Hyatt Regency Adelaide

Qantas more than just late

The Qantas flight from Brisbane to Adelaide was due to depart at 6.45pm on Sunday afternoon. I was running marginally late and was carrying several boxes. I used the valet parking in the long term parking. They only charge $14 and always provide a good service plus if need to use a trolley, they save you $4 because they have one for you. On reaching the Qantas check-in I discovered, along with hundreds of other people, that the Qantas computer network had broken down and they were processing manually when a flight was called. Added to this my flight was now back to 7.15pm.

After getting through check in, the time had moved back even further. The flight eventually left at around 7.45pm. Flight was a bit bumpy, but they played a reasonable in flight movie, and the meal (butter chicken) was quite nice. Qantas catering has definitely improved over the last few years.

Hyatt Regency

After a $25 ride in an “english free” taxi, I arrived at the Hyatt Regency in North Terrace, Adelaide around 11pm. The entrance and lobby are very impressive. The desk staff were friendly and helpful (for that time of night at least). Concierge looked after the bags and boxes and brought the right one to my room.

The “King Room” was not huge, but it had a king sized bed, shower and bath, a writing desk with broadband connection and a decent view. I didn’t bring my laptop, which is quite a strange feeling actually, so I can’t say whether the internet connection was sufficient or not.

Had a look at the Room Service menu, but as it was after 10.30pm, so I could only order from the “late night” menu. I couldn’t bring myself to pay $25 for a sandwich, so I had a pack of Pringles from the mini bar instead. The breakfast menu looked a bit expensive at $34 for the full buffet, but this was a swish hotel, so I guess you have to expect to pay a bit more.

Breakfast

I needed to get up and moving reasonably early in the morning, so I ticked 6.30 to 7pm on the requested time for breakfast delivery and set my alarm for 6.30pm. I didn’t have a great night’s sleep and was awoken with a knock on the door at 6.28pm. I will never get those 2 minutes back!

Breakfast was going well, scrambled eggs check, bacon check, orange juice check, coffee damm it, it was cold. Now you don’t expect coffee in a breakfast delivery to be hot, but this was not even warm. I could have lived with that, but the toast (see picture) was burnt. I have opened another note on this topic, because I just can’t imagine why someone would go to the trouble of fancy wrapping three pieces of quite obviously charcoaled toast.

Check out was quick and efficient and the concierge packed all my boxes into the taxi for me. Total bill was $234 for the night. $210 for the room, and $34 for the “burnt toast” breakfast.

Function Centre

The function that I attended was held at the National Wine Centre. It was a lovely venue and the catering was superb, but access was a bit problematic.
Qantas flight home was on time, but the in flight entertainment was terrible (maybe I'm just not interested in the top 20 female entertainment money earners for 2007) and I was stuck without a book or a newspaper.