7 nights in an amazing suite on a business trip is a pretty excellent way to spend a trip far from home, especially considering I booked a standard room. I haven’t always had great luck using my Hyatt Diamond suite upgrades, but I was pretty pleased in this case with being able to use it for a business trip to Kuala Lumpur. Thanks to comparatively low hotel rates, this place is drastically better than my typical hotel when traveling for business.
Desk and living room in the Grand Suite
I’ve heard good things about the Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur, so I was excited to check it out. Fortunately, it was one of the closest hotels to where I was working, so it was a nice bonus to be able to stay in such a nice place. I had 7 nights here, so I got the maximum stay out of my Diamond Suite Upgrade. That said, due to flight schedules, my first and last nights there were a little short, with very late arrival and very early departures from the property.
Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur
The hotel is in the KLCC area, near the Petronas Towers. It is in a residential tower, with the hotel on the upper floors. There are some excellent views, with floor to ceiling windows in all rooms. My room didn’t have a great view, but the Grand Club, lobby and most restaurants faced the Petronas Towers and KLCC park.
Petronas Towers by day…
…and by night.
Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur Sky Lobby
While the views from the hotel are good due to being on high floors, it requires some effort to get to/from the rooms. It can be annoying as well as time consuming, so keep it in mind if you stay here. Upon arrival at the hotel, you enter at the large ground level elevator lobby.
Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur ground floor lobby
To the left is some meeting space and to the right is a restaurant/bar. The guest elevators are more or less straight ahead upon entering. There is also another elevator bank behind the staircase in the photo above that goes to the parking area and the fitness center. From the guest elevators, there are only two options; ground floor and Sky Lobby. Once on the 39th floor, there is a panoramic view of the Kuala Lumpur skyline. Unfortunately during my week in KL, the air quality was poor due to fires in Indonesia (#ThanksIndonesia). It got better over the course of my stay, but the night I arrived it was eerie how poor the visibility was.
Given my after midnight arrival, the lobby was quiet, I quickly checked in and then headed to my room. There is another elevator bank which services the hotel floors, going down from the Sky Lobby. My suite was on one of the lower levels of rooms, so on occasion, I would take the elevator on the ground lobby to the gym, then the guest elevator to my floor. I found that to be easier/faster than riding all the way up to 39, then back down to my floor.
Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur hotel elevator
Grand Suite King, Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur
Despite the very late hour and jet lag after nearly 30 hours of travel, I still wanted to check out my huge room before finally getting some sleep. Here’s a quick photo tour:
Fruit plate on the table was refreshed a few times during my stay
Nespresso machine and snacks. The candied walnuts were amazing!
plush King bed with the bathroom behind
The room was high tech with many lighting options and automatic shades and drapes
Marble bathroom with huge soaking tub
And and excellent rainfall shower.
Just slightly more plush than the typical room I stay during my business travels. The room rate was around $160, pretty cheap for a city center hotel, but pricey for Malaysia. Anyway, it was great. Due to a busy week of work, I didn’t spend a lot of waking hours in the room, but it was great to have so much space while I was there.
Dining in and around the Grand Hyatt
When I did have down time in the hotel, the very nice Grand Club to enjoy some snacks and the much better views was a good spot. The Petronas Towers photos above are from the 37th floor Grand Club. While the breakfast spread in the lounge was impressive, I thought the evening spread was better. I could have easily made a meal of the offerings there, and at least one lazy night I did so. That said, Kuala Lumpur is an amazing food city, so there is no excuse for not exploring. I love the mix of influences on the cuisine. I had some great meals. The last night of my stay, I went to have some great local food with a colleague. Part of it is shown below.
An excellent little restaurant that a local colleague found had this mixed satay including pork.
Most mornings before heading to work, instead of the lounge, I went to the even more impressive offerings in the main restaurant, not so creatively called THIRTY8. Care to guess what floor it is located on? The breakfast options cover the gamut of Malaysian cuisine, with Malay, Indian and Chinese, plus Japanese and Western options. There was also a lot of fresh fruit and juices, and a yogurt bar. A really impressive selection. The hotel was near capacity and the restaurant was very busy during my stay, so I didn’t really get photos of the breakfast spread. On my last morning (well, the last morning I had breakfast here), the sky was finally clear and I was able to take the below photo, one of my favorite from the hotel.
The Grand Hyatt is reasonably priced compared to similar properties elsewhere, but it is definitely high end for Kuala Lumpur. There was a meeting of ASEAN finance ministers at the hotel when I was there, along with a few weddings. I enjoyed the parade of fancy cars in the valet area most days.
Final Thoughts Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur
This was a great hotel, especially for a work stay, and one of my best uses of a Hyatt Diamond Suite upgrade since I was there for 7 nights in total. There are a lot of nice hotels in Kuala Lumpur, I’ve stayed in a few of them (Westin, Hilton, Le Meridien) and the Grand Hyatt is now my personal favorite. Have you visited here?
