One of the most exciting hotel openings of the last year was the late 2024 opening of the ski-friendly Grand Hyatt Deer Valley.
The hotel is a cornerstone of the Deer Valley ski resort’s East Village multiyear expansion project, which will more than double the resort’s skiable terrain and is said to be the largest development of a U.S. ski village in the last 40 years.
The Grand Hyatt, currently the only permanent building in the East Village at the time of publishing this article (everything else is under construction), offers 436 accommodations — including 55 residences — in addition to the more standard hotel rooms and suites.
While we expect the experience at the hotel to evolve as it gets its “ski legs” and the new East Village is built around it, here’s a first look at what to expect at the new Grand Hyatt Deer Valley if you are considering a trip in the near future.
Related: These are the best ski hotels you can book with points
What does it cost to stay at the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley?
Rooms at the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley start at $799 plus taxes and fees this season when spending cash, or they can be booked as Category 6 Hyatt for 21,000 to 29,000 World of Hyatt points per night. Here are some of the top ways to earn more World of Hyatt points, including credit cards such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card that allow you to transfer points into Hyatt instantly at a 1:1 ratio.
Location of Grand Hyatt Deer Valley
Right now, you can’t miss the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley as it stands proudly (and, for now, alone) at the new East Village base. Eventually, it will be joined by other hotels, such as the recently announced Four Seasons Deer Valley, restaurants, shops, ski facilities, an ice skating rink and more.
But for this ski season, the Grand Hyatt is the sole inhabitable structure located directly across a street from Deer Valley’s new ski lifts.
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This includes the recently opened Keetley Express lift that serves to essentially connect the new East Village to the rest of the mountain. From the top of that lift, you can take the Sultan Express lift and head over to the main area of the ski resort.
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This means the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley is not technically “ski-in, ski-out” in the way that the Park Hyatt Beaver Creek is. You will need to either walk about 100 yards up a slight hill and carry your skis across the street (though you can store them there after your first day) or take a one- to two-minute open-air shuttle that operates in a continuous loop between the new lifts, the day skier parking lot and the Grand Hyatt.
Note that some shuttles are full from the Deer Valley parking lot day guests before they get to the Hyatt, so you may have to wait a bit during peak times.
The hotel is still plenty close and convenient to the lifts for most skiers. The one exception, at the moment, is that it’s not very convenient to get from the Grand Hyatt to the Deer Valley Snow Park base. This is really important if you need to get kids to ski school there and otherwise aren’t able to ski the runs required to get there by traversing across the mountains, which I’d personally call advanced green to easy blue runs.
Related: The right and wrong age for kids to start skiing
There is currently no direct shuttle provided from the hotel to the Snow Park base (though you can take a hotel shuttle to transfer to a different bus), so the easiest way to get there is by rental car or Uber. Without much traffic, it’s about a 20-minute drive, but with traffic, it can stretch an hour or more during peak times, which is what we experienced on New Year’s Day.
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Inside Grand Hyatt Deer Valley rooms
The more standard types of rooms at the Grand Hyatt range in size from 340 to 430 square feet and come with a king bed, two double beds or two queen beds, so you do have the luxury of choice when selecting the room type that is best for your trip.
For our trip, we had two connecting rooms. The first had a king bed and the second had two queen beds — both bookable on World of Hyatt points.
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I really liked the modern design aesthetic of the rooms, which utilized lots of blues, greys, whites and gold, with a nod to many of the naturally occurring colors found outside in the winter paradise that awaits right across the street. There was also a smattering of mountain-inspired art. Note that some rooms offer views of the actual mountains.
The rooms also had 55-inch TVs, large closets, cozy robes, fluffy bath towels, Nespresso coffee makers and a beverage fridge.
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Grand Hyatt Deer Valley amenities
Ski services
The main draw of this hotel is likely to be its ski-friendly location, which, again, puts it just across the street from the new East Village lifts.
To that end, the hotel has a partnership with Ski Butlers, a company that will fit you for ski gear and set it out for you each morning right there at the hotel. They are fantastic and were even able to help last minute when my skis were delayed in arriving due to some airline baggage complications.
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There are also ski lockers on the hotel’s ground level where you can store your gear, which makes getting ready to ski easier in the morning.
It’s worth mentioning that Deer Valley Ski Resort offers complimentary overnight storage for your gear right at the different mountain bases if that feels more convenient for you after your first ski day.
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In terms of shuttles, beyond the short open-air tram to the East Village base, the hotel offers a fairly regular shuttle to the Jordenelle Gondola, which is usually less than 10 minutes away, depending on traffic.
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There’s also a shuttle to Park City’s Main Street that runs on a schedule from 7 a.m.-8 p.m. during the ski season (and from 11 a.m. outside of ski season). From there, you can transfer to another free bus to the Snow Park base. Frankly, if you are going with kids to ski school, I would not choose to utilize a bus transfer in the morning due to the strict schedule.
If you need to pick up your Deer Valley tickets or perhaps some new merchandise, there is a Deer Valley Helly Hansen shop in the hotel.
Pool and hot tubs
The Grand Hyatt Deer Valley has a gorgeous outdoor pool deck with views for days, fire pits, a heated pool and three hot tubs.
While this is a popular area in the after-ski hours, during our visit, there were enough hot tubs for everyone to spread out, so it didn’t feel too crowded and was a true treat to look forward to.
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That said, on colder evenings, do keep an eye out for ice, as we did encounter slippery ice on both the steps into the hot tub and the metal railing.
Gym
The hotel’s bright, airy, well-stocked gym was in use every time I peeked in during our four-night stay. It is stocked with Pelotons, treadmills, weights and more.
Nexus game lounge
A really cool feature of the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley is its Nexus game lounge, which has a little something for everyone. There are vintage arcade games, such as Ms. Pac-Man, along with modern-day PS5 and Xbox gaming systems, air hockey, ping pong and old-fashioned board games.
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The lounge was a great place to have fun and for kids to hang out, open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Grand Hyatt Deer Valley restaurants and bars
Remington Hall
The Grand Hyatt Deer Valley’s main restaurant is Remington Hall, a “rustic American” restaurant open for breakfast and dinner. For breakfast, there’s a buffet — don’t skip the omelet station — along with menu choices such as avocado toast, yogurt parfait, lobster omelet and ricotta pancakes. The buffet was provided as the complimentary Hyatt Globalist breakfast benefit during our stay, though that seemed to be a temporary solution while the Grand Club wasn’t quite able to keep up with demand.
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For dinner at Remington Hall, you’ll find items like a kale salad ($16) with optional protein additions, bone-in pork chops ($46), a porterhouse ($150), tuna poke ($22) and more. I recommend making advance reservations for dinner as it does book out on busy nights.
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The Lounge at Remington Hall
Open for lunch and dinner, The Lounge is a more casual dining option than Remington Hall. You often don’t need reservations here. On the menu, you’ll find crab dip ($18), a crispy chicken sandwich ($22), a dry-aged burger ($28), steak frites ($44) and more. There is a bar at The Lounge in case you want to just pop in for a drink. As this is Utah, I was told at one of the booths you could only have one drink without also ordering food.
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Hidden Ace
Open in the evenings, from Tuesday-Saturday, is the hotel’s own speakeasy, Hidden Ace. You can make reservations or just pop in for drinks (their specialties are whiskey-inspired drinks), live music and a food menu that includes options such as a shareable pretzel ($17), fondue ($18), Texas chili-cheese nachos ($15) and an artisanal hot dog ($17).
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Living Room
A unique offering of the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley is the $18 hot chocolate service each afternoon in the Living Room. This isn’t hot chocolate as you may think of from Starbucks, but it is best thought of as an actual experience that includes … melted, drinkable chocolate that is hot, as well as a selection of dessert pastries. You have to book this experience in advance, and it’s only available from 2:30-4 p.m. each day.
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Double Blacks
The hotel’s coffee shop, Double Blacks, is open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. It serves coffee-related drinks and a limited number of food options, such as pastries, breakfast sandwiches, truffle mac-and-cheese and hot dogs.
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Grand Hyatt Deer Valley Club Lounge
For those with access via Hyatt Globalist status, their room rate or a club lounge certificate, there’s a Grand Club located on the hotel’s fifth floor. Here, you can enjoy snacks and drinks at various points during the day.
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The Grand Hyatt Deer Valley Club Lounge is one of the elements of the hotel that was clearly having some “new opening” pains at times, as sometimes it had fantastic evening spreads such as salmon, chicken wings, polenta, meatballs and more. But frequently, there were zero drinks in the lounge other than ice water. During the day, the available snacks were often limited to chips or “hidden” candy bars that you had to know to ask for. Hopefully, this will evolve over time to be a bit more consistent.
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I was told they ran out of supplies faster than expected in the lounge, which could certainly happen during a peak week at a new hotel, but this went on for all four days of our trip. During that amount of time, I presume someone could have done a Walmart or Costco run for canned or bottled drinks, at a minimum, if they wanted to solve that problem quickly until another larger shipment could come in.
This club lounge has excellent potential and, at times, had fantastic appetizers on offer and had a friendly staff, but it was inconsistently, and sometimes inadequately, stocked for the volume of people at the hotel. Also, note that the lounge does not plan to offer or allow alcohol due to Utah’s related regulations.
What I loved about Grand Hyatt Deer Valley
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- The Grand Hyatt Deer Valley is a beautiful new hotel that was enjoyable to hang out in, whether that was by the fireplace in the lobby, with the kids in the game room or in the hot tubs each evening.
- It’s located right across the road from a fantastic ski mountain. As long as you don’t need to get to ski school and have a group that can ski some harder green runs, you can start your ski day about 100 yards from the mountain.
- Using World of Hyatt points is a great value, especially during ski season. Staying that close to the mountain at a new hotel for just 21,000-29,000 Hyatt points is an excellent opportunity.
- While there are some inconsistencies/works in progress with how breakfast and the club lounge work, this is still a valuable place to make use of Hyatt Globalist benefits, especially when staying on points. With Globalist status, we had daily breakfast for free, access to snacks in the club lounge, had our valet parking fees waived due to being Globalist and staying on Hyatt points, and of course, didn’t pay resort fees on the stay as we were on points (which applies to all guests staying on Hyatt points).
What to consider before staying at the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley this year
- While some new skiable terrain is now open, the development of Deer Valley’s East Village will take many years before completion. In the meantime, there’s currently not much located in this area. You’re looking at a decent drive around the mountains if you want to get to the main base or to most other restaurants or activities, as the hotel is currently relatively isolated on its own.
- As is common with new hotels, the service is still somewhat spotty and, at times, the staff appeared overwhelmed. There were mornings when coffee (and even coffee mugs) ran out in the restaurant, where one server was trying to take care of most of the tables to the point where it was hard to even pay and you needed to pour your own drinks. The valet was so backed up that it took more than 30 minutes to get the car to drive to ski school (self-parking wasn’t an option).
- The exact procedures, offerings and rules in some of the restaurants, the club lounges, and so forth, varied a bit from day to day as the hotel ironed out the new opening kinks and learned in real time about the necessary staffing and supply needs. If you need a hotel to be 100% ready to enjoy your trip, you may be frustrated by some of the inconsistencies in offerings and service at this point in the season.
- Until a ski school opens eventually in the East Village in a future year, staying here is not very convenient if you have skiers who need to get to ski school each morning. This is especially true if they aren’t yet at a level that they could ski there safely. If the hotel introduced an included nonstop shuttle to ski school, it would greatly help this issue, but getting there by vehicle still requires at least 30 extra minutes each morning to get to the Snow Park base, longer if you took the current shuttle to a bus transfer.
Bottom line
The Grand Hyatt Deer Valley has a ton of potential for those who enjoy higher-end, convenient ski vacations — especially at hotels that allow you to book on points.
Once the East Village is built out and is a destination unto itself, it will likely be easy to stay here and have everything you need right at your fingertips. But, as it stands now, this is just one of the first pieces to come into place for the expanded area, so you need to check in knowing that there’s not yet very much located in the immediate vicinity.
However, with the Keetley Express now open, you can upload the mountain from this area, which is a huge step into Deer Valley’s future.
The hotel is still working out some service kinks and offerings, but the staff we met were largely very friendly and doing all they could to help us have a great ski trip. Combine that with the location that will only improve with time, the lovely new rooms and the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley has some key ingredients to grow into being a great ski-friendly hotel in the coming years.
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