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| - If you are reading these reviews, you have probably already noticed that they are lopsided...almost schizophrenic in nature. I think I have figured out why. This jeckyl-and-hyde hotel has two different faces. From Monday to Friday morning, it wears a business face. The hotel is quiet and friendly and everything works well. Lines for breakfast and other amenities (like the pool) are short and everything is pleasant.
However, from Friday night to Sunday night, it's a madhouse.
So- reviewers who stayed here only during the week probably found it to be just fine. Reviewers who stayed on a weekend were probably shocked at the noise and activity.
If you like a party atmosphere, you will enjoy this hotel on the weekends. As a business traveler, you will be horrified.
How did I come to possess this knowledge? Well, I stayed in this hotel for 10 days, from a Friday to a Monday, including two full weekends. I saw this all first-hand.
The first weekend I was there, two large tour buses full of kids pulled up and emptied out in the parking lot. I'm not sure if their parents came later in cars or what, but the whole hotel was full of kids who were playing travel sports, and their parents. I expected the kids to make noise, but what surprised me were the trashy parents who hung around outside their rooms drinking, yelling, making noise, playing their TVs way too loud, and not controlling their kids AT ALL.
The 2nd weekend I was there, a US Marines formal ball was taking place in the hotel, as well as a large birthday party. I saw signs for a wedding too, but I never saw the wedding itself. All of these weekend activities were loud.
The hotel is set up in a 'courtyard' type arrangement which is a huge square with rooms in the walls of the square. The center is empty except at the ground level, where it makes up the ballroom and part of the dining room when necessary. Unfortunately, I think the courtyard type setup amplifies the noise problems in this hotel.
So that's the bad news. Here's some good news:
One neat feature is the glass elevators allow you a view of the whole courtyard while you go up and down. Also, even though there are only three elevators for this very large hotel, they move quickly and I never had to wait very long for an elevator.
For me, the bright spot in this hotel was the staff. The man who checked me in (Damien) was extremely nice and very helpful. He even encouraged me to come back down to see him a few days later, to get switched into one of their updated rooms. That room was on the 7th floor (the hotel has 8 floors) so being that high up did help with the noise a little.
The staff DOES try to keep the noise down starting at 11PM. I actually witnessed very clearly an altercation between the hotel staff and some of my 'neighbors' from the kids travel hockey team. The hotel staff was trying to nicely remind this redneck family that their kids need to be in the room after 11PM instead of running around yelling in the hallways. The trashy, drunken father responded by suggesting that they hassle someone else and tried to make the case that his kids were not running around outside the room past 11 (which they clearly were). I was impressed with the restraint the hotel staff showed some of these people. On the other hand, if you need to get to sleep by 9 or 10 PM for whatever reason, you're screwed- there's no way you're getting peace and quiet before 11PM here.
The bulk of the breakfast is low quality chafing table fare (still better than Holiday Inn though) but the bright spot was the made-to-order omelette station. This is inside the restaurant area during the week, but they set it up in the courtyard area during the weekends due to increased demands.
Pro tip: Go early to breakfast and you'll bypass the rush.
Another Pro Tip: They give you a little flyer when you check in that tells you what time breakfast and the manager's reception is. Read this, it will also tell you what the busiest and emptiest times are for breakfast!
The manager's reception is nice in that the bar is NOT stingy with the drinks! Considering that it's free booze, I was surprised to see them happily pouring away and bringing drinks out to the tables. Most places that do this just have self-serve keg of crappy Bud Lite in the corner. On the down side, the snacks at the reception were not very good or varied. They had chips and salsa, and a nut/pretzel mix. I was hoping to skip eating dinner out one night and went to the reception, but the snack mix didn't cut it as dinner for me.
The rooms are big, and they all seem to be 2-room suites. There is a sink in the bathroom and a sink outside the bathroom (in a small wet-bar type area) so one person can be brushing their teeth or making coffee in the morning while another is in the bathroom or shower, which is handy when you're traveling as a family. The living room has a pullout couch which is good for kids.
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