Occupying a nine-story brick building that adjoins Firs Shopping Mall, this bustling way station is not as luxurious as some of its competitors, but it is popular with foreign business travelers and those who are partnering with them.
Entered either from a long corridor linking the hotel to the mall or from a small street entrance, the cavernous lobby makes a dramatic welcome with marble floors, red carpeting with black stripes, and a reception desk of inlaid wood backed by framed African art of white lines, circles and dots on black. Awash with natural light, the space is both dramatic and conservatively refined. The large lounge, which offers beverage and light meal service, spills out into a garden with a small freeform pool filled with colorful fish.
The lobby's garden-view Conservatory lounge and bar is a happening spot for coffee, formal afternoon tea, light snacks or evening tete a tetes. The chic Zafferano restaurant features fine dining that is less expensive than it looks. An innovative menu transports the zesty flavors of Italy down south with a tasty osso bucco or spicy lamb topped with ratatouille. A spacious circular bar has a 16-screen video setup on the wall, chess and backgammon, and wood and leather chairs from which to enjoy them.
A bridge with good views leads to the adjacent health club with a gym, saunas, steam rooms, whirlpools and secluded rooftop pool. The spa pampers with a bevy of aromatherapy treatments ranging from muscle-bending massages to pore-cleansing facials. Meeting rooms seat 280 theater-style, and the all-hours business center solves minor conundrums in a jiffy.
Guest rooms, which are decidedly smaller than those at the other top-end hotels in town, line hallways decked with black-and-white carpeting and arrayed with a range of contemporary African art from prints to fabric fish. The rooms themselves feature plenty of African inlaid-wood furnishings, electronic safes, subdued leopard-print carpet, large flat-screen TVs, high-speed Internet access (both wired and wireless for a fee), dual-line speakerphones with voice mail and data ports, coffeemakers, minibars, robes, slippers and lighted closets. Baths done in wood and black granite provide hair dryers, deep tubs, luxurious toiletries, thick towels and stall showers enclosed in glass.
The Regency Club fills the top two floors and has lots of wood in its rooms, 
bigger-screen TVs, Sony CD clock radios, good garden and golf-course exposures, and the usual perks. The ninth-floor lounge serves breakfast, all-day drinks and munchies, and a lavish evening spread. Butlers are available upon request for Regency guests, and the lounge offers free wireless Internet. Nonsmokers and disabled guests can request designated rooms. Room service is 24 hours a day.
The staff is friendly, though not as numerous or polished as the staff at the Westcliff, Grace or Saxon. The clientele, more corporate than leisure, includes quite a few diplomats. Bustling yet very cosmopolitan, the Park Hyatt provides high international business quality all around, with no surprises and a distinctly African influence.
