TomT

Greetings:

Stay one night 9/2/06, one night, two rooms, paid 138.22 all in and 159.89 all in (This included parking for nine days.)

Location: B.....Hotel is located about 4 miles from Logan. 10 min. by hotel van in AM and 15 min in pick up in afternoon. Van runs every 15 min.

Parking A ....Self, lots of room, if you use the "Stay/Park/Fly' package car is parked in lighted area and lots of room to park.

Check in A...All set when we came in, I had two rooms both were ready and next to each other. 250 point card offered, infomation on parking, sign up for van, wake up call....no problems , no waste of time.

Room: C+...Regular room, no upgrade, clean, fine for the night.

Club N/A...No Club

Food: B or more without eating. Two rest. One has been at this location for at least 20 years (This was a Howard Johnsons for years)The main rest. is a Japanese rest. that "locals" use and have heard was good.

Overall A...We will use again when leaving from Logan.

Remarks: I had signed up for a Stay./park/fly package and found it to worked real well. A slight problem that no points have been given for my room yet but, have contacted hotel and will add a report when I hear from them.

In all I think a great way to leave your car when flying out of Logan. The hotel staff seems to realize that you have other things on your mind and don't want any problems so they make it as sommoth as they can.

Our pick up time was about 15 MIn. from AA curb to my car . (You call them on your cell phone) Now thats nice!!

Enjoy.................

sbtinme

Tom --

thanks for your report. I've stayed here before and I'm a tad surprised by your overall rating of an A -- especially given your rating of the room as a C+ and the location a B. Seems to me that the room quality and the hotel location are 2 of the three MOST important components of my overall satisfaction (the third, of course, being rate booked).

From my perspective, this place gets a B- overall. And that's not a bad grade overall. I think this may be the only "AIRPORT" hotel location in North America that on a good day can take 15-20 minutes to get to from the hotel! Once it took me nearly a half hour from Logan to get to this "airport" hotel. I've always thought that was a major stretch for this place to be named an airport location.

Regardless, they do run an okay hotel and I found the top two new floors to be much nicer than the older rooms (all of which were previously Howard Johnson rooms and before that an independent).

BiziBB

Thank you for the update.
I agree the service is helpful and the hotel is well-run.
For the money, I think it is a good place for BOS visitors with their own rental car, who want to avoid driving in the city.

The shuttle to the airport (and the blue line trains) is useful for collection of a rental (if one is first touring the city, then the northeast).

I can add that the breakfast buffet is pretty good.
The carpark is huge, the gym is in pretty good nick and our room was relatively spacious, with a decent size bathroom for this kind of property.

The BOS airport Hilton was more disappointing for me at the time, but each place was appropriate - the 4pts as a good base with parking and quiet location, good for driving to and from, and the Hilton as a place to crash before a morning flight ^

TomT

Hi Sbtinme:

My "A "was based on the fact that i was looking for a room for a 7:00AM flight and a place to leave my car. It took the van 8 min to get to AA (5:30AM run)
My return was 15 Min from AAcurb to my car (2:30PM) Granted don't do it on a Friday at five!!!

All in all when I have no problems whatsoever and my check in is a 5Min one and my room is decent one.and the price is right and the location meets my expectations, I am a happy camper!

I just did almost the same thing in London last month, Sheraton to gate ,30 min by bus (Hopper) Room was a dog...had to ask for upgrade, had to ask for 500 point card, I was tired from a flight from IST....next AM bus took 15 min.....sooooooooo....they all can't be like Hong Kong and a walk to your airline.

regards...............

tommy777

I've had two stays at this property the last month and the only thing this place has going for itself is that it's cheap (89 dollars corporate rate). Other properties in the area are almost double the price.

Both my stays have been quick overnight stays, my main issue is the shuttle service.

First stay I waited 40 minutes. Today the shuttle arrived 55 minutes after I called the first time. After arriving at T C, I called and they said it would take 20 minutes. After 35 minutes I called, the message then was that it would take 5 more minutes. After 20 more minutes the shuttle finally arrived, I was just about to walk to the Hilton Shuttle that drove by for the 5th time ready to pay 80 bucks extra to stay there.

A driver with an attitude, not an excuse met me and the other 4 people waiting. He was cracking jokes in the shuttle and noone was interested in chatting with him. It's a 15 minute drive from the airport.

Checked in and was offered the 250 points and a bag of cookies. Rooms are normal 4P rooms, clean and ok. One bottle of water, very old and discolored TV screen. Bathrooms are clean. Walls are a little thin, internet is semi slow.

There's a Japanese hibachi place in the hotel that looks pretty good and very out of place. Didn't try it.

There's a Uno next door, tried it at my last stay. Good pizza and wings. There's also a Taco Bell and McDonald's a 2 minute walk away

Let's just say that this hotel is ok if you are paying around a 100 bucks, if not, forget it.

Will write the GM about the shuttle. Wouldn't care if it only happened once, but when it happened two times in the last month, it's not acceptable.

mahasamatman

You should be able to get either Cambridge property for around $130, sometimes less, so it's only a 50% premium for those.

tommy777

Thanks. It has been pretty expensive the two nights I have stayed in the last month, but of course I would recommend staying at those properties at the right price, they are not further away from the airport.

Do they offer a shuttle?

mahasamatman

I don't know. We used the T.

sbtinme

Wow -- this is very lame MASTER THREAD -- just a few posts over several years.

Oh well, just wanted to update my thoughts based on one night stay last night. As everyone knows, this is an ANCIENT hotel -- seriously, most of this place was built in the late 1950s or 1960s and operated as a family independent motor lodge before expanding and rebranding as a Howard Johnson sometime around 1979. So that gives you some idea of how old the bones of this hotel are.

Its age, of course, means that lots of things are quirky. The hotel sits in an unlikely location that probably wouldn't be considered today. Highly trafficked roads run on virtually all sides of this place and the surrounding area can be sketchy. If you don't know the area well, just getting into the hotel parking lot requires some skill due to the one way roads and the adjacent rotary. The age of the hotel also means that the lobby ceiling is very low by today's standards, making the place feel crowded and, when busy, very noisy.

Enough of the history lesson.

Bottom line, from my perspective, is this: this could be a crappy little hotel for all of the obvious reasons (odd location, not really that close to the airport, lousy neighborhood, etc), but the reality is that it's a solid Four Points Hotel. Which is to say, something along the lines of what you'd expect from a nicer Comfort Inn or a middle-of-the-road Holiday Inn. You're never gonna want to vacation here, but it's acceptable for what it is.

My room was in good order and clean. My greeting at the front desk was good and they recognized my PLAT status with a thank you and a pre-wrapped bundle of cookies. My rate included breakfast the next morning and the agent completely forgot to mention that or advise me about it. When I got to the room, I called down to inquire and was told to just order breakfast the next morning and the accounting department would take it off the bill. (Odd, and we'll see if that really happens.)

Now, the not so good: my bathroom was too dark. They're still using the old prismatic reflective lens over their bathroom sinks which was always a dark solution. With no light over the tub, and their BIZARRE CHOICE OF USING 1978-style VINYL SHOWER CURTAINS (which block about 94% of all light), taking a shower here is akin to doing so in a dimly lit catacomb -- no joke. It's a very real issue and one that should've been addressed long ago. They would be wise to trash the vinyl curtains tomorrow and switch to the far more friendly and translucent nylon ones. Good grief -- this should be a 4 Pts brand standard -- when's the last time you saw a heavy rubber-like vinyl shower curtain anywhere?!? Ugh.

The other issue I ran into here was their breakfast offering. I can't say it any other way than this: it was ***THE WORST*** breakfast lineup I've seen in nearly 25 years on the road -- and that's saying something, 'cause I've seen some lousy spreads. Yes, part of the issue is that their on site restaurant (the farmed out, and supposedly excellent Japanese Steakhouse) doesn't offer breakfast, so breakfast is served in a highly crappy and tiny lounge that sits off of the lobby in a very cramped, odd space. Clearly an afterthought. My rate included breakfast, so I went down for breakfast this morning. Ordered the hot breakfast buffet and was advised that the hot buffet is no longer offered and that they only have the cold buffet. (Um, this is midweek and the hotel was nearly sold out.) Whatever.

So, I ordered a black coffee and went up to survey the buffet. What a complete travesty. It was the worst combination I'd ever seen: virtually everything looked like Sam's Club frozen food bonanza -- super low end pastries and bagels. Only one fruit offering, which was chopped fruit that was at least a day old (post-chopped), so it was very soft and aging badly. No bananas, no other whole fruit. They had run out of yogurt. The only other thing on the buffet was boxed cereals and milk. That's it, folks, the sum total of the buffet breakfast spread. Their coffee decanters all said SEATTLES BEST COFFEE, but I'd bet $100 (maybe $1000) that what I was drinking this morning wasn't that brand. It tasted terrible and old.

[ This is one area where I really get frustrated with Starwood. I think that they've really let their food service standards slip unacceptably in the past decade. Marriott continues to maintain their food standards at sky-high levels across virtually all of their brands. That's why their restaurants are packed for breakfast. Their food is thoughtfully presented, high-quality and worth stopping for. I'd submit to Starwood that a careful reconsideration of their food standards at Four Points is in order. What I was offered today was in no way acceptable. ]


So, in sum, here's my bottom line: if the hotel swaps out their shower curtains and completely reworks their breakfast offering to guests, this place has a chance of being a solid Four Points. Those two components are completely broken, as far as I'm concerned. I think if the GM would spend a few nights in his hotel and eat in the restaurant for his breakfast, he'd surely agree. Changes need to be made.

Otherwise, I think it's fair to say that this hotel manages to do an okay job with most everything else I encountered.

owner1

I would agree with a lot of your points and living and working within a few miles of the hotel for many years I have stayed and booked many clients at this property.. Its funny that they call this an airport hotel and they actually used to advertise there deluxe rooms as suites... there really are not many decent options in that area: and your observation of the area is correct... I have to say I was always treated very well there and so were the people I booked there... Revere, Ma is not that great of a city and the food options are limited... I noticed that the Sheraton Ferncroft in Danvers Ma, which is about 8 miles north is no longer a Sheraton, so really the only other option is the Sheraton Colonial, Wakefield which actually came out pretty nice after there renovations...

sbtinme

You can certainly say that again! Prior to the extensive renovations at the Sheraton Colonial, I wouldn't have thought they could've pulled it off, but they proved me completely wrong!

They took a very tired, dated and somewhat broken hotel and sank big $$$s into it. It took them nearly a full year, but it really gleams now. They upgraded most of their staff and changed GMs. Everything's in great shape there now, if you need to be in the area. They have a number of junior suites, so upgrades are frequent. They also have a well run little 24 hour Club Lounge that offers drinks around the clock and a surprisingly good breakfast. Kudos to them!

Sam P. Goodman

I was there for a night about a year ago and breakfast wasn't great. The mouse running across the floor while we dined probably has something to do with it. When I mentioned this at the front desk at check out, the agent was pretty nonchalant about the whole thing. "Yeah, we know about that problem..."

The shuttle ride back to the airport was also less than stellar. The shuttle was full of cigarette smoke from the driver. Bad show for a "non-smoking property."

Kind of left a bad taste in our mouths. We only stayed there because we got into town late and it was cheaper than downtown. When we return to Boston, we'll pay the difference to be in town.

Flyer_70

I just stayed here last week, Pricelined for $60. Arrived in BOS at 1:15 am, it took awhile for the shuttle to arrive - 20 minutes, and about a 10 - 15 minute drive to the hotel. .

Was greeted cordially upon arrival and put on the 3rd floor. Upon entering the elevator I was hit with a wall of smoke. Arriving at my room, there was a very loud party going on across the smoke filled hall. I went into my room anyhow and it was quiet, but sorta smokey so I went back down to the lobby and they immediately assigned me a new room up on the 6th floor. Clerk was quite apologetic.

The room turned out to be just fine, albeit a bit of peeling wallpaper in the bathroom. Bed was very comfortable and I did have a good night sleep.

I did not check out the breakfast in the morning, so cannot comment there.

I'd give this hotel a C for location (bit of a drive from the airport), an A for the staff, and a big, fat F for the smoke management, if this is truly a non-smoking hotel. Perhaps it was just an off night - or perhaps they place the Priceline people on the party floor.

I would probably return if I got the priceline deal again (it was a MR so minimizing costs). If cost isn't so important, I will most likely stay elsewhere.

murphyUA

I'm actually a little surprised to see some of the positive comments about this property here. For me, it is the absolute worst SPG hotel I have been to (not a huge amount, but a good number to make a comparison). The one thing it really needs, is a renovation. However, not even that can help out with some of its other problems.

First off, I expect there to be a flat screen TV at every SPG property. I knew this one didn't before I booked it, but the fact remains, that I think it should. Secondly, the hotel is also pretty dirty and smells bad. No matter where you look, it screams "Renovate me".

The other things though, that not even a renovation can help are such things like their policies and location. The location, is pretty awful. During rush hour, it can be 30 minutes to Logan, and the hotel itself seems to be in a sketchy part of town.

Next, the shuttle. It honestly takes forever. If I ever end up staying here again, I will consider calling the hotel for the shuttle when I am still at Dulles. Expect to wait an hour. If it's less than that, you did good. The worst it got for me was waiting at the T station (closer than the airport) at about 1030pm and it took them 2 hours to pick me up. There is no excuse for this IMO, and I am even considering writing a letter to the GM. The only reason why I didn't take a cab, is because I was simply interested if they were ever going to come. I had time.

Overall, I suggest you don't book this hotel for anything, whether it be sightseeing in Boston, Park and Fly (they have a history with vehicle break-ins, or anything else.

asforza

I have to heartily agree with Murphy - this was, by far, one of the WORST SPG experiences I have had. The staff was nice but beyond that, this hotel is an embarrassment to the Starwood name.

Not only is the hotel very far from the airport and extremely run down, as previous posters mentioned, but apparently is used as party central for young adults from the surrounding areas who are looking to get away for the night. On my first night there, I came off the elevator on my floor and was immediately enveloped in a cloud of pot - part of the "party central" atmosphere. I complained to the front desk, who said, "Oh, well, we'll have to charge them the $200 cleaning fee." No mention of asking them to quit smoking or moving my room. NOTHING.

I would rather stay in a Motel 6 than stay here again, and I'm being serious.