kiaj

I do find it strange as well that it's no longer Luxury. The Westin Excelsior in Naples is still Luxury, and the room rates are half the price of the St Regis Rome and Westin Excelsior Rome hotels. Also just FYI, the ones in Rome are not both Category 6 right now, the Westin Excelsior is a Category 5 (12,000 pts per stay). This is definitely a recent development (within the past two months), as I was looking up the rates in February and they were both Category 6 at the time.

RedLancer

I prefer the Westin because the less pts needed for an award stay (12K vs 20K).

Flews

For the second time in a row, I have selected the Excelsior of the SR. While I have not stayed at the SR, I felt my last stay at the Excelsior was exactly what I was looking for in a Rome property, so why play around with success?

Next visit is 5 nights in September. Will post a trip report.

Cheers,

AskTravis

Hi -

What would you recommend for the following visit:

- Staying just 1 Saturday night in October
- On weekend free night stay (so no issue on number of points)
- Would like easy transport to FCO, likely train to Termini (wife will be very pregnant at the time!)
- Platinum status, so any lounge/upgrade/other benefits should be considered.


Thanks for any opinions, tons of threads here, so still sifting through it ...

bseller

YMMV, but I'd choose the Excelsior over the Eden b/c it is marginally better located and you are more likely to get a good upgrade as Plat. And, I would choose Excelsior over StR b/c I don't like the StR's location nearly as well. For me, Rome is location, location, location. Surely others will disagree.

Dave

hhoope01

For a one night stay, I have to agree. If you were staying for more nights, then the room, service, luxury standards, etc. might play a bigger part in the decision. But for one night, the difference between the 3 is fairly small and I would want to see and do as much as possible for the short time there. So location becomes the more important deciding factor.

AskTravis

Great, sounds like the Excelsior is the way to go... thanks!

dingo

Some good advice here.

Tak

FCO to termini by train, walk through termini Station and get taxi to your hotel are not difficult for healthy people even with luggage, however, if your wife is very pregnant at that time, I will recommend to hire the shuttle service(Excelsior site here had several recommendations of shuttle companies).

kh2866

agree with redlancer... I stayed in the Excelsior a week ago on an award night. 12k vs 20k points did it for me.

Also, if I'd paid for the night (last minute booking), the Excelsior was actually higher priced. SR & Eden looked smaller & more personable, though... Excelsior was huge. Would definitely stay there again, though :-)

nologic

At this point, both the SR and the Excelsior are CAT6, requiring 20,000 points/night in August.

What would you recommend for my parents, who are Gold, and other relatives who have no status?

I am leaning towards the SR as with no expectation of an upgrade, I am thinking there is no bad room at the SR, whereas there may be a larger range of not so good and "better" rooms at the Excelsior.

I stayed at the Excelsior as a Platinum and got a great suite upgrade, and have a feeling they have more suites, but as a Gold or less without suite UG potential, I think the SR might be better.

My brother will be traveling with two children (boys, 13 and 15), and they might like the pool at the Excelsior, but they'd probably only use it once...?

nologic

This question could also be posed in the "Rome: Which Hotel is Best" thread...but the question is best for what given what assumptions...so, I guess my question is which is best for Golds and below on award stays?

nologic

bump up

Boraxo

When do they load the rooms for the St. Regis and Westin into the SPG reservation system? I am trying to book a room for April 2012 and the calendar at spg.com does not seem to extend beyond March 31.

Strange, as there is no problem making a reservation at the other lesser SPG properties in Rome.

sk3

I've noticed this in the past when trying to book the Excelsior a year in advance. And I've also noticed, and mentioned in one of the Excelsior's threads that once at first load in they'd have crazy rates (prepaid rates that were much more than the BAR, etc). But eventually they would load in correct rates, and of course since they use a dynamic reservation system the best BARs were available initially, and then as the hotel received bookings and the arrival time approached, the BARs would get steeper and steeper.

If you're using points I imagine an SPG phone rep could book it now. And it's always recommended to make your points booking as soon as you have the points - so you're protected if they then raise the requirement. Also, in the past there were some years when I booked a year in advance, that they wouldn't have loaded in the low/high peak season dates so I was able to get the low season rate, which would later require the high season points to subsequent travelers. (And I'm not talking about when SPG temporarily stopped their low/high seasons). I eventually mentioned these anomalies to the hotel and they said it was due to different computer systems used by them and SPG and that they, of course, had done everything correctly.

So yes, my experience with the Excelsior atleast is that their efficiency with updating SPG.com sometimes was lacking, but then again, I ended up benefitting from this on several occasions. (Because whatever I booked thru SPG.com would always be honored).