Guest Review from Hyatt Centric Wall Street

September 27, 2023

I recently spent a couple of nights at the Hyatt Centric Wall Street (formerly the Andaz Wall Street, which closed during the pandemic and was rebranded before reopening). The day before my stay, I discovered that unlike several of the other Hyatt properties at which I’ve stayed in Manhattan, the Centric Wall Street does not have free parking for Globalists on award stays (they have no dedicated parking garage). At that moment, I said to the rest of the Frequent Miler team that there was no threat of this place becoming my go-to New York property (since I typically drive to the city from Upstate New York and value the savings of free parking). After a couple of nights at the Hyatt Centric Wall Street, I left very pleasantly surprised: given the very large space of the Centric Premier suite and the way the service at this property stood out far beyond other properties I’ve visited in New York, especially from Laszlo at the front desk, I will almost certainly be back.

Hyatt Centric Wall Street New York Bottom Line Review

I booked a standard room and used a Suite Upgrade award to confirm a standard suite at booking. I was then fortunate to be upgraded to a Centric Premier Suite, which would ordinarily be a premium suite upgrade award. While this is not the suite you ordinarily get with a suite upgrade award, you can book the suite I had as a Premium Suite award. Keep in mind that there are quite a few ways to book Premium Suites with Hyatt.

For Hyatt suite enthusiasts, it’s worth mentioning that on the Hyatt website, the description for both the Centric Suite and the Centric Premier Suite say that they are standard suites, but the Centric Premier prices as a Premium Suite award. I followed up with Hyatt wondering whether I could book the Centric Premier Suite with a standard suite upgrade, but I was told that the website description is incorrect and the Centric Premier suite is a premium suite.

The bottom line is that if I needed to be in lower Manhattan, I would have no reason to even consider another hotel based on the service alone here. That said, there were a couple of drawbacks that will prevent this from becoming my go-to property even though I will almost certainly be back.

• Points Price: Category 5. I paid 20K per night. Regular award prices are:
  • 17K-23K points per night for a standard room
  • 29K-35K points per night for a standard suite
  • 34K-46K points per night for a premium suite (our Centric Premier suite is a premium suite despite the website description indicating that it is a standard suite)
• Cash Price: Varies from the $250’s to the upper $300’s for a standard room. During my stay, a standard room was $380 per night or the Centric Premier suite was $700 per night.
• Points Value: Good during much of the year, especially when considering the fact that you don’t pay a destination fee. Note that in the past, when this property was an Andaz, I would sometimes see cash rates in the $150’s during winter weekends. That could make a premium suite upgrade award (where you pay the standard rate + 9K points per night for a premium suite) a particularly good value.
• Resort/Destination Fee: $35 ($40.17 with tax) per day, waived on award stays. (See inclusions on this page)
• Parking: Pay your own separately. They have a discount at a garage next door, though the garage was full when I arrived on a Saturday afternoon around 4pm (I had already booked a spot a block away via ParkWhiz).
• Turndown service: None.
• Housekeeping: Every day as Globalist member. This was listed as an elite member perk during the in-app check-in process. I was impressed that the app also asked what time of day we preferred service (morning or afternoon) and that housekeeping honored the request.
• Internet: Free and worked smoothly.
• Dining:
  • Wall & Water: Serves breakfast 6:30am-10:30am daily. Menu service, no buffet.
  • Centric Bar & Grill: Serves lunch (12pm-2pm daily), dinner (5:30-10pm daily), Bar & Lounge (12pm-midnight daily)
  • Note: There is no room service available. That also meant that it took a little while for someone to find and bring up silverware and plates (we ordered Uber Eats and in one case the restaurant forgot to include the utensils I requested.
• Spa: None.
• Fitness Room: I didn’t try this and forgot to get a pic.
• Hyatt Globalist Elite Benefits: 
  • Welcome Gift: At check-in we were given bottles of water and told to request them any time, but no other welcome gift.
  • Suite Upgrade: We used a Suite Upgrade Award to upgrade to a standard suite and we were upgraded from there to a Centric Premier Suite, which would ordinarily be a premium suite for the purposes of booking with points.
  • Club Lounge: None.
  • Free Breakfast: Served at Wall & Water. My understanding is that Globalists are entitled to one entree, one coffee, and one juice for each of two adults. We also ordered a side dish each morning expecting to pay for it, but the entire restaurant bill including gratuity was removed from our bill.
  • 4PM Late Checkout: Granted upon request. This was requested in the app on check-in and honored without issue.
  • Free Parking: No. While Hyatt Globalists typically get free parking on award stays, that is only true when the garage is operated by the hotel / parking charges can be added to the room folio. In this case, there is a garage next door with a discount for guests, but parking is paid separately and directly to the garage and thus is not free and space is not guaranteed (when we arrived at 4pm on a Saturday with a special event happening in the area on Sunday, the garage was full). There are several nearby options on apps like ParkWhiz and SpotHero.
•  Would I stay again? Absolutely in the right circumstances. Service was so good that I’d be willing to pay for a night or two of parking and even to take the subway to Midtown, though for a tourist who doesn’t visit the city often and wants more of a “city that never sleeps” vibe, this may not be the right fit. More detail below.

Quick Tour and Notes

For a quick tour of the room, see this video:

Service at the Hyatt Centric Wall Street was fantastic. Laszlo at the front desk in particular really made this property shine. I have stayed at a number of top Hyatt properties and Laszlo would be an asset at any of them. It’s hard to describe what makes a good check-in experience, but Laszlo had it. He recognized the situation (after ~1.5hrs in traffic in Manhattan that turned a ~3hr drive into a 4.5hr drive, our kids were done with sitting still) and kept check-in brief yet warm. It really set the tone in that way that you know if you’ve been to a nice Park Hyatt and that was unexpected. Admittedly, this was only my second stay at a “Centric” property, so I am light on comparisons, but it certainly felt a step up from what I expected.

Extending beyond that, every time I passed by the desk (which was often enough given its position next to the elevators), Laszlo greeted me by name. When he saw that I came down to accept an Uber Eats delivery, he jumped in to let me know that I needn’t trouble myself to come downstairs as the front desk could call me when a delivery arrived and send it up to the room. He was quick to offer an extra bottle of water or two and just took care of business. That’s the type of service that often makes Hyatt stand out at properties overseas, but I found it pleasantly surprising in New York.

Laszlo wasn’t the only employee who impressed me. I didn’t get the names of others working at the desk, but when I had a question about billing at check-out (on a guest of honor stay I had also booked during the same dates), an agent who helped Laszlo get that sorted out was every bit as professional and helpful. Aaron at breakfast had no trouble handling our group of four adults and two kids and he was quick with a smile and a coffee refill in the mornings when I needed it.

In my opinion, good services goes a long way in creating a memorable and positive hotel experience. After all, the core product — a room with a bed — can be provided almost anywhere. The less tangible parts of the experience make a world of difference.

Furthermore, I loved the dining space in this room. The hotel currently has no room service, but we ordered out (thank you Amex Uber Credits!) and enjoyed some great meals at the huge dining table. It was also functional: there is a power strip in the center, so it would be easy to work from here. I’d be very happy to have this room again for a group trip to New York.

The suite didn’t exactly have doors on the bedroom, which I initially thought might be a problem, but the ends of the wardrobe (like at either end of the TV stand you see in the living room) had mirrors that opened up kind of like wings, mostly closing off the bedroom. It was enough that we could have the bedroom lights on and talk quietly with the kids asleep in the living room without an issue. And during the day, we could fold those wings away and the kids could run circles around the TV island (and they sure did).

All that said, there were a couple of drawbacks to this property beyond the lack of parking (which I recognize is a total non-issue for the majority of readers who would likely fly to New York and not have a car).

From a tourist perspective, the location of the Hyatt Centric Wall Street probably won’t make sense for a first or second visit to New York. In that situation, you’d want to be in Midtown rather than a 20 or 30 minute subway ride from everything. While there are a number of subway lines within an easy walk of the Hyatt Centric Wall Street, I’d think that the average tourist booking a standard room would be better off using 5K more points per night to stay a the Andaz 5th Ave or Hyatt Centric Times Square (or the same number of points as the Centric Wall Street for a Hyatt Place closer to Midtown). On the other hand, if you’re looking to see Trinity Church, the New York Stock Exchange, Battery Park / the Statue of Liberty, and the many other places to see in lower Manhattan, the Hyatt Centric could be a great location for you. Personally, since I value space so highly, I’d be more tempted by booking this Premium Suite for a reasonable premium over what a standard room will cost me at the Andaz 5th Ave, but if it’s your first time in New York you may be willing to sacrifice space for location.

The other drawback for me is an entirely seasonal complaint: the temperature of the room was uncomfortably warm, particularly at night. Our stay was on the last weekend of April / first days of May, which are a very much “in-between” whether point in New York. On our dates, outside air temperatures were cool enough, but the temperature in our room on the 16th floor was in the mid-70’s, which is warmer than we prefer when we go to sleep. The Air Conditioning could not be turned on. When we inquired about this, the engineer explained that because the temperatures outside at night were still in the 50s and 60s, thee cooling capability was not yet turned on. He told us that even if he did turn on the cooling capability, it wouldn’t turn on in the room because of the outside temperature. He offered a solution: open a window. The windows don’t fully open, but they open plenty to allow some cool air in and that worked. While they don’t open far enough for an adult to be able to slip out of one, I was concerned since we have young kids. The engineer assured me that a kid couldn’t even get an arm out of the window.

I grew up in a house without air conditioning, so I am certainly not the type who can’t live without A/C. On the flip side, if I were paying four hundred dollars a night for a standard room (or more than seven hundred for the suite we had), I would generally expect to be able to set the sleeping temperature to whatever matches my comfort level. Further, I love New York City street noise. My grandmother lived in Manhattan when I was very young and I loved going to visit and hearing the street noise when I went to sleep, so it gives me a sense of nostalgia. That is to say that I certainly didn’t mind sleeping with the window open, but a light sleeper may have been less enthused with that solution.

After leaving the Hyatt Centric Wall Street, I was in for one final pleasant surprise: about an hour after leaving the hotel, I realized that we had left a cell phone in the room. While I don’t make a regular habit of leaving things in hotel rooms, I have traveled enough to have forgotten an item here or there. Maybe it’s just my luck, but I run about a 20% success rate on the hotel finding my lost item even when I contact them shortly after leaving and know exactly where it was. I’m pretty sure one of my kids had this phone last though, so I had no idea where they had put it in the room and thus I immediately called the hotel annoyed with myself and expecting to never see that phone again. Much to my surprise, the desk agent who answered put me on hold for less than a minute before coming back to tell me that they indeed found the phone and would be happy to ship it to me. A day or two later, I had the phone back (and very well packaged to keep it in one piece!). Again, that both pleasantly surprised me and made the experience stand out enough to want to return.

Again, overall, I’d be back to this property. Apart from the temperature issue, which wouldn’t be an issue at all at most times of the year, I was very happy with the Hyatt Centric Wall Street. While the suite was large, the service was terrific, and the location was what we needed for our stay.

The living room and dining room were a huge open space. There was a sink, small fridge, and dishwasher, though there was oddly no place to cook or dishes to wash in the dishwasher. Still, this was a terrific space with kids.

I loved just sitting in the huge windows and working with a nice view.

The fruit plate at breakfast seemed like a stretch at $16, but we were lucky to have it comped off our bill as part of our Globalist breakfast (which was great because this is all our 20-month-old would eat!).

I ended up getting these pancakes twice. They were tasty enough.

My 4yr old got the Avocado Toast one morning. This dish normally comes with a poached egg, but he doesn’t like eggs, so we ordered it without. The waiter asked if we’d like the egg on the side and how and my wife took it scrambled (seen in the background).

Breakfast Menu. Globalists officially get one entree, coffee, and juice based on my understanding, though both our room and my sister-in-law’s room additionally ordered a side at breakfast and they were comped as well. YMMV.

We moved the coffee table off to one side and this made for a great play space for the kids. Note: that is one *heavy* coffee table. You don’t want to run into that one.

The bedroom had plenty of space and electronic blackout curtains were hung in all of the windows in the suite, which could be controlled by a panel next to the bed.

For those interested in a comparison with a standard room, the standard room had a very similar bath tub / shower space as what you’ll see in the video above and the bedroom looked like this:

I thought it was an interesting use of space that the back of the TV was mirrored and had a desk / vanity type space with a stool (and a chair at the opposite end made it also a desk).

The standard room also featured a little spinning closet that was also a neat use of space.