We visited Grand Hyatt Manila on February 3, 2018 after finding out that they have rooms available for booking immediately already. The hotel is located in Federal Land Tower at 8th Avenue corner 35th Street. In fact, you can not miss the building because it is the tallest building in the Philippines since the completion of its superstructure in 2017, and its old New-York style building design (it has a golden pyramid on the top) stands out from the other buildings’ contemporary design. The building is 318 meters tall and has 66 floors. Construction started in 2008, so it has taken one decade to complete. The first 25 floors of the skyscraper are occupied by the Grand Hyatt Hotel (500 to 600 rooms), while the rest, by residential and commercial units.
When we made our first visit on Feb 3, the road to Grand Hyatt Hotel was not really ready for business, as it was still mostly barricaded and surrounded by construction work.
Nonetheless, the parking facilities are ready. At the vehicular entrance of the hotel, they have tall security buffers that are chunky metal cylinders that go down to the ground when a vehicle has passed the security check.
We learned from the staff that the hotel started its soft opened on Jan 15, 2018, and that the official opening was scheduled for Feb 15, 2018. There would be a grand opening which was likely to be in May 2018. The most exciting news was that there would be a bar on 60th floor, even though it would only be ready later this year. It would be the best place to have a view of the Fort!
As of early February, only 100 rooms are available, but we already saw some hotel guests lounging in various places in the hotel, mostly with their laptop.
When you enter the hotel lobby, you will not fail to notice how glassy the stairs are. The lobby lounge is in fact located on different levels, each is accessed through a flight of glass stairs. The lounge serves drinks and desserts such as those yummy ones shown in the photo below.
Restaurants that are open are:
The Cellar (photo below), a Spanish style restaurant that serves tapas and premium wines from around the world.
The Grand Kitchen (photo below), a restaurant that serves breakfast, lunch and dinner in buffet style. It serves a la carte only between the main meal time.
The Grand Kitchen buffet has many stations, each offers food from a unique cuisine.
A restaurant by the swimming pool on the 6th floor. At the time of our visit, it only served food on the room service menu. Our food order was actually delivered to our table via a food trolley designed for room service.
We ordered fish and chips (P750), an apple pie, a drink and a bowl of wonton noodle soup. The fish and chips was delicious even though not necessarily good value, as quality fish like snapper, instead of its cheaper cousin, cream dory, was used. As for the wonton noodle, their Chinese restaurant is not yet opened, so maybe the chef of our wonton noodle was a stand-in.
We hope we have given you a good idea of what to expect in this new hotel. We will revisit it again of course to give you update on any interesting development. Stay tuned!
