Hyatt Olive 8 Seattle Hotel review

When my sister and I decided to spend 36 hours in Seattle, the Hyatt Olive 8 Seattle was the obvious and best hotel choice. I’m a Hyatt fangirl through and through, but the hotel also checked all of my boxes.

It all started last week when I decided to tag along on my sister’s work trip to Michigan, mainly because I’m not doing much else these days and it was time to get out of the house for a while. After two nights in Troy, we were going to head to Chicago but the words “bad idea,” “frozen eyelashes” and “escape” were thrown around on Twitter. I decided it was probably best to avoid flying right into a blizzard. Instead, we opted for Seattle, since our Alaska flight back was supposed to stop there anyway.

Since my sister had her kids to get back to and I was supposed to be chaperoning my younger sister’s school trip that weekend, two nights was all we could manage. I’d heard great things about the Hyatt Olive 8, so I booked it using a combination of points and cash (not to be confused with Hyatt’s Points + Cash award, which wasn’t available).

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About the Hyatt Olive 8 Seattle

The Hyatt Olive 8 Seattle is a Category 5 Hyatt hotel that requires 17,000 to 23,000 points per night, depending on the season and demand. It’s a great property with a good location and amenities.

The Hyatt Olive 8 Seattle has 346 rooms, including 15 suites. I imagine suite upgrades might be hard to come by at this hotel, considering the limited options for an upgrade. Nevertheless, the hotel has very nice, clean and modern rooms.

Location

The Hyatt Olive 8 Seattle is located in downtown Seattle, on the corner of (you guessed it) Olive and 8th Street. The hotel is within walking distance of great restaurants and close to transportation.

Elite benefits

Hyatt Diamond members get complimentary room service breakfast at Hyatt Olive 8 Seattle. Based on availability, you might also score a room upgrade. Again, with the limited number of suites I wouldn’t count on getting anything more than a room on a higher floor with a better view.

But the room service breakfast is a pretty great feature because not many hotels offer it. That definitely gives this property an advantage.

Hyatt Olive 8 Seattle check-in experience

We arrived an hour later than anticipated, thanks to an excruciating tarmac delay in Detroit. After an Uber ride from the airport, we arrived at the Hyatt Olive 8 around 9 p.m. There was one person in line ahead of us. The concierge walked over, apologized for the wait, and said the agent would be with us shortly. We hadn’t waited long (15 seconds, tops), but it was a nice gesture.

The front desk agent noticed we had two different room types booked – a Deluxe Queen on the first night and a King on the second. She had assumed it to be a mistake, so she held the Queen room open for us on both nights. I was pretty grateful since I definitely didn’t want to switch rooms on such a short stay.

The Deluxe Queen room was on a lower floor (the 5th), so she wanted to make sure we were ok with it before making the change. She proceeded to prepare the keys and explain the Hyatt Diamond breakfast benefit: $26.50 credit per person, including room service orders.

Before heading up to the room, we asked her for restaurant recommendations and she suggested we check out Serious Pie or any other Tom Douglas restaurant.

Despite being about as common a name as John Smith, I could not for the life of me remember it throughout our stay (“What was that guy’s name again? Bob Douglas? Jim Thomas?”). It was a struggle.

Hyatt Olive 8 Seattle standard room

The pictures don’t do it justice, but our room at the Hyatt Olive 8 Seattle was very spacious. It had a view of the street, which looked exactly the same at all hours of the day, thanks to the overcast weather.

There was a building next to us, with a window facing ours at an angle. The lights were off and no one was ever there, so it didn’t feel intrusive at all.

The Hyatt Olive 8 is a LEED-certified hotel, which means it conforms to environmentally sustainable building standards. Great, I’m all for it, but let’s not take it out on the lightbulbs. Even with all the lights on, I was constantly squinting and using my phone as a flashlight while going through my bag.

One of the beds had a very noticeable dent in the middle. I was too tired to do anything about it and it ultimately didn’t affect my sleep.

The only thing that interrupted my sleep was the 6 a.m. wake-up call we got from a family staying in a room nearby. We couldn’t figure out if they were next door, upstairs, downstairs, or just infused into the walls. We heard them loud and clear; it wasn’t pleasant.

What I didn’t like about the Hyatt Olive 8

Some aspects of the room did feel slightly cheap. The power strip by the desk fell out of its frame when I tugged on it slightly to remove my charger. The bathtub was uneven and felt like it was going to cave under my weight. There were also just enough towels for one person, which I found odd.

This was a room with two beds and normally that means at least two people will be occupying it. Also, the walls were paper thin and I could very clearly hear people’s conversations in the hallway, along with the couple with the loud family disciplining their kids. I know, I shouldn’t be complaining about loud kids after my recent rant.

Hyatt Olive 8 Seattle breakfast

We ordered breakfast through room service. It was always good, though my sister thought the menu was limited (i.e., there were no waffles). On the first morning, I ordered the eggs benedict, which were decent except for the hollandaise sauce, which contained way too much lemon.

They must have gotten the recipe from the Hyatt Carmel Highlands. The seasoned potatoes were the highlight of breakfast, at least for me.

On the second morning, I ordered plain old scrambled eggs with pancakes, which were much better. Despite going over our breakfast allowance by $10 on the first morning, the entire bill was comped.

Final thoughts

Our stay in Seattle was very short, which is why I plan on coming back soon for a longer visit. I wouldn’t hesitate to stay at the Hyatt Olive 8 again. Everyone we encountered was friendly and the location was perfect.

The only thing I’d do differently is maybe to take an Amtrak train rather than fly. It’s a 2-hour flight and 4 1/2 hour train ride. With the amount of time involved in getting to the airport, it actually takes just as long to take the train.

Regardless of the transportation method you choose, the Hyatt Olive 8 was a bargain at 15,000 points per night. While it has since increased to 17,000+ points per night, it’s still a good deal.

Just be sure to compare cash rates to determine whether redeeming Arrival miles is a better option.