Introduction/Trip PlanningKnowing my wife and I would both be off for
July 4th
, we were hoping to go away on a short trip. We hadn't been to DEN in a while, so it would have been nice to go there for Shabbos, but with my wife having school on Friday, making it for Shabbos was just not possible. Instead, we figured we'd go somewhere after Shabbos for 2 days. We were in the mood for a swimming getaway, but weren't in the mood to deal with flights for the short trip. Having recently put together a
list of Hyatt properties in the continental US with nice pools, we picked the one that didn't require a flight from NY and got ready for our trip to the
Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay in Cambridge, MD! I booked it at 20K Hyatt/night for 2 nights. Strangely, I had a harder time getting in touch with a manager at this Hyatt than at any other Hyatt I've tried before. The front desk would only offer early checkin and an upgraded room upon availability, and I couldn't get an email for any manager to actually confirm something in advance. I also didn't expect them to get Kosher Diamond breakfast for us since we were an hour away from Baltimore, the closest Jewish community, so without any "special requests" confirmed in advance, our trip planning was done.
On the RoadWe left Sunday morning, and the drive took about 4 hours including a stop for gas. We ended up using about 1.25 tanks for the roundtrip, but with the low gas prices these days, that only meant about $25 of gas. I particularly enjoyed how the trip only had one "long" segment on the GPS as opposed to other drives I've done - like CLE, PIT - where you'll see stretches of 150+ miles before the next "turn". We considered stopping somewhere like Cherry Hill, NJ or Philly for lunch at a restaurant, but anything I found would require a 30 minute detour, and it was still well before lunch time when we passed by those areas, so sandwiches in the car it was.
Checking InWe pulled up to the hotel before 2PM, unloaded the car and then drove to the free self-parking out back instead of doing valet. Boy, is this property HUGE! From a private/gated entrance to the long twisting road and wooden bridges you cross before pulling up, you really get a feel for just how vast the resort is.
The hotel and grounds are beautiful, giving off a warm, lodge feel.
Lobby, courtesy of Google imagesWe were upgraded to a water view room and checking in early was not a problem at all. The room, as well as the entire hotel, is kept up very well with no wear and tear showing. The staff was also very friendly, always greeting us with a hello, similar to the extremely-friendly staff at the Grand Hyatt Kauai. The room had a nice feel to it with a pretty view.
I guess you'd call this a porch
Despite being cloudy, the view of the marina and golf course (on the left) from the room was greatExploring the ResortWe then walked around to check out the hotel and grounds. We first visited the
Regency Club on the 6th/top floor (were on the 4th), which had plenty of sodas, seltzers and juices whenever we wanted (except when we showed up around 10PM one night), along with afternoon snacks, none of which were packaged/Kosher.
Regency Club porch with views of the marina and golf courseWe passed by the pool tables and restaurant/bar, which is kinda out in the open and very nice, and then headed out back. As you can see from this view of the back of the hotel, the hotel looked almost like a house and just had so much more personality than the hotels we've seen in places like Miami or Eilat.
The hotel is
very kid- and family-friendly, with lifeguards at the pools (first time seeing that at a hotel), tons of pool toys to buy at the shack, and a chalkboard listing the hourly kids' activities that changed every day. While we were outside, there was a kids' hot dog eating contest going on.
Right next to the contest is a life-sized chess set with a fire pit that's set up at night for roasting marshmallows.
We then made our way to the first pool, which is the infinity pool where toys and games are off limits.
Just a few steps away is the do-whatever-you-want pool that has fountains shooting water and a waterslide. It was very clear that this was the kid/family pool as there were tons of kids in it and plenty of blow-up floating rafts and toys around.
Next to this pool is the outdoor hot tub, which is connected to the indoor hot tub. Surprisingly, these tubs weren't entirely packed.
The indoor hot tub is right next to the large, heated indoor pool. As expected due to its warm water, this pool was jam packed almost the entire time (with kids), except for when they kicked everyone out for maintenance, which is when I snapped a pic.
At night, they have a swim-in kids' movie that they show on a large projector screen while you hang out in the pool. Pretty neat idea.
Inside they also have an activity room with ping pong tables and arcade games, as well as a gym. There is also a spa in the hotel, but we didn't check it out. We then continued on our tour where we found out that they had a free mini golf course!
Right next to the mini golf course is a sand volley ball court.
We headed towards the water and found the boat shack where we checked out the prices for rentals. They have a selection of paddle boats, kayaks and jet skis.
Right next to the shack is the "beach."
The water in the marina is not too clean and, as signs all along the path warn, full of jelly fish. It's not a great pic, but you can see one in the middle.
We continued to the end of the marina where we found the BBQ area that we were told was the only approved area for BBQing - our plan for dinners. We then headed back to change and actually
do some of these activities!
Swimming and GolfingI guess we lucked out in that the rain in the forecast never became more than a drizzle, but unfortunately, the weather was still in the low 70s and very cloudy on Sunday and Monday, so the outdoor pools were very cold. We first tried out the infinity pool and "try out" is all we did. After 5 minutes attempting to get used to the water and swimming around, we hopped out. Supposedly this pool is heated and the family pool isn't, so you can imagine that we barely dipped our toes into the freezing second pool. There were plenty of kids playing in that pool, so I guess kids don't really have a concept of cold water when they're having fun. The water temperature reminded us of the pool at the Hyatt Regency Maui, believe it or not. The actually heated indoor pool was crowded, so after a few minutes in the warm water, we got out and headed for the almost-empty hot tubs, which we soooo relaxing. After a bit, we said goodbye to the pools and went for our first round of mini golf. I happen to enjoy mini golf a lot, so I had a lot of fun playing.
BBQ Dinner Take OneAfter hanging out for a few hours, we headed out to the perfectly-located Walmart directly across the street from the hotel gates to pick up a few things for our bar-b-que. Mainly, we needed to figure out how to grill our food. Before the trip, I was debating whether to buy a portable grill, but I couldn't find a good deal on any, so I figured we'd use the grills at the hotel and just put foil pans on top of them while covering our food with tin foil to keep them warm. With that in mind, we picked up some charcoal, a lighter, and a few other food items (somehow Walmart trips always seem to take forever - this time courtesy of the cash register freezing while we were waiting on a long line) and headed back to the hotel to prep our food and walk the 7 minute or so walk to the BBQ pit hoping it would empty for us. Thankfully one of the grills was available, although there was a rowdy group of people hanging around the area, but I guess I can't say only negative things about them since they offered us some of their crab.
Our grilling situation was complicated as we couldn't close the grill cover without double covering our food, which would essentially make our food cooked, not grilled and yeah this is what it looked like:
Let's just say it took a really long time for our food to grill. Eventually, somehow, the chicken got cooked enough and we enjoyed our dinner. There is a firepit here as well that the marina store nearby will light if you request it by 5PM (when they close). It was lit by the time we got there as others were enjoying its warmth, so we enjoyed some roasted marshmallows along with our dinner. As we headed back to the hotel, we decided that we would definitely need a better solution for tomorrow night's dinner.
July 4th - Swimming, Gym and BoatingWhile some trips require waking up early to hit the road running (at the same time I wake up on a normal work day), it was really nice to wake up at a normal time, get ready slowly and hit the Regency Club for breakfast. In terms of Kosher food, they had plenty of fruit options as well as a few cereals, plus juices and hot chocolate. We then got ready to try out the pools again. Unfortunately, they were still cold, but we lasted a bit longer in the infinity pool this time. It was our first time in one, and it's really cool how it looks like there is no wall at the end of the pool. While in the water, it actually looks like the pool just extends all the way into the water of the marina. When the cold got to us, we headed back to the busy indoor pool and hot tubs. After a while, we went back to the room for lunch where we ate some sandwiches (with some drinks from the Club) while watching Shark Week. After lunch, we hit the gym for a run on the treadmill. The gym had a ton of equipment, the treadmills had TVs in them and there were only a few other people in there. Afterwards, it was time to check out the boats. We rented a paddle boat for 30 minutes for $20 (+$2 tax) and charged it to the room since we didn't have money on us. They have a wall a little ways out that sets the perimeter of the marina and how far you're allowed to go. It started raining while we were out there, but again, it was mostly a drizzle. From here, we could see the entire hotel.
Once back at shore, we saw a Blue Heron, which I've only heard of because of SomethingFishy and are apparently frequent in this area. With the help of iPhone Bursts, I was able to get shots of it taking off, although it seems that Bursts takes lower quality pictures.
BBQ Dinner Take TwoNow it was time to head back to Walmart and rethink our grilling situation. Aside from portable propane or charcoal grills, I had originally hoped to find one of those kits of a foil pan and metal grate cover for $5. I couldn't find one online or in a drugstore or even Walmart. I then thought about a propane one, but Walmart's selection was way more than the $20 I was told to expect to pay for one of them. They did have portable charcoal grills for about $13, but from my research, these types usually don't last very long. So instead, we made our own mini kit. We found disposable (no Toveling) metal sheets that had holes in them (a key ingredient we learned last night to be necessary in grilling as opposed to just putting things in a solid foil pain) as well as a very deep foil pan to hold the charcoal. Armed with our new stash, we were thankfully out of Walmart faster than yesterday and back at the BBQ area. Tonight, it was raining on us, and I smoothly forgot the umbrella in the room. Fortunately, there was only one other person grilling, who was actually vacationing with his family on his boat and made the Hyatt's marina their stop for the night. Sounds like a pretty cool adventure. With our new grill set up on the edge of the fire pit, we were extremely successful in actually grilling our food - and in so much less time than last night.
Success!With the rain still coming down, we ate in the covered gazebo nearby. The food was delish, especially the flavor-infused Jack's sausages we tried out for the first time. The fire pit was not lit tonight as we forgot to ask them, so we headed back to the hotel and stopped at the fire pit there for some marshmallow roasting. We had bought short sticks at Walmart, but we couldn't reach the fire, as it's set back a bit. Everyone else had these huge sticks, and we found out the hotel store sells smores kits. We went inside and the kind cashier gave us the long sticks for free (since we had our own marshmallows and didn't need to buy the whole smores kit) and back we were outside enjoying our marshmallows. Boy, there's nothing like a lightly-browned gooey marshmallow, eh?
The concierge had informed us of the best spots to drive to for the local fireworks, but with the weather, they were cancelled. So we headed to the pool table and played a few games before calling it a night.
The Sun Will Come Out TomorrowAfter another normal-hour wakeup and breakfast at the Regency Club, we packed up most of our stuff, arranged a late checkout of about 1PM and went outside to greet the so-much-nicer-than-yesterday weather! While the pools were by no means warm, we were able to get used to them and finally got to actually enjoy both outdoor pools. We also went to the gym again and then for some more mini golf before packing up and checking out. The drive back took about 4 hours again with a stop. We picked up some Dippin' Dots and snacks at a rest stop and reminisced about how hard it was to find Kosher snacks at a rest stop we found in Italy - ah, the conveniences of America.
A short, non-flying trip, but another great one nonetheless!
