At Hyatt Highlands Inn

[VacationForever]

We own several weeks of Starwood but have been toying with adding a week of Marriott and/or Hyatt Highlands Inn. Since Carmel is 4 hours away for us, we thought it could be a good place to return to every year. We bought their promotional 2-night stay package from their website and here we are! We went to their timeshare presentation today and walked away without buying. Not because of TUG's wisdown of buying resale but more of realizing that this is not where we would like to return to each year. Weather is much too cool around the year for our liking which in turn means pool time would be limited or absent. Our 2 most important factors in a vacation are a large nice pool and warm weather. Otherwise, we thought the HHI (HYI) timeshare developer price was a good deal compared with Starwood developer price. Plus HHI / HYI resale value is pretty darn good.

Their Pacific's Edge restaurant was a sure disappointment. An expensive bottle of wine with serious sediment and on our way out we realized the reason for that - wine bottles were stored upright in the cellar/wine room. Poor service all way around, from waiter dropping a piece of asparagus and asking us whether we wanted another piece to wine glasses not being refilled and wrong knife being placed on the table and then later swapped out. Not sure how it could possibly be on the Conde Nast list of top restaurants.

We could see ourselves returning once in 5 years or so. An exchange thru II is the way to go for us.

 

[MaryH]

Pacific Edge used ot have a great repuation but have been going downhill from what I heard. The masters of food and wine used to be at Highlands Inn back then till 2004 I think. The offshot of hte masters of food and Wine is the Pebble Beach Food and Wine festival.

One thing is the Carmel is only a 75 year RTU and is not deeded.

What were you offered for developer pricing? what size and view?

 

[VacationForever]

One level unit - Unit 205 (our preferred view) which is a Horizon view, in which the view is very similar to other ocean view units that we were shown. Diamond week I think it's called, the one with 2200 points in summer season... $30500 with $2500 discount plus 150,000 Hyatt gold passport points, plus 1 week additional use in one of 6 or 7 Hyatt vacation resorts including Hyatt Highlands Inn...

We did not like the townhouse layout. The room and view is very narrow.

Yes, Pacific's Edge is below average in everything. An expensive bottle of wine that is not stored properly is much worse than a $10 Trader Joe's bottle. Food was average. Their waiters appear to be untrained. I do not see myself ever returning to that restaurant. Unbelievable.

 

[hcarman]

For the prices in that restaurant, you would expect good service.

We were there in February and had a different experience. We had great service and really good food and drinks. However, I did think the prices were quite high - we could only splurge there one night. I figure you are paying for the view as well. The view can't be beat.