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| - Just who gives these hotels their star ratings? Four stars...for what? Constant nickel-and-diming (Or should I say five-and-tenning)?
We pulled up to the hotel and were stunned to discover we had to pay $30 a night for valet parking. When I asked if there was somewhere else I could park, I was told that valet was our only option. So on top of paying $250 a night for this place, we now have to shell out $60 to park our car here for the weekend? We were already getting in later than we'd wanted and were tired, so we just decided to suck it up and pay the money. However, I had no small bills on me to tip, so I explained this to the valet and said we'd be back down to take care of him after we checked in.
Then, as we were checking in, the valet approached us in the lobby. He was friendly enough, but obviously had come in after us looking for the aforementioned promised tip. My boyfriend got change from the concierge and handed $5 to the valet, who looked disappointed.
This hotel has no pool. When we asked, we were told, "Oh, we can't have a pool because of the age of the building." But when I booked the room on hotels.com, it listed a pool as one of the amenities. Apparently it DID have one, but when they renovated recently they took it out.
Okay, so. We shelled out $500 for the room, $60 to park (plus 5 bucks every time we needed to leave or come back), and we're thinking it's all going to be worth it once we're in our beautiful room. We prepared to be dazzled, but what we found was no more impressive than the 3-star place we stayed at in another city the previous weekend. And THAT place had a pool - and a free parking lot.
We were hungry but didn't want to eat in the hotel, so we decided we'd head out and see what we could find around the hotel. We were in the middle of downtown and had in fact chosen the Westin based on its proximity to some of the attractions we'd planned to see (Rock Hall of Fame, Science Center, etc) and had been given the impression that this was a hot location all-around. I got out my laptop to see what I could find in terms of a good restaurant and discovered that they charge $12.95 a day for wifi. WTF. So now I'm going to get slapped with $26 to use the freakin' wireless for the weekend? At this point we're up to $86 in surcharges. Then we set out to get dinner and found that pretty much everything closed at 9:00. On a Friday night. Great location, indeed.
Silly me. I figured for what we paid for this room (and this was a discounted rate through a travel site, no less), that we would be treated to some nice amenities like...free wifi perhaps. But...no. Who charges more than a couple bucks for wifi these days, if at all?!
While I wouldn't call this a "terrible" experience, it was definitely disappointing. I'm not sure if my expectations were too high for a four-star hotel or what, but there are plenty of other places in Cleveland I can stay for the same amount of money or less and get more. We had a club level room, so we had access to "free" breakfast and cocktails, but that was pretty much it. Do yourself a favor and stay elsewhere. You'll get more for your money - and spend less of it, too.
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