I just wrapped up my 5^th or 6^th stay at the Grand Hyatt Dubai this past weekend. It was my second time staying there this month, and after the first I was wary about the second. After the second stay, it is pretty clear to me that this property, built in 2003 is past its prime.

I first stayed at the Grand Hyatt Dubai in November, 2013, staying subsequently in March 2014, March 2015, July 2015, and twice in July 2016. In the first few stays, we had developed a great rapport with the lounge manager at the time, who has unfortunately moved on.

Grand Hyatt Dubai – A Tired Property

The Grand Hyatt Dubai is currently doing some major work around their convention and conference space. I suspect that is where they get a greater return on investment, so hopefully they will complete that work, then shift their attention to the rooms. The rooms are nice, but you can definitely see the wear. The style is definitely an indication of when the hotel was built. It is not clear to me whether there was a refresh done, at least since I have started staying at the hotel.

One thing in particular that jumped out to us, on this stay, was the fact that the fire doors were closed the entire time of our nearly 2 night stay.

Fire doors at the Grand Hyatt Dubai

Put another way – these doors are supposed to remain open normally and close in the event of a fire. If there were power issues, I could see this as understandable, but there were none. Further, we had friends staying on 3 other floors, none experienced what we had on the 9^th floor. I view this not necessarily as a hassle of opening the door, but more as a safety issue. The last day we were there, one of the doors was propped open.

Fire doors at the Grand Hyatt Dubai

Propped because it was not engaged to the magnetic component, that is in place specifically to release the door, in the event of a fire.

The Staff

I won’t call anyone out in particular in a negative way, but of the dozens of people I interacted with, only two left even a slightly positive impression. Toby, the front desk manager for the night shift, truly seemed to genuinely care, but he was the only one.

We arrived in our room, to find the little box of amenities—toothbrush, razor, hairbrush, etc—to be incomplete. We figured this might have been a one time oversight, but, there was no replenishment or fix after house keeping cleaned our room the next day.

Other front desk staff, when we checked out, asked how our stay was, I explained some of the issues. Instead of taking notes, they merely said “Well we will do better next time,” and walked away.

Conclusion

I am beginning to think that repeat stays at any hotel more than 4-5 times is becoming a bad idea. I’m not sure if it’s me, and I’m just looking past things in earlier stays, or if the Grand Hyatt Dubai has gone down hill. I think it is the latter. I had a similar experience with the J.W. Marriott Khao Lak, Thailand.

I can say this: I cannot recommend the Grand Hyatt Dubai. There is a Hyatt Regency Dubai Creek that has recently opened , there is a Park Hyatt Dubai, across the creek, as well as a bunch of other Hyatt properties in the United Arab Emirates. This, especially when the Grand Hyatt Dubai seemed to be more expensive by $20-40 US.