Helena Handbaskets

Is it possible I'm the first FTer to stay at this property? I wasn't able to find anything else on it in the SPG forum.

I stayed one night earlier this week. I overheard someone saying it had been open less than 3 months. Here are some impressions / experiences / observations:

1) The hotel has no suites.

2) There is a club lounge on the top (7th) floor. An authorized keycard is required for access to the 7th floor.

3) Internet access, both wired and wireless, is available bia I-bahn, currently at $12.95 per day.

4) The decor is typical Westin zen-style (maybe there's a better name for it, but I think you know what I mean), in my mind quite tasteful.

5) The pillowtops on the mattresses are more plush than at some Westins (maybe that's just because they're newer?).

6) Rooms are average to smallish. Some of them are "Westin Workout" rooms, and are a bit larger to accommodate the exercise equipment. Corner rooms have floor-to-ceiling windows, but no other obvious advantage. LG flat panel TVs (at least on the club floor, I assume in all rooms) with some real HD content, including a couple of HD movie channels not commonly encountered.

7) The hotel is not particularly well-situated for viewing air traffic at the airport, if you're into that kind of thing.

8) There's a smilarly new Sheraton right next door. When I was making my bookings, the rates were nearly identical, with the Westin slightly cheaper than the Sheraton. I visited the Sheraton's lobby, and can't explain why the Sheraton would get a higher rate.

9) There's not much in the area besides other chain hotels.

10) I was in room 704. I don't know if other rooms have this problem, but in 704, the water temperature in the tub/shower does not rise above lukewarm. It's not a problem with the availability of hot water, because the water in the sink got plenty hot. So my assumption is that there's a problem with the plumbing, at least in that room.

11) I called for assistance (but what's the guy going to do, repair the plumbing while I wait?) and was assured someone would be up as soon as possible. Over an hour later, when I checked out, unkempt and stinking (okay, I was able to do some remedial cleansing in the sink), no one had shown up.

12) Upon checkout, I mentioned the problem with the shower and lack of response, and all I got was "Oh, I'm very sorry about that." Given the fact that the hotel's staff has only been at this for a couple of months, I wasn't too surprised. This and one other very minor training issue may well be smoothed out with time.

13) There were two hot hors d'oeuvres in the lounge in the evening, some type of potato-filled pastry that was okay and a crab-roll thing (this is Baltimore, after all) that I didn't try. Fruit was also available. A red wine and a white one were available for free, in addition to beer and soft drinks. I ended up regretting having had a pre-dinner snack in the lounge, because:

14) The Asian-theme restaurant turned out to be far better than I had anticipated. If you can get into Baltimore proper, or certainly if you want to go as far as DC, there are naturally much more outstanding options, but for an area with basically nothing but hotel restaurants, this has to be one of the best places for several miles to eat. Especially worth considering if you're staying at the Sheraton and enjoy Asian food. The waitress was also exceptionally professional.

15) The breakfast in the club lounge is the best breakfast I've ever had in a Starwood club lounge. Some lounge breakfasts are just a cold danish and coffee, but the most of the best offer just enough hot options to almost make you think you're getting a free version of what you'd get in the restaurant below - but they always seem to skimp just enough to make you think, "Okay, it's free, but it's not a real breakfast." But at the BWI Westin, the lounge breakfast included scrambled eggs, wonderful hash browns, bacon, link sausage, as well as the more standard fruit, breads/danish, and juices/tea/coffee. Curiously, cereal seemed to be missing.

Hope this proves helpful to others considering a stay.

MikeMargolis

I beat you, was there on Tuesday, Jan 22. Neener neener neener

Anyway, I thought it was a great hotel. Close to BWI, but boy did my GPS take me a strange way there!

I enjoyed the hors-d'ouvres in the evening on the club floor, and a superb burger on room service. Tried to take the club floor breakfast, but even though I was told that it opened at 6:30am, by 6:45 when I had to leave, the room was still locked.

Oh, did I mention the fire alarm? Ahhh, nevermind, I got 3000 points for it.

Helena Handbaskets

Interesting... mine did too! I got a strange look when I checked in and asked them whether there was an easy way to get to the airport.

NJUPINTHEAIR

Stay 2 times by 5/31/08 and earn 5,000 points.

Unlike the similar prior promotion at this property, although I did not receive an e-mail for the current one, I was able to sign up for it via the link provided on the page below:


http://specialoffers.starwoodhotels....OP_US_WI_1508&

No e-mail was ever received by me and it permitted me to sign up even without receiving same. Moreover, if one is able to sign up without receiving the e-mail, I think Starwood would be hard-pressed to deny you same when it says you are registered for the promotion, you receive an e-mail reply that you are, and that condition is buried in a link that one need not refer to in order to register.

Moreover, the above condition may be an artifact from when you really did need to receive an e-mail to sign up for the promotion, and therefore, may not have been intended by the drafters of the current promotion to be applicable.

Enjoy!

ltdhotelmgmtcompany

I'm a lurker from the management staff of the Westin and Sheraton BWI. We'll definitely take all the feedback you've provided about The Westin as well as our Pan-Asian restaurant, Luminous. Thanks.

fly co to see the yanks

welcome, lurker.

my only thought regarding the westin is that internet should be free in the lobby. even in starwood hotels that charge for wireless/wired in-room access, most properties offer free access in the lobby, no?

thanks. and, again, welcome.

mecabq

Thanks, NJUPINTHEAIR, for the link.

I stayed here in February and was also pleasantly surprised. The service was excellent; the van took me everywhere I needed to go and I found the club lounge quite nice.

Totoro

I stayed at the Westin BWI on a Friday night at the end of March. I inquired at check-in about Lounge access, and the clerk offered for $30 upgrade fee. I remarked that I would pass because the lounge is closed anyway on weekends, and he replied the lounge is open 24 hours/day. I found his upselling rather disingenuous since most lounges, while "open" 24 hours/day, do not serve breakfast on weekends.

That said, I enjoyed my one-night stay. The hotel lobby was exceptionally clean. I had a standard room with the usual Heavanly bed and bathroom.

I found the gym very spacious and reasonably well-equipped on par with other Westins. Parking is free and readily available.

I would stay here again but would definitely not accept the Lounge upsell on a weekend. The hotel is actually quite convenient to drive by exiting the airport onto 295 N. Take the first exit and head east. At the third traffic light, turn R. The street deadends at the Sheraton and Westin (adj to each other).

P.S. I tried repeatedly (and unsuccessfully) to register for the bonus points promotion mentioned above. Perhaps my prepaid rate would not qualify? I wish others better luck.

fly co to see the yanks

quick review...sorry if my grammar stinks. it's late and i want to get this on flyertalk.

stayed at this property this past weekend. i was able to get a $103 non-refundable rate (with a 2,500 bonus point promotion). the hotel put me on the platinum/executive floor (7th floor). access to the floor requires the key card. the lobby is quite nice as are the bar area/restaurant. the bar was open after getting home from the yankees/orioles game saturday night and there was a pretty decent crowd (numbers-wise). the barkeeper said the bar could possibly stay open until 2 am depending on the number of guests that remain. its a very nice/comfortable bar area....though probably too bright for midnight and later. there were overhead lights and lamps everywhere and they were all ON.

i thought the rooms were pretty small. i'm not sure what the brand standards require in terms of the room size, but i thought they were a tad tight. the heavenly beds are amazing, as always. i can sleep forever in those beds. the bathrooms have double headed speakmen shower heads.

the hotel offers free van service to the light rail and airport.

i thought the gym was nice...but, it's a huge room with very little equipment. it almost appears that they hit their equipment budget half-way through equipping the room since there is equipment all along the the walls but the center of the large room is virtually empty. a few more bucks could make this a great workout facility. the tiny workout room at the westin tampa seemed as if it had as much equipment/machines/weights, etc. the workout room is right next to the indoor pool.

the phone in my room wasn't working during my entire stay as it went to fast busy IMMEDIATELY after i hit Service Express and zero. annoying. so, i used my cell phone to call the front desk and it rang and rang and rang and finally went to fast busy after about 50 rings. i finally had to get my partner to go to the front desk and have them call me. when the front desk called, i told them about the phone but it wasn't fixed during my stay. they also didn't know why no one answered when i called the main line. i thought they were short staffed but when i went downstairs shortly after the call, there were three people working the front desk and not one guest in the lobby.

the Executive Club was open over the weekend and offered free grits in the morning and evening. during the week, i think they even offered noontime victuals. ^

when i arrived at my room one night and wanted to raid the mini-fridge, i noticed that the front desk never included a key in my envelope. oh well, no extra money for them.

finding the property was a bit of a challenge (my GPS was clueless) and it didn't help that the hotel gave me bad directions, i believe. as we were driving, my partner called and said we were coming from the north/new york. the directions they provided were coming from the south (again, i believe). the reason i think this is that we missed out exit and had to turn around. the directions worked coming from the other direction.

given the rate and the overall quality of this hotel, i would definitely stay at this property again.

edited to add: the front office manager is jennifer young, if anyone needs a name at the property. i think it's fine to give out her name since her business cards are stacked on the check-in counter. moreover, the shuttle bus drivers pass out her business cards when they drop you off so that you have the hotel phone number when you need to get picked up. accordingly, i don't think they are trying to hide her contact info. her email is: [email protected]. there is also a lurker from ltd management listed in this post.

edited to add (2): a small pet peeve, but a regular issue at starwood hotels. the room was booked for two people but they only left one bottle of water in the room. are we supposed to share it? why not just leave two bottles?

socrates

sorry for the late response - but I did stay at this hotel during a weekend a bit ago - and was given access to the lounge (yes it's true, this MI guy has Gold status thanks to Starwood list buy of NWA elites) it was open, staffed and had a terrific breakfast during the weekends

Karan97

I wanted to add that the bonus can be earning an unlimited number of times.

Confirmed by
1) Lurker
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=817040

2) I just got my 3rd 2500 bonus too.

Karan97

Does anyone know if the Amex Cardholder Rate listed below (http://specialoffers.starwoodhotels....OP_US_WI_1508&) ... qualifies for the 2500/5000 bonus. I like this coz it come with a full breakfast.

It says that it isn't combinable with other offers and promos?

fly co to see the yanks

in the past, william has said that promotions were combinable as long as the same party isn't paying. YMMV.

Karan97

So if the rate is an Amex cardholder (or 3rd party) rate then they (Amex) actually pays for the additional benefit? Interesting.

I think I'll try it when I'm at the BWI westin this week

Karan97

Per SASFan's suggestion (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=817040) I tried the Amish Pulled Chicken Sandwich ... Excellent suggestion. Its not on the restaurant or bar menu but can be requested. Lobster Bisque was ok.