Fall/December of 2023 or early 2024 in Hyatt hotel in Athens

Anyone going to Hyatt hotel in Athens next year?

At around 6 minutes of this vid, you can see Hyatt Hotel's indoor pool (I know the thumbnail shows an outdoor one but the one you'll probably want to use is the indoor one in the colder months). Somehow the vid doesn't quite capture how nice an ambience it has when you actually walk inside it, it looks way bigger and nice in real life



Its indoor pool is absolutely amazing for training, I finally went inside once and realized how nice Hyatt hotel is overall

1. So easy to stretch in the water, you just put your leg against the floor of the pool and the rest of your body is held up by the water

2. Its just the right depth to walk all the way down the full length pool for training, don't need to mess with crutches in the water

3. Better than Novotel's pool (novotel's pool is extremely shallow, outdoors, cold in colder months, filled with splashing children, very small, can't get their by elevator- has some steps you have to go up)

4. Great temperature throughout the whole indoor pool/spa area in Hyatt, gentle relaxing music and light ambience

5. Has a great gym nearby with a great seated bike

6. Jacuzzi and sauna

7. Really nice bed/seat areas around the pool to sleep and relax

8. Hyatt's breakfast buffet >>> Montaza's breakfast buffet

Overall I think of the three hotel choices (montaza, hyatt, novotel) that hyatt is probably the best experience and best for training overall, especially during the colder months. Definitely do it if you have the money/credit card points, etc. I might get the hyatt credit card to help cover some of the cost with points. Pretty sure I'll go there for internal tibias next year, sort of wish I went there for my first surgery in Athens.

I saw an internal tibia patient walk down the length of the pool in the water for training. With a non weight-bearing nail like precise that he used, I just don't think there is a way to practice walking so early and for so long in any other way except in the pool and the antigravity treadmill at physio. They generally only let internal tibia precise patients use the walker for walking short distances

So other things I noticed from the Hyatt indoor pool (which is warm enough to use right now in December compared to Novotel's colder outdoor pool):

Certain other exercises are also easy and fun to do in the water compared to outside the water.

Ex:

- standing up, raise your leg forward (this is much harder to do outside the water, I personally can't do this to any significant height 3 months after the surgery)

- moving the muscles associated with closing your legs (just using the water as resistance)

- moving the muscles associated with spreading your legs  (just using the water as resistance)

I'm still curious what are some good exercises for restoring the glute muscles (people lose alot of their ass)

I heard from a Betz (different doctor I know) patient that he has some patients do the last two exercises with machines on lowest resistance to help a bit with those muscles / with their range of motion. I've seen some people use an elastic exercise band for the third one above after they finished lengthening.

I'll be finishing lengthening next week and something I've noticed is my muscles for all of the things above have weakened alot and I can't walk normally without crutches at all. In particular, without crutches, when I try to take a step forward that isn't tiny, it feels like my leg is very heavy and I can't really move a leg (I mean one that starts back behind me) that far forward at all. I can't take a normal step length yet without crutches-- without crutches I'm still walking like a penguin except my steps are even smaller than I thought they'd be.

I think that hyatt's gym might have some good machines to use too, I'm starting to think about this more now that I'm almost done lengthening femurs. Planning to go to Hyatt for tibias next year

This video below is not the hyatt pool, but someone shared some really great info for how to recover faster using the pool

This vid below has alot of great info for exercises to do in the pool (sideways walking, one leg balance in the water, backwards walking) and Dr. Donghoon Lee's ( I know he is not in Athens) rationale for these exercises:

Hyatt I feel is significantly better in the colder months October-March because it has an indoor pool to train in. I visited each of the three and Hyatt is definitely the nicest/most luxurious, has a better pool than Novotel that is indoors, has a nice indoor jacuzzi, sauna

I sort of wonder how much of the Hyatt stay can be covered with credit card points alone. I know that some other patients used credit card points to cover alot of their stay

https://world.hyatt.com/content/gp/en/rewards/hyatt-credit-card.html

I can't get the Hyatt hotel card right now because the card is partnered with Chase and they have a rule that you can't have more than 5 new credit cards within 24 months (so I have to wait a bit, I grabbed a few other small credit card signup bonuses with those).

Looks like the Hyatt credit card has a 60000 point signup bonus. Google says each point is worth about 2.8 cents per point. So about 60000*2.8/100 = 1680 USD worth of the cost can be covered with the signup bonus. Also you get a free night after each year anniversary of owning the card which more than cancels out the annual fee.

"Already a Cardmember? Refer a friend and you can earn up to 25,000 Bonus Points per year for friends who get the card. Invite now."

I can't get the card now or participate--but if you guys refer each other, you can sort of all mutually get 25000*2.8/100= about 700 more USD towards the cost covered with points.

And then lets see, it looks it says you get 9 points per dollar spent on Hyatt hotels (5 of those from being a World of Hyatt member but I don't believe there is an annual fee or any difficult application for that), and if each point is about 2.8 cents its like.. 0.09*2.8= 0.252 or about 25% percent off the cost of the Hyatt hotel (each week you pay helps alot to pay for the next week). Which makes it more comparable to Novotel's price

"9 points total per $1 spent for Hyatt stays and experiences including restaurants and spas. That's:

4 Bonus Points per $1 you spend with your card**
5 Base Points per $1 you can earn as a World of Hyatt member
 

2 Bonus Points per $1 spent for getting around with local transit and commuting**

 

2 Bonus Points per $1 spent for dining out at restaurants, cafes and coffee shops**


2 Bonus Points per $1 spent for taking off with flights purchased directly from the airline**

 

2 Bonus Points per $1 spent for staying healthy with fitness club and gym memberships**

 
1 Bonus Point per $1 spent for wherever life takes you**"

I mean these are better bonus point multipliers than they look because if google says that each Hyatt point is worth about 2.8 cents, actually these multipliers are like double than what they look like

So it feels like depending on what you do, you can cover like 2000-4000 USD of the cost with Hyatt hotel credit card points.

At least in the USA, its also a good idea to get the charles schwab debit card because you'll need to get physical cash from the hospital ATM in Athens (ex: we pay for the Dr. Giotikas's arranged travel by cash now) and charles schwab will reimburse you for the ATM fees

I regret not getting the Hyatt credit card. Around the time, I got a different credit card that is not nearly as good (smaller bonus, worse point multipliers)

If you have any extra Hyatt credit card points after you finish, you can use them when you come back to Athens to do nail removal (say if you do gnail, Dr. Giotikas has a good price for nail removal, I believe he is significantly cheaper than Dr. Jean-March Guichet for nail removal)

I just found out today that Hyatt swimming pool is now selling a monthly pass for 200 euros per month (at the moment) so I'm thinking about that as an option.

I didn't know about it until this morning, it seems to be new

Novotel's rooms are better than Montaza's I think if you're not using gnail. The issue with Montaza rooms is that for the non-handicap rooms, I can't fit the wheelchair into the bathroom. Montaza does have some handicap rooms but they are close to the loud club music.

So one option seems to be this, especially if you don't have gnail:

- stay at Novotel for the ability to get the wheelchair into the bathroom even in the non-handicap rooms

- warm weather months -> can just use Novotel's outdoor swimming pool (might need to ask the staff to help you get up the stairs, it does not have elevator access)

- colder months -> if people want to use an indoor swimming pool, they can carpool to share taxi costs and go to an indoor swimming pool

I'm weighing that in my head versus just staying at Hyatt for internal tibias, in which case I can just use the elevator to use the swimming pool each day. I am trying to weigh the value of the ability to walk and stretch calves in the swimming pool even with a non weight bearing nail like precise tibias. I am having difficulty in my mind deciding.