grounds include several pools, lots of space for lounging and lots of pathways to enjoy the resort. For this stay we booked one of the two bedroom villas. Now that our kids are older and travelling with more stuff (they are teenage girls!) we are finding that we are booking two rooms for our family for almost every stay and when we compared the prices of two regular rooms to this villa, it wasn't that much more so we went for it! Add in the privacy of the villa and the space it would afford we couldn't go wrong with booking it.
Our flight from Calgary arrived in Palm Springs around noon so we asked for early check in knowing we would be at the hotel around 1:30pm. Without Hyatt status this was perhaps a long shot and such was the case. We did not get early check in so we went for lunch at Agave Sunset which is one of the hotel's dining options and then walked around the resort to become acquainted. Returning to the lobby to check in at the actual 4 pm check in time we were told the villa wasn’t ready yet and it should only be about 10 more minutes. We waited those 10 minutes and prior to going back to the check in desks a manager happened to be walking past us and overheard us as a family discussing our villa not being ready yet and he went to find out what was going on. About 10 minutes later he came back saying it’s still wasn’t ready but it should only be about 10-15 minutes more. It was close to 30 minutes. Not sure if he really pulled any strings but we were a little surprised he didn’t offer some drinks while we waited as many hotels tend to do when your room isn’t ready. In the end we didn’t get into the villa until close to 5pm.
When you stay in one of the villas at this resort one of the included benefits is butler service and this starts right from the time you check in. Once we received the keys to our villa one of the butlers on duty drove us in golf cart around the resort to our villa. He then brought our luggage to us shortly after that.
On to the actual two bedroom villa!
First off all I can say is there is lots of room! In fact tons of room! Our two bedroom villa was one that had a single king in each bedroom and a pull out sofa. You can also get two bedroom villas that have one king and two queens. Included in the villa were a fridge, microwave, fireplace, hot tub, and two very large bathrooms. The 600 series of villas while seeming to have older hot tubs were recently renovated and look nicer and fresher than the 700 series which have waterfalls cascading into some of their hot tubs. Some of the villas also have fire pits or private plunge pools instead of hot tubs.
Here is main living room which has the fridge, microwave, fireplace, dining table and pull out sofa:
The hallways off the main entrance each have a closet complete with robes before entering each bedroom:
Here is bedroom number one:
Bedroom number two is exactly the same except mirrored:
There are two full size and as I mentioned before, very large bathrooms. Each one is situated off the hallway to each bedroom:
Each bedroom has their own patio door going out to the villa's private yard. First a panoramic view:
And more views of the outside:
As I mentioned above our hot tub wasn't one of the cascading water fall ones you may see in photos of the hotel online. I guess that's the trade off from what I can tell - the villa we had had an updated interior versus an updated exterior which is what we'd rather have.
Also as I mentioned previously, all villas come with butler service. We didn’t use the service very much at all. We simply called in on occasion to have them bring up some soft drinks and waters as those are all included with the villas. I don't about you, but for us humble beginnings people things like butler service just seems weird. We are more the type that like to do things on our and get them done on our own. Heck, if we knew where they stocked the drinks we would have never called upon the butler. Even at check out, we didn't call upon them to drive us the check out in their golf card. We walked it and why not - the weather and resort are so nice it would have been a shame not to!
If you have read other reviews of Rewards Canada family stays you'll know one of our biggest pet peeves with a lot of the higher end hotels and resorts is that they only have valet parking. Well you don't have to worry about that here as the Hyatt has both self and valet parking option. It was nice to have self parking as we tend to come and go a lot and it really gets annoying having to call down to valet to always get our car ready (not to mention tipping!) For us, valet service is kind of like the butler service, not something we really take advantage of.
We ate several meals at the hotel's restaurants and for the most part the food was pretty good. Nothing spectacular but far from being bad as well. It was especially good by the pool and the pool cocktails were delectable
Overall the villa was awesome and if we'd stayed at this resort again I don't think we'd be able to stay in a regular hotel room, it would have to be in one of the villas!
Hotel details
Hyatt Regency Indian Wells Resort & Spa (Book here)Points required for a free night:
- 20,000 Points for standard room
- 27,000 Points for Regency/Club Grand Room
- 32,000 Points for standard suite
- 40,000 Points for premium suite
- 10,000 + 50% of the Standard Rate for standard rooms
- 16,000 + 50% of the Standard Rate for standard suites
- 20,000 + 50% of the Standard Rate for premium suites
| Room Upgrade Award | Points Per Night |
|---|---|
| Regency Club®/Grand Club® Upgrade | 3,000 |
| Suite Upgrade | 6,000 |
| Premium Suite Upgrade | 9,000 |
Talk to us! Have you stayed at the Hyatt Regency Indian Wells Resort & Spa? What are your thoughts of the hotel? Or are you planning to and looking forward to it? Let us know below!
Title image and pool image courtesy of Hyatt - all other images courtesy of the author
