The Traveling Steve's

This weekend, Steve (DOS) and I are enjoying a pre-birthday stay-cation at the Grand Hyatt Tampa Airport.  We have stayed at this hotel several times, but it’s been a couple years since our last stay here.  I drove us over to Tampa in my new Audi Q5 which I had purchased last weekend, but haven’t really driven it yet as I was in Kentucky this week on business.  The couple hour’s drive was quick and smooth, and we both loved the features of the new car; especially the ventilated seats, dual maps (one in the center console, and driver’s virtual cockpit), Sirius-xm radio, and for DOS  (as a passenger) the wifi hotspot. Traffic wasn’t too bad, and we only went thru a short while of summer Florida showers, allowing me to test out the rain-sensing windshield wipers.

Once at the Grand Hyatt, we checked in, and were surprised (even astounded!) that they upgraded us to the Presidential Suite!  I’m a Hyatt Globalist member and we had reserved a VIP suite via our Hyatt upgrades, but we were really amazed at the extraordinary weekend upgrade.  Hyatt Hotels, worldwide, are consistently very customer-focused, and they always provide outstanding service, especially to their elite status members.  The Hyatt Tampa, like our recent stay at the Hyatt Centric in Santiago is no exception to this successful hospitality formula.

Our room was on the 12th floor, and just down the hall from the Hotel’s Concierge Lounge. We walked in the double-width door, and quickly settled in, but not before taking a few photos.

As expected, the Presidential Suite was HUGE, with three sectional sofas in the living room and large screen TV, separate dining area with large screen TV, bar with stools, ridge, microwave and TV, guest bath, bedroom with Apple  computer, large TV, and huge master bathroom. 

And the entire suite had floor to ceiling windows overlooking the beautiful Tampa Bay.  The Grand Hyatt Airport has more of a feel of a resort property, than an airport hotel.  What a wonderful pre-birthday weekend treat!

We had received an email from the General Manager a week ago informing us there would be a special food and wine pairing dinner the first night we were there, and we replied absolutely to reserve our spot.  Unfortunately for them (but not for us!) we got another email a couple days prior to coming to Tampa, that the wine dinner had been canceled. But, as we had already reserved it, they would offer us our own complimentary wine-tasting dinner for just the two of us!  The wine tasting dinner was $179 a person, so that was an unbelievably a huge gift from Hyatt to us.  But then again, this is Hyatt Hotel’s attention to detail and delivering more than a premium experience for it’s guests.  (I wonder too if that’s why we got upgraded to the Presidential Suite?)

Prior to going to dinner at the 14th floor Armani’s Restaurant for our food and wine pairing dinner, we stopped briefly at the Concierge Lounge.  While they had a huge assortment of hors d’ourves and complimentary drinks from 5 – 8pm, we didn’t want to overeat or drink, knowing we had a full dinner ahead of us.

We then took the elevator up one floor to dinner at Armani’s.  Our food and wine dinner was so incredibly over-the-top wonderful, I’m ending this post now, and will detail the dinner in the next post.  Thank you Grand Hyatt Tampa for everything so far; this is my pre-birthday weekend, and you could not have made it any better had you known!