Don’t you hate it when you are travelling and have gone through every tiny little detail in your packed baggage only to realise when you start unpacking at the hotel that you’ve forgotten your phone charger? Or any other random item that may seem small but drives you insane to try and find it in the local area (particularly if it’s not an English speaking country). 

Take for example, on our holiday to Spain. I had broken a nail. Not a big issue. But to remove my broken nail, I also had to remove my nail polish and I had failed to pack a nail polish remover with me on the trip.

So I made The Boy go with me to the nearest Supermercado (Supermarket) to get one. Problem was, it was all in Spanish and no one spoke enough English (surprisingly) to help. In the end through much guessing of what each product was on the beauty aisle, I managed to get my nail polish remover. However, from that day on, I always pack one with me, just in case! It would have been great if the hotel we were staying in had thought of all these things as that would have saved me the trouble.

Which is great that the Hyatt chain of hotels have recently realised that hotels haven’t been catering to their hotel guests in the modern world. Through 40 focus groups held by the Hyatt name, the feedback and results were astounding. Nearly 51% of modern day travellers were women and over 70% of women made travelling decisions when planning romantic getaways and family holidays.

What this meant for Hyatt was that a change in the way they do things had to be made. From all the feedback they received, they devised the #InAHyattWorld campaign. They improved the complimentary gifts in hotel rooms (shampoos, soaps, bedroom slippers and nail polish removers!) and increased the number of complimentary usage items (chargers, hair curlers, straighteners, and even a steam iron!). For my ladies, you can even discreetly ask for tampons or sanitary pads to be delivered if you hadn’t packed these for your travel, it comes to your room in a private black bag so that no one need know!

They also improved on their menu at the hotel as well as the room service menu. 

How often have you come away from a business trip feeling bloated and lethargic due to the hotel food served in-house? More and more hotels these days are providing the healthy option choice in their menus and it’s good to see that the Hyatt chains are going down this path as well. Not only do the food items tell you how many calories or kilojoules are in each item, but you can even ditch the menu altogether and make a made-to-order meal to be cooked by the kitchen staff. Hyatt feels that when you travel, you shouldn’t be made to do anything different from what you would normally do in your daily life.

Recently, to launch the #InAHyattWorld campaign in Australia, I with a few other bloggers and a travel magazine editor were invited down to Park Hyatt Melbourne to sample an experience to these changes made to the hotel experience.

Our journey started in the Radii Restaurant & Bar where we were greeted with delicious smoothies (almost like a dessert) with healthy sounding names such as The Antioxidant Smoothie and the Care Smoothie.

Next, head chef of Park Hyatt Melbourne, Dane Clouston walked us through the new menu. If you are like me and is sick of the club sandwiches, giant parmas and Caesar salads that are available on all hotel menus, then put your hands together to applaud the new and improved menu from Park Hyatt Melbourne. Dane has done a wonderful job in creating this menu and putting a lot more focus on the wonderful local produce that is readily available in Australia.

Before we could try the amazing array of food Dane had put together, we were going to have to work for it. Dane guided each one of us through making a chicken tortellini. Fun! Just like making dumplings 😛

The meal started off with individual serves of the chicken tortellini we assisted with. From there it was shared dishes of 11 items. Yup! We weren’t going to go hungry here.

We had (in no particular order) the Rainbow Trout with Olive Oil, Lemon & Roe; Grilled White and Green Asparagus with Olive Oil & Lemon; Wood Roasted Zucchini with Green Peas, Tahini and Fetta; Olive Oil Poached Adelaide Tomatoes with Goats Curd and Olives; Silverbeet and Nettle Filo Pie with Spices and Labneh; Cold Roast Charolais Beef with Almonds and Nasturtiums; Wood Roasted Chicken Breast with Lemon and Olive Oil; Grilled Swordfish with Salsa Verde, Radicchio and Soft Boiled Eggs; Maghrabieh and Pitium with Roasted Cauliflower; Wild and Basmati Rice with Onions and Pistachios; and finally a Chopped Parsley Salad with Barley and Dill.

My two favourite dishes were the wood roasted chicken and the wild rice salad. It was amazing. I would happily pay money to eat in the hotel (I know!). The food was worthy of any well established restaurant in Melbourne’s CBD and did not taste as if it came from a hotel.

For desserts, instead of the usual sweets and cakes (which does exist on the menu), we had individual Housemade Vanilla Yoghurt with Raspberries. Delicious.

Oh and if you do so still want them, the club sandwiches and caesar salad option still exist on the menu.

After all that food, we needed some exercise! On a brief tour we went, stopping at the fitness centre to admire the 25m heated pool whilst sipping on refreshing Ginger Tea from the Spa. If you want a spa treatment, a gym to work out in or a pool to do your laps, Park Hyatt have got you covered 🙂 

To cap the day off, we paid a visit to one of the Diplomat Rooms  (executive suite) where we were greeted with Champagne. Our lovely hosts proudly showed us the items that were mentioned before that were available for complimentary usage.

Check out these two videos as well to get a feel of where the Hyatt Group is going with their #InAHyattWorld campaign 🙂

For more information on Park Hyatt Melbourne:

Address:
PARK HYATT MELBOURNE
1 Parliament Square (off Parliament Place)
Melbourne VIC 3002
Australia

Website: http://melbourne.park.hyatt.com/en/hotel/our-hotel.html

Phone: (+61) 3 9224 1234

Email: [email protected]

Radii Restaurant & Bar Park Hyatt Melbourne