Hyatt Regency Bonaventure

Like anybody, my kids remember their favorite hotels. Unlike most people though, the way they remember them usually has very little to do with the room itself. They remember the Fairmont Scottsdale as the hotel where you had to keep the doors closed or the rabbits would come in. The Rio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas sticks in their memory as "The hotel that can't count to two" after taking three attempts to place us into a room with two beds instead of one (The third room still only had one bed, but since it was a high roller suite, we decided to quit complaining.) Now, my kids have a new hotel they remember. They Hyatt Regency Bonaventure has been endowed with the title of "That place that gave us the extra room, then took it back". It's not the catchiest of titles, but sadly it's fairly accurate.

The rooms we got to keep

Briefly, what happened was that we booked a room at the Hyatt Bonaventure, and used a confirmed upgrade certificate to move into a 1BR suite. When we arrived at the hotel, we were told that they had taken the liberty of upgrading us, and sure enough when we arrived at the room it was set up as a 2BR suite. The paperwork however, said 1BR. A couple of days ago I asked you brilliant readers whether or not you would have asked about the extra room and about 50% of you said you'd ask. I won't be asking that half of you for advice again, as I did ask and the front desk said that it must have been a mistake and that they would send somebody over right away to fix it. My kids dream of each having their own bed for a couple of nights disappeared behind a locked door, and the Hyatt Bonaventure reserved it's nickname in my kids memories.

The room we had to give back. A lot neater isn't it?

So since you'll hear nothing else from my children, it's left to me to point out the things that I really did like about the Hyatt Regency Bonaventure, and there were quite a few. For starters, the location. The Hyatt Bonaventure consists of several buildings, but the vast majority of them back onto a stream which separates the hotel property from a golf course. Our room was on the ground floor, which meant that we had a patio where we could sit and watch the stream pass by, or amuse ourselves watching the local bird population trying to catch itself a snack in the river. As it was summer, the center part of the day was far too hot for golfers, so only early in the morning or later in the evening would the quiet be disturbed by shouts of "@#%$ing stupid game!"

The room also had a large kitchen area, which is somewhat lost on me. Once you get past the fridge that I can keep my Diet Coke in, I'm kind of lost in that space.

Besides, who would want to make their own food when the breakfast buffet is included free for Hyatt Diamond members.

The breakfast buffet did end unreasonably early by my children's standards however. I mean, you can't really expect them to get up by 11am can you? Even for food they couldn't do it, but the restaurant staff very graciously gave us boxes of danishes to take back to the room for our children to enjoy, when they finally did awaken.

Of course, once my kids did finally awaken, they did what all teenagers do first thing in the morning. They tested the internet.

The internet speed wasn't bad, but Hyatt Bonaventure does belong to the incredibly evil club of "Hotels that charge for Wi-Fi access". It's provided free to Hyatt members with a minimum of Platinum status, but if I wasn't a Diamond member, paying for Wi-Fi would be enough to send me in search of another place to stay.

Which is a shame, because I enjoyed our time at the Hyatt Bonaventure. Sure they teased my kids, but if that was a crime I would have been locked up long ago. The setting is beautiful, the resort is very kid friendly, and the room (at least the one they let us keep) was very comfortable and a good size for our family. Throw in the fact that the hotel is located five minutes from both the Sawgrass Outlet Mall and the Sawgrass Recreation Park, and I'm pretty sure my wife would have good things to say about this hotel as well. In fact, the list of positives about this hotel is really rather large. Too bad that's not how it's going to be remembered.

Written by Steve Pratt