We arrived at the Manchester Grand Hyatt around 8:30pm after a fairly quick Uber from San Diego airport. I had communicated with the hotel via text and originally asked to be in the Seaport tower (the shorter one pictured above) as I was told by friends it was more recently renovated and quieter. However, the hotel rep assured me that the Harbor tower (the taller one) was also renovated and would be closer to the lounge. In the end, because of my wife’s mobility issues (still using an ankle boot), I went with the hotel’s suggestion to limit the amount of walking she would have to do.

We ended up in a club room in the Harbor tower as the hotel stated they were sold out of suites (which I verified on the Hyatt app). The room was actually quite spacious and had nice views. I wouldn’t call it super modern, but it had plenty of outlets for charging and a couch for lounging. Sorry for the night pictures but I like to grab them before our stuff gets spread out everywhere.

We actually had a view of the USS Midway and the harbor. There was a lot of glare during the day so I think this picture turned out better.

We visited the club lounge for breakfast on both mornings. We could have paid $15 to upgrade to the full breakfast buffet in the restaurant, but we found the club breakfast perfectly sufficient for our needs.

There were eggs, bacon or sausage and potatoes, plus breads, bagels, pastries and cold cuts. There was also fresh fruit and other items to round out the buffet.

While the hotel was very busy, we didn’t find it crowded. We ended up eating some appetizers in the lounge the second evening.

Then we had drinks and some more food at the lobby bar (The Landing) the second night as my wife didn’t feel like walking anywhere and the menu looked decent. The drinks were very good.

We picked this hotel over the Andaz because the area is bit nicer and it was still very close to the courthouse where my wife had to be for her hearing on the Friday afternoon. While I can’t say it was anything other than a giant conference hotel, I would definitely stay here again if I had to be in San Diego as the location is great for tourist attractions, the baseball stadium and getting to Coronado either by car or ferry. The lounge is handy for Globalists and the rooms are fairly nice, especially if you have a good view like we did.

This used to be a great property to use a Category 1-4 Free Night Award, but as of last month, this became a Category 5 property which is a real bummer. As I mentioned in the introduction post, we paid cash (around $300/night including taxes) as my wife’s firm was picking up the tab. As I am a Globalist, we didn’t have to pay the resort fee. It’s always nice to grab a couple of elite qualifying nights and earn some points at someone else’s expense.

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