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This week, my wife and I decided to take the kids to do something fun: while road construction is about as far from our definition of “fun” as possible, it turns out that there are few things in this world that our 3yr old son loves more than excavators, bulldozers, backhoes, and other heavy construction equipment. Thus, when we first saw an advertisement for Diggerland USA almost a year ago, we knew we had to go eventually (and while Diggerland was a little smaller than we had imagined, our son had a blast nonetheless and we would probably go back while our kids are young). When looking at hotels in the area, I had intended to use one of our many Marriott free night certificates, but the Hyatt House Mt. Laurel was such a value on points that I couldn’t justify dumping a Marriott certificate. After my stay, I wish I had used one of those Marriott certificates after all. If you’re looking to go to Diggerland (or the Philadelphia ‘burbs?) with a family, the Hyatt House has spacious rooms, but I’d sooner come back for the Holiday Inn Express across the street.
Hyatt House Mt Laurel Bottom Line Review
Bottom line: The Hyatt House Mt Laurel is a steal on points at just 5K per night for a standard room or just 8K points per night for a 2-bedroom suite. However, the property is run down and needs a lot of TLC. It doesn’t meet expectations for a Hyatt property as is.
- Points Price: Category 1, 5K points per night for a standard room or 8K points per night for a standard suite (interestingly, even the 2-bedroom suites price as standard suites).
- Cash Price: Varies. During peak summer dates, prices are over $170 per night for a standard room. At the time I booked my mid-week stay, a standard room was only about $150, but the 2-bedroom suite was $250 per night. On weekends the two bedroom suite is often north of $300 per night before taxes.
- Points Value: Very good. You’ll easily get 2c per point or more even when rates are relatively low.
- Resort Fee: None.
- Parking: Free self parking.
- Turndown service: None.
- Housekeeping: Provided upon request. When I checked in via the app, I had the choice between daily service or no service.
- Internet: No password and plenty fast. On a speed test I got about 90 Mbps both up and down.
- Dining
- Breakfast: Free for everyone booking with Hyatt. Dine in the lobby restaurant if space allows or they will pack it up so you can take it with you if not. Order from a menu.
- Dinner: I don’t believe they had a kitchen going for any other meals.
- Fitness Room: Closed due to COVID.
- Pool: Closed due to COVID.
- Laundry: There is a laundry room.
- Hyatt Elite Benefits: I am a Hyatt Globalist, but since I booked the top room category there wasn’t anything for the property to do in terms of an upgrade. Breakfast is included for everyone at Hyatt House. While I like Hyatt House, one of my gripes with World of Hyatt has long been that there really isn’t any advantage to loyalty at limited-service Hyatts and this was no exception. Here are the elite benefits available for those with Globalist status:
- Room Upgrade at Check-In, Including to a Suite: Since this is a Hyatt House property, the standard 5K room is a 1-bedroom suite. While it isn’t impossible that a Globalist may be upgraded to a 2-bedroom suite, I wouldn’t count on that.
- Welcome Gift: None. Hyatt no longer offers welcome gifts.
- 4PM Late Checkout: This is guaranteed for Globalists. During check-in in the Hyatt app, I indicated that I would need a 4pm checkout and nobody questioned that (though we didn’t end up staying past normal checkout time).
- Would I stay again? No. This property is in need of some TLC. Exterior areas looked quite run-down. In the room itself, furniture looked like a Hyatt House, but there were nails sticking up from the carpet and some other issues that didn’t make us feel comfortable having the kids crawl around.
- Pros:
- Great value since you can book a 1-bedroom suite for 5K points per night!
- 2-bedroom suite is just 8K points per night!
- Location is not far outside of Philadelphia and reasonably near some attractions like Diggerland.
- Cons:
- The location is not a destination (this hotel is out in the Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia). It works if you need to be in this area, but it wouldn’t be my pick for visiting Philadelphia.
- Exterior of the property is pretty run down and fitness center and pool are closed due to COVID (while the basketball court is open).
- Rooms weren’t as clean as is typical of a Hyatt
- Rooms are all exterior entrance with no elevators, which means carrying your stuff up if you’re not on the ground floor. It also means that everyone walking past can see into your room unless you pull all the blackout shades.
On booking
A brief tip about booking: at the Hyatt House Mt Laurel, you can book either a 1-bedroom suite for 5K points per night or a 2-bedroom suite for 8K points per night as a standard suite award.
However, do note that the booking system is a bit wonky. For example, you’ll see that a One Bedroom King Suite shows up under “Standard Room Free Night” at 5K points per night (note that sometimes the only standard room available is an accessible one depending on availability).
As noted elsewhere in this post, a 2-bedroom suite can be booked as a standard suite for 8K points per night. Oddly, the One Bedroom King Suite can also be booked for 8K points per night. Don’t do that since, as shown above, you should be able to book the One Bedroom for 5K points instead.
Either way you’ll get a good deal most of the time compared to cash rates. The same dates shown above would be $161 + tax for the one bedroom suite or $311 + tax for either of the 2-bedroom suites. That’s well north of 3c per point for either room type.
Photos and Captions Follow
Unfortunately, when my wife began showering, she had a house centipede crawl out of the shower drain. She screamed, grabbed a piece of toilet paper, and quickly threw it in the toilet (while I felt bad that the house centipede for met its demise in the toilet, keep in mind that it did crawl out of the shower drain, so it was likely to find the same fate either way). I actually wasn’t familiar with a house centipede, so my wife told me to Google it. I did and can confirm that what I took a picture of in the toilet was indeed a house centipede. I didn’t want to include a picture of the toilet in this post, but if you need to confirm that it was a house centipede and you heed my warning that it’s a picture of a toilet with the paper used to put the centipede there, here’s a pic. My wife had already done her usual inspection for bedbugs and the sort and we didn’t see any other insects at all in the room, but we were sure to take our trash from dinner to a garbage can outside. We weren’t the only ones as there were several takeout bags leaning up against the full exterior garbage can (and squirrels having a field day on the garbage cans).
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So after my stay, I agree with Nicks review. Run down place. Won’t stay again.
I live in the area and also used the HH for mattress running to achieve Globalist status when they had the deal earlier this year. Although the staff was friendly, we also found that the place had a run-down feel. I also used the Hyatt Place on the same road. While the HP is usually a bit more expensive, the rooms are in much better shape and the staff members there are incredibly nice. The Covid-era breakfast was better there as well. We only slept there one night but zipped over from our nearby home to pick up breakfast for 2 each morning. They got to know us and had us call ahead so that we did not have to wait around for them to heat up our breakfast sandwiches. There was a rumor that HP was going to be sold to Sonesta, but this does not appear to have occurred.
I have an upcoming stay there tomorrow and have been upgraded to a two bedroom as an explorist.
I live about 15 minutes from this hotel and used it as a mattress run base this winter to reach my globalist status. The hotel exterior could definitely use some TLC but all of the rooms I had were well maintained inside and clean. However, I can say that on multiple occasions the liquid soap in the kitchen was partially used which did indicate that housekeeping wasn’t changing out the toiletries that were partially used which was disturbing. Also, I actually really appreciated the outside entrances at this hotel as these stays were still when COVID was surging so minimizing my time utilizing indoor hallways was appreciated. However, I could see those traveling with heavy luggage being dissatisfied at having to walk up 2 or 3 flights of stairs if you were on the second or third floor.
This hotel did give me an upgrade several times to a 2 bedroom suite from the base room but that was probably less due to me being a globalist and more due to the fact that I stayed almost 20 nights with them this year.
I would never complain about a room with new furniture.
This HH is not that terrible in the area. Sadly, another cat1 HH at Philly suburb (there’s only 1) is even worse, marihuana smell everywhere and AC/heat down constantly.
Hyatt is normally better than other brands, but many HH or HP are still like Days Inn. Last time I stayed at a HP in NoVA, 1 of double beds has tons of hairs inside. I just feel disgusting even looking at it.
Not only low end brands, even PHDC is also running down, comparing to struggling PHNY. PHNY, at least, remains their excellent room service at all costs.
Thanks for the review!
Aren’t Hyatt house (and place) properties explicitly excluded from the globalist upgrade policy?
I was going to say the same thing. While I generally find that HH and HP are good about giving upgrades (at least as much as they can considering how similar all the rooms are), I also believe that they are explicitly excluded from the T&C’s from being “required” to give elite upgrades.
I’ve had the same experience. It’s great when they do give you a room upgrade, but you’re not entitled to one as a Globalist based on the T&Cs.
HP generally has nothing to upgrade, but HH does have better suites to upgrade.
Like this HH Mt Laurel, they have 2 king bed suites upgradable, and they actually upgrade you even you only pay 5000 pts.
Yes, my point was that Hyatt House properties aren’t obligated to upgrade Globalists (even if they do have suites available) because they are excluded from this benefit as part of the WoH T&Cs.