We arrived at about 5:00 PM with another couple who had also made reservations for a short overnight getaway. The lobby was under construction, something not mentioned on the hotel web site.
The temporary check-in desk was understaffed with only two assistants, one of whom appeared to be a trainee. As a result, there was a line of about 5 people waiting to check in. It took almost a half hour to get to the front of the line, by which time the check in line had lengthened to about 20 people. Management types flitted in and out but created more breeze than assistance.
It took about 15 minutes to process our check-in, something that should have taken about 3 minutes. I was informed that there was a $35 parking fee, another thing not mentioned on the web site. Now, I’ve got to tell you, $35 for parking at this hotel is ridiculous. It is not in downtown Boston or Cambridge. The hotel is not within walking distance of anything except the Charles River and the closest subway station is a hike.
Upon check-in, I specifically asked if the room was the king that I had requested and was assured that it was. Upon entering the very tiny and awkwardly laid out room, we saw that instead of a king, the room had only one full sized bed. After calling down twice to the front desk, letting the phone ring at least 20 times, and getting no answer, we headed down. It’s now over an hour since we arrived at the hotel and the other couple is waiting for us in the lobby. We have 6:30 dinner reservations.
More than a little irritated, I asked why I was told that the bedding was king when in fact it was only a full sized bed. I was told that there were no more kings.
Although I realize that hotels hedge their confirmations with wording that indicates you might not get exactly the bedding you requested, I think that if you have made reservations over two weeks in advance and are checking in shortly after official check-in time starts, you should expect to get the bedding that you requested. At the very least, you should be given that information when you receive the room key, not when you arrive in the room. I also noted that a number of other people in the ever lengthening line were not getting their bedding requests either. Apparently the hotel had also run out of rooms with double bedding. This leads me to suspect that in fact, the Hyatt in Cambridge has very few rooms other than single queen or full bedding. If this is the case, they are giving a very false impression of the quality and type of rooms available in the hotel.
At this point, I requested and received a full refund and left for my dinner reservation. Between cocktails and entrée I was able to make a reservation for a very nice, king room at a nearby competitor, for less money and free parking to boot.

We didn't choose this Hyatt, we got a great deal on Priceline for it. Unfortunately, we didn't know about the $35 per night parking charge..which kind of cancels out our great deal of $75/night for the room. After we succeeded on Priceline, we checked out the Hyatt website. There was not notice of the whole lobby being ripped apart for renovation. There was also no notice of the hot tub not working either. There was a photo of kids in the pool on the website, but our kids were not made welcome in the pool. The room had no art in it, just a faded square with nail holes. Our chair had a ripped arm. The carpet had many, many stains. When we closed our sheer drapes in the evening, one had a huge hole. The bathroom was great; clean and bright with great ameneties. The tv remote would not work consistently. When booking the shuttle (one of the best things about the hotel), I was transferred and put on hold for five minutes. The next time I called, the same thing happened. Our family of four paid $60 for the breakfast buffet...unbelieveably expensive. The hotel is isolated. One consierge told us we would have a 20 minute walk to Fenway....another told us an hour walk! It ended up taking us almost 45 minutes. Yes, there is no T around and we did walk the 1.5 mile trek across the river, into and back from Boston two nights in a row. We would not choose this hotel again. And when using Priceline, I won't search Cambridge, that's for sure.

I could go on and on about our stay but I'll keep it short.

First off the positives - The bed was the most comfortable hotel bed I've ever experienced. Our well priced breakfast buffet was delicious and had a vast array to choose from, even shrimp and crab legs! The fitness center equipment was excellent. Wonderful sauna and steamroom (if you could navigate through the mess in the lockerroom to get to them!) Nice quality toiletries that were replaced each day.

The bad - Unfriendly, uncaring, uninformed, indifferent staff (with the exception of the doorman we met at check out who was wonderful; so pleasant, nice and helpful.) Despite a supposed recent property facelift it was shabby and run down looking in both the lobby as well as the rooms. Lip marks were present on the drinking glasses in the room - thank goodness for the paper cups supplied as ordering clean ones from room service showed a charge in the hotel inroom guide. Though clean, the bathroom was worn and rusty and had broken fixtures. Our order of 2 items from room service, ordered a certain way because of a food allergy, came up to us completely wrong - though it was remedied quite quickly at no extra charge.The pool was dirty and the locker rooms were dirty, unkept, lacked amenities like baskets for used towels so they were dropped all over the floor, shower soap dispensers were empty, toilets were out of toliet paper. The fitness area as well as the lockerroom had no towels. The pool area did have towels but they ran out and were never replenished (they were like sand paper anyway). Everytime I was in the locker room the shower curtins were in a heap on the floor. There was non-working whirlpool (for 7 months) even though website listed it was an amenity. Unattended fitness/pool desk area allowed chaos to rule and made it hard to book spa services...which we decided not to get because of previously mentioned experience in the health club area.

There were no amenities like robes in the rooms, no inroom safe, no minibar. No coffee/tea in the lobby or fitness area in the morning. For a hotel of this price and level I expected these kinds of things.

Bottomline this hotel is not worth the price. With so many other choices in the area, not worth it at ANY price! We'll never go back and based on the attitude we got from Hyatt after our trip when we tried to voice our opinion we will not be choosing any Hyatt properties!!

I stayed there from April 17 to April 20 2008.

This is the worst hotel ever.

Internet access cost an extra $10 dollars and did not even work in my room or either of my brother's room.

Although the managers were nice, the other staff was overworked and incapable of operating their own hotel software or getting any internet connectivity problems fixed.

There are mice in the building. A mice ran away from me as I walked to my room and crawled under someone elses door.

The $20 dollar breakfast is no where near as good as what you would get in town for that money.

The TV remotes barely worked in either of our rooms.

There were stains all over the hotel room carpets and no ventilation fans in the bathrooms, an obvious example of selective building code enforcement.

For $200 - $289 per night, it was not worth it at all.