My wife woke up early for work and snuck out to go to the lobby. We woke up around 7:00 and went down to meet her to head to breakfast.

Another Disappointing Breakfast

The restaurant wasn’t nearly as busy as it was the previous day when it was an absolute mob scene. We got to sit at a regular table instead of in an adjacent conference room and had the same option to upgrade to the hot breakfast. My wife chose to upgrade, but I decided not to. It wasn’t worth it for the few slices of bacon I wanted. The kids got the kids rate on the full hot breakfast again.

My youngest wanted to get a custom pancake, so I waited in line with him. The chef was quite good at taking requests for different shapes and designs. One person asked for a character from the Lion King. Another asked for a golf hole. Mine asked for something Star Wars related and got a pretty good stormtrooper. The problem was that this custom work took a VERY long time. It was at least 5 minutes for each one. Sadly the chef didn’t have a cup for tips like you see at some places. The one time when the person is going out of his way and deserves a tip, it becomes nearly impossible to give him one.

Other than the custom pancake, breakfast was entirely forgettable. Even without the crowds, the lines were slow. The selection was average at best, and the prices were inflated, even for resorts.

Off to the Gym

Since we had skipped our workout the previous day, we wanted to get our workout in a while my wife worked in the room. We had to get directions from the concierge in the lobby. The fitness center was in the spa on the complete opposite end of the hotel from our room. It was a solid, 10+ minute walk to get there.

When we arrived, we found it had quite a few machines, though it seemed a little on the small side given the size of the resort. There was not much space to do any exercises that didn’t involve a machine as the fitness room they had a class in it. We carved out space on the floor to do our warmups (jumping jacks, push-ups, sit-ups, etc.) like we’ve been doing every other day.

We then moved over to the elliptical machines and started our workouts. After about 10 minutes, one of the people in the gym came over and informed me the gym was 18+. We’ve been in gyms that were 12+ and others that were 16+, but never one that’s 18+, so this was rather frustrating. Most gyms are fine as long as the adult is present.

I grabbed the kids, and we went back to the room with further disappointment added to this stay. The longer we were there, the more we wanted to leave. We couldn’t wait until my wife was done with her work so we could ditch that place.

Lawn Games

We went back to the hotel, and I took a shower while the kids packed up our frisbee and various sports equipment in a backpack. We headed down to the tennis center and the open grass field we had played on the previous day. We noticed the basketball court was empty, but there wasn’t a ball, and I had no intention of paying $10 to borrow it from the tennis center desk.

We played a bunch of frisbee and soccer. The boys also played on the badminton court with their paddles and ball they had. Good thing we came prepared with our equipment, or else I would have had a mutiny on our hands. After about an hour, we decided to play a round of mini-golf.

There wasn’t any equipment at the bell desk, so we were on our own to search out abandoned equipment on the mini-golf course. We found one club and one ball initially. I then fished a couple more golf balls out of the water hazards. Then another group finished up, and we got one more club, so we started. We shared the two clubs between the three of us. Finally, at the beginning of the second hole we found another abandoned putter so we finally each had our equipment. It seems like it shouldn’t have been that hard. With a little bit of organization, people would have been less likely to abandon their equipment so randomly.

There weren’t a lot of people this day, so we managed to complete a relatively quick round. After that, we went up to the room to finish packing and see how much more work my wife had for the day.

Checkout

As with every trip, what needs to fit inside the bags seems to grow with every move. We managed to get everything in, and it didn’t need to be too well packed for this leg as it was just going in the back of the rental car SUV. We also didn’t have to worry about finding a place for my brother in law or his stuff as he had gone home the previous morning. It was clear, though, that we’d have to pack more carefully for our flight home to make sure everything fits in the bags we had.

We made sure all our stuff was packed and headed down to the front desk to check out. There weren’t many people, but the chaos continued. When we got to the front of the Elite Guest line, another group cut in front of us. That was the way our stay was going. When we finally made our way to see an agent, they asked how our stay was. I was honest and said it’s been disappointing since we arrived and left it at that to see where the agent would take the conversation. I expected they would ask some follow-up questions, but the agent just typed for a minute or so and then told us she had added a $75 credit to our bill and given us 5,000 Marriott points and then passed us the hard copy of the bill.

There was no apology or attempt to ask us what we were dissatisfied with. It was a canned/scripted response they are trained with, but it didn’t do anything to help them learn what could be fixed or understand the severity of the issues. The $75 rebate sounds good, but it didn’t even cover the cost of the entirely disappointing breakfast. It was less than the cost of the resort fees for both days, too. Including taxes and fees, we paid nearly $1,000 for two days of disappointment and stress. The experience left an awful taste in our mouth that still lingers today.

The service from start to finish was not customer-centric. The resort itself showed clear signs of poor management and disorganization. My wife is used to spending the early mornings in hotel lobbies, and most times, the cleaning crews and other workers are hard at work. The situation here was markedly different, with most people standing around watching their phones. Very few were doing any work. In the front desk, there was lots of space, but with no ropes to corral guests into lines, it was a free-for-all that exacerbated how understaffed it was.

The condition of our room was second rate and laughably sloppy. Paint was splattered everywhere. The workmanship was poor. The design was not well thought out. It felt like they threw something together because they knew they needed to get something ready for the holidays. We were in an executive suite, and there wasn’t even a desk!

These are, of course, all first world problems, but they point to a poorly managed hotel that does not have a bright future without significant internal changes.

Lunch in Town

We were happy to be leaving the resort. That’s not a good thing, but it’s a reality. We were miserable there and looking forward to our next hotel in Long Beach, but we needed some lunch first. We decided to stop in downtown Palm Springs since it was “on the way.” In the end, it was more out of the way than I thought, but not too bad.

We found parking a block from the main road and walked to find a place to eat. Tomatico wanted Mexican, so we split up, and he went with my wife. My youngest and I got some pizza at Blaze Pizza (a family favorite!) while Tomatico and my wife ended up at the same Mexican place they went to when we first arrived in Palm Springs.

We finished quickly, but their food was taking quite a long time for some reason, so we went to get ice cream while we waited for them. We found a chain place which was one we had been to in Hawaii and Sausalito earlier on this trip named Lapperts. They had some very Hawaiian styles of flavors, though we stuck with strawberry and cookies and cream because that’s the kind of guys we are!!

When we got back Mexican restaurant, they had just gotten their food. They seemed pretty frustrated, and the food was only average, which didn’t help with either of their moods. When they finished, we quickly paid and made our way back to the car.

Onward to Long Beach

While we had a bad experience at the resort, we rather enjoyed our time in the Palm Springs area. We’d consider coming back, though we’d choose a different place to stay. We half-joked that we would have gotten better service at the Fairfield Inn or the Residence Inn near the resort. The more I think about it, I’m not sure if it was a joke. We would have gotten a more thorough housekeeping service, a room in better condition, a better check-in and checkout experience, and equivalent breakfast (at the Fairfield Inn at least). We would have saved a boatload of money and been happier.

We were onward to Long Beach to our next hotel, hoping for a better experience. We had about a 2-hour drive with small pockets of stop and go traffic, but generally, we moved along pretty well despite it being almost 5 pm. LA area traffic can be brutal, but the holidays probably kept some people off the roads.

The new hotel was going to be a Hyatt resort, and it looked good on paper and in the reviews, but then again, so did the Marriott we had just come from…

The Hyatt Experience

As we drove into the hotel reception area, a valet came to help guide us right away. We were the only guest, and he was accommodating. We told him we were going to self-park but wanted to make sure our room was ready first. He suggested we leave the car where it was while we did that, which was fine with me. He also gave us a couple of guide books on things to do in the area. We could see outlet malls across the street in one direction and a cluster of restaurants across the road in a different direction, so it seemed like we’d have a lot of options.

In the lobby, we found the check-in desk and were helped immediately. I told the agent that I was new to Hyatt, and I asked him about the room we had reserved and if it included access to the lounge. The room we booked was an executive suite. Usually, with Marriott suites, get access to the club lounge automatically, and I wasn’t sure about with Hyatt.

He didn’t answer immediately but mentioned he was going to check something. He spent a couple of minutes typing away, presumably trying to find a way to get us lounge access but was ultimately unsuccessful. I then mentioned I had a second reservation for three days following the two-day reservation I was checking in for. That was for a different room type, but one that had club lounge access.

He then went searching to see if there was a way we could at least keep the same room. The best he could do was offer us an upgrade on the original room for $25/night, and that would allow us to keep the same room for all five days and keep the lounge access for the last three nights. That sounded like a deal to me as the regular rooms were two double beds and the suite was a much larger room.

I then asked about the sleeping arrangements, and he said there were a king bed and a couch and that we could get a rollaway bed, but that typically comes with a $25/night charge. Without pushing back, he offered to waive that for us for the entire stay. He said the bed would be in the room in 15-20 minutes. That was music to my ears and quite the opposite of our experience at the previous resort.

We got our keys and unloaded the SUV before I went to self-park it in the attached garage. I met the family back in the lobby, and we brought our stuff up to the room. The room was only a few doors from the elevator, but when we entered, it was not going to be an issue as a hallway, and the bathroom was shielding us from any noise from the corridor. The room was smartly designed and in excellent condition. There was even a desk in this Executive Suite. Imagine that…

The best part was the view. We had a fantastic view of the shoreline, and the Queen Mary cruise ship docked on the other side of the bay. In addition, the rollaway bed was already in the room. The initial experience could not have been different from the Marriott we just left. The staff was helpful, delivered what they promised, and put the guest first. And despite only having the lowest level of status with Hyatt, we were treated better than we did with top-level status at the Marriott.

Finding Dinner

Once we unpacked and explored the room (Tomatico found the free slippers in the closet, which he loves for some reason), we decided to head across the street to the cluster of restaurants. Back in the lobby, the valet directed us to the footbridge to get us across the street. We headed to where we saw the most restaurants, which we discovered was called Shoreline Village.

The restaurants closest to shore were much busier than the ones further out towards the bay. We made our way to the end, as much to see how far it went as to check out all the options. Since we had eaten late, we weren’t very hungry. We could also see the other side of the bay even had a lot of restaurants. We’d have to check those out another time.

We found a place that served pizza and bar food and also had a football game playing on the TV. The boys both got shrimp and chips while I got a burger. My wife decided to check out the shops instead since she was still full from the late lunch. The food was unremarkable, but the game entertained the boys. The food did come out slowly as my wife was back before the meal was done and thought we had already finished when we hadn’t even gotten it yet. Tomatico had lousy luck getting food in a reasonable time today.

After dinner, the boys wanted to get churros at a place called The Funnel House. They had seen a sign that said their churros were handmade. My wife had taught them only to get fresh churros, not the boxed/frozen ones in many places. This one fit the bill, and the boys both got ones with chocolate dipping sauce while my wife got condensed milk for her dipping sauce. They were yummy.

We made the short walk back to the hotel and checked out the fitness center before heading up to our room. It looked pretty good, and there wasn’t an age limit as long as an adult was present. Tomatico wanted to make sure we got up early to use it!

Back in the room, the boys watched the final part of the Serena Williams documentary on HBO that they had been waiting over a few days. While the Marriott hotels we had visited had free HBO, ShowTime, and other streaming services, this Hyatt did not, but the TV did support Chromecast. Since we have HBO Go on our phones, we could cast it to the TV. There was a channel that helpfully had the instructions on how to do it. We connected to the hotel’s WiFi, and then within the World of Hyatt app, there was an option to connect to Chromecast. Once connected, I opened the HBO Go app on my phone and hit the Chromecast icon, and the video showed up on the TV. Magic!

After the show, it was time for bed. I found some buttons next to the bed, which lowered the shades automatically. That was a first for us. There were all sorts of magic in the room. With that, we were all ready for bed and an exciting New Years’ Eve day tomorrow!