Hotel Review: Hyatt Regency Phuket Resort
Hotel Name: Hyatt Regency Phuket Resort
Classification: 5 stars
Book this hotel: On Booking.com
The Hyatt Regency in Phuket is located in the western part of the island, close to Kamala beach.
It features 184 ocean-view rooms and 17 suites, an Olympic sized pool, 3 restaurants, one bar, a Regency Club Lounge and direct beach access. There’s also a spa and a gym, as well as an event hall.
Check out my hotel review of the Hyatt Regency Phuket Resort below!
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Hotel Grounds
The interior design of the Hyatt Regency Phuket can be described as modern chic, with a touch of Thai design elements.
One important thing to note is that the rooms and suites are located on top of a steep hill. Therefore, the hotel has various golf carts that can bring you to your room at any time, because depending where your room is, it will be a pretty steep climb if you go by foot. Our room was all the way at the top, so it would take me around 10 minutes to climb up. I just considered it as a workout 😅 But I can imagine for other people it might not be as convenient.
Lobby
The lobby is open and airy, and features wooden elements, such as this majestic piece of wood in the centre of the lobby.
There are also plenty of lounge chairs and sofas to chill out on.
It may not be as grand as other 5-star hotel lobby’s in South East Asia, but I thought it felt warm, welcoming and stylish.
Pool
The panorama pool of olympic size (!) is located right in front of the beach, so you can take a swim with sea view, which is really wonderful. I’ve never seen a pool this big in a hotel, and because it was so huge, it never felt too crowded either.
What I appreciated was that the sun beds where spaced apart generously, so it always felt like you had a lot of space and it never felt crowded. It was super nice to lounge by the pool and see the Andaman sea in the background with all the palm trees.
Beach
There is direct access to the beach from the hotel grounds, although you do have to cross a road (which is not busy at all).
There is a wooden deck with a few sun beds that you can lounge on, directly facing the sea. The beach and water itself are not the prettiest that you can find in Phuket - the water is not so clear as in other beaches in Phuket, though that also depends on the weather conditions.
Gym
The Gym is located right next to the lobby and close to the pool. There are a few cardio machines and some weights. What I particularly liked were the cold towels that were heaven after a workout!
The only downside is that the gym is quite small - there could have been more equipment in my opinion.
Spa
The Hyatt Regency Phuket also has a spa, called the Nahm Spa. You can get massages and other spa treatments there. The spa is located in a serene little garden. I didn’t take a massage there myself during my stay, so I can’t comment on this part.
Hotel Grounds rating: 8.5/10
Room
As I was with my parents for this hotel stay, we booked a 2 bedroom suite with Regency Club Access. The rooms are recently renovated, I believe, and looked modern and stylish, with some Thai design touches here and there.
The suite had two bedrooms and one big bathroom, a small living room, a walk in closet and a very spacious balcony. I thought the size was just right for 3 people.
I appreciated that every room had their own aircon controls, so you could regulate the temperature independently per room.
The beds were really comfortable too and the bathroom spacious, with separate bath, shower and toilet. Maybe it would have been even better if there was another separate toilet, as we were 3 people.
The view from the balcony was gorgeous: an amazing view on the Andaman sea. You don’t see that very often!
Room rating: 9/10
Food
There are three restaurants and one bar on the hotel premises: The main restaurant called “The Pool House Kitchen“, where you could get breakfast, lunch and dinner, the fancy Japanese Teppanyaki restaurant called “Mizu Teppanyaki Restaurant” and “Casa Boho”, which is a Latin American inspired restaurant.
There’s also a bar called the ONE80° Pool Bar, where you can get drinks and snacks throughout the day and in the evning.
Breakfast
The breakfast buffet at the Pool House Kitchen was excellent! I really like the selection of foods and the quality was great. There were some live cooking stations for eggs and noodles.
Another big plus for me was the coffee - it was almost specialty grade coffee and they even showed what coffee beans they used. This is something you don’t often see in big hotel chains. (I do think they should really catch up with the third wave coffee trend. Some hotels have disgusting coffee, which I find unacceptable for the amount you pay per night! But anyway, not the case for the Hyatt Regency in Phuket 😉). The baristas were also very decent.
Dinner
I did not try the Japanese Omakase restaurant, as I thought it was a bit of a shame they only had a set menu. I would have liked to see some a la carte options also for dinner.
Instead, I had dinner twice at the main restaurant “The Pool House Kitchen”. The quality was good I thought - they had various different options on the menu, including Thai food, Italian food and Indian food.
We also had dinner at Casa Boho one evening. I really liked the ambiance and the food was good. I loved the Ceviche! There's a DJ there every night that plays some latin-inspired beats.
Food rating: 8/10
The Regency Club Lounge
The lounge is located all the way at the top of the hill, which makes for a breathtaking view on the ocean. Having a drink here at sunset hour is really spectacular! You can go to the lounge throughout the day and they have small snacks and drinks available.
The rest of the lounge experience at the Hyatt Regency in Phuket was disappointing. There was just one service a day - which was the evening drinks and canapés from 17 - 19. While I understand that they don’t want to do the breakfast there, because I believe most people want to go to the big breakfast buffet at the main restaurant, I felt like the least they could do is have another service, maybe afternoon tea.
Also, the selection of food for the evening canapés was very little. As we were there for 4 nights, we also found that they kept repeating the same foods. So, there was a small selection and little variety, which made me question the quality they put into the whole lounge experience. Especially compared to other hotels in South East Asia (for example compared to the Hyatt Regency in Bali, which has an excellent lounge), I thought this was not up to standards. My mom was pretty upset about it 😂.
Lounge rating: 5/10
Service
The service at the Hyatt Regency Phuket was top notch. People really went the extra mile and recognising us and asking for feedback proactively, which I think is very rare.
One thing that happened was that one time when I returned back to the room, I found a snake in front of it 😳. It was small, but green so I thought probably best not to walk past it.
I called the reception and they quickly sent some people to catch the snake. It took a while but they caught it!
Another thing that I thought was great, was that when we gave feedback to the staff about the lounge experience being disappointing, we found a bottle of wine and fruits in our room, along with a handwritten card that thanked us for the feedback. That’s a great way to close the customer feedback loop!
Service rating: 10/10
Activities
There is a kid’s corner right next to the pool, where kids can play and have fun. There is also staff available to watch over them.
Right next to the kids room, there is the Marine Biological Centre, which offers tours about what they do in terms of Marine conservation. There are also snorkel tours that you can join to discover what kinds of marine life you can find at the reef next to the hotel.
They also organise various other activities at the hotel, for example, one day during my stay, there was the possibility to take an ice bath at the beach (😅).
Activities rating: 8.5/10
Location
The Hyatt Regency Phuket is located near Kamala beach, which is just about a 5-7 minute drive. There is a shuttle every hour or so from the hotel to Kamala beach.
Around the hotel there isn’t much - not many other restaurants or things to do, so you really have to go with a car to explore things around the area or in Phuket.
Kamala beach itself is cute, but not my favourite place in Phuket. There isn’t much to do, really, unless you want a cheaper massage than what is offered at the hotel 😅. In my opinion, it’s better to drive a bit further and visit Phuket Old Town for example.
Location rating: 7/10
PROS
Beautiful resort with comfortable and modern rooms and a gorgeous sea view from most of the rooms.
Amazing huge, olympic sized pool that never felt too crowded.
Excellent breakfast buffet and I loved the ambiance having my breakfast and coffee outside with the breeze of the sea.
Right at the beach, and they also have a few beach cabanas. The beach itself is not the prettiest in Phuket, but it’s nice to take a stroll there.
Very friendly and helpful staff - they asked for feedback proactively. When my mom gave feedback about the lounge experience being quite disappointing, we found a bottle of wine and fruits in the room as thank you for the feedback. Great customer experience 👏
CONS
The lounge really isn’t worth it - there was only one service at 5pm and the food that they served was sparse and the quality just above average. Especially for South East Asia, where the lounges are often top notch, this was quite disappointing.
To get to most of the rooms, you need to take a golf cart from the reception or walk a steep road up. It’s not necessarily a con, but it did mean that you can’t just pop back to your room - if you don’t want to walk up and get all sweaty or wait for a golf cart to come pick you up
The gym is on the small side I find and the pool, when looking closer, seemed to need some maintenance here and there.
