Review of Park Hyatt Sanya Sunny Bay

My first trip to Sanya was a pleasant surprise. Although touted to be the Hawaii of China, it also has a bad reputation of it being too touristy and full of misbehaving Chinese tourists. I guess I was lucky to have chosen a beautiful luxe hotel to stay at that made it an almost perfect weekend getaway.

Park Hyatt Sanya in Sunny Bay is about an hour from the airport. A easy taxi ride of about ¥150 will take you there, or if you want to go baller you can get the Mercedes transfer from the hotel. Once you arrive, the friendly staff will take care of your luggage and you can enjoy the facilities before you check in. We arrived on the morning flight from Hong Kong and had a delightful time in the beautifully furnished Tea House which serves decent Chinese food in a beautiful courtyard setting.

The wide selection of teas

Appetisers

These mango prawns were doused too much in sauce. Else it would have been perfect

Black pig char siew.

This chilli sauce is DA BOMB. Looks harmless but so so hot!

After our fulfilling lunch and many cuppas chinese tea, we decided to take a walk around the premises. The place is huge. Huge is an understatement. To walk from the restaurant to the lobby and the lobby to the pool, you could get lost in the amazingly big but gorgeous interior. Belgian architect Jean-Michel Gathy made fabulous use of the massive interiors such that even though the hotel was full capacity, you never feel it. Only exception was at breakfast time though, because although it’s big, the crowd was bigger.

I was so impressed by the beautiful high ceilings, long corridors, carefully placed staircases, huge spaces with just couch and tables, just because they can. Every space you walk into and everywhere you turn, it just looks beautiful. The space is so so huge that it probably takes a dozen people just to clean 1 corridor. Corridors are necessary here because the space is made up of 6 buildings that are connected by the corridors, or you can walk along the beach and outdoor areas.

One of our favourite places to hang out in was the Library. The library serves authentic afternoon tea – think warm scones with cream, and pre-dinner snacks in an inviting and cosy setting. Try the Sichuan chicken wings because it’s yummy! We were very impressed with the attentiveness of the staff.

Sichuan chicken wings. Yum!

One of the drawbacks of Park Hyatt is that many of the staff do not speak English. But the ones that do speak it pretty well and they really go out of their way to remember that you ordered the skim milk cappuccino and also the warm churros with cinnamon sugar with it. We left our wallet at the breakfast table and when we realised it 2 hours later and went back to the venue, the staff remember us and said she kept it for us. That’s how sweet they are.

Park Hyatt has many activities that you can do. Pottery, scuba diving, swimming, yoga and also the spa. The spa boasts private rooms, a sauna, a jacuzzi pool that faces a giant lake and a fully equipped gym. The main pool is a massive lap pool and the indoor pool area has couple hot tubs! Perfect!

The hot tubs

Massive lap pool

If you just love staying in, the rooms are large, luxurious and spacious and I love the walk-in wardrobes and the rain bath. The bed lulled me easily to sleep and it’s soundproof.

Park Hyatt Sunny Bay is a little far from the main touristy stretch which is good and bad idea depending on what you like. We had seafood dinner at Bai Hua Ge which is about a ¥30 taxi ride away. If you don’t like crowds, then choose to stay in the hotel as it has enough things to do.

Almost perfect weekend getaway is possibly the most value for money Hyatt hotels around the region. I said almost perfect because it was only sunny on our third and last day, and the Park Hyatt Sanya Sunny Bay is the perfect place to stay in and do nothing.