This was my first trip to Guam since 1983 when I flew in solo from Tokyo for a short wintertime stay. This time, we flew in on a direct flight from Fukuoka on United Airlines, which took only four hours. Since I had a bunch of Marriott points, the Westin Resort Guam was the only place I could use them. Fortunately, I was also able to use four SNAs to get upgraded to a suite for our entire stay. The taxi ride from the airport to the Westin cost $32 (the return trip cost $30), about half the cost of the Westin’s airport bus.

View from the Westin

Boy had things changed since my first visit when there were only three main hotels on the beach, the New Otani, Okura (neither exists on Guam anymore), and Hilton, with zero buildings at the far end of Tumon Bay where the Hotel Nikko, Tsubaki Tower, and Lotte Hotel now stand, which was all green and wild nature. At that time, I stayed at an inexpensive motel near the beach called “The American,” which also no longer exists. I also remember a small circular open-air bar with a thatched or palm-leaved roof right on the beach where I drank beer and conversed with some off-duty U.S. military personnel. Anyway, there’s been lots of development since then, and even the main shopping area along Pale San Vitores Rd. was unrecognizable to me.


Westin Resort Guam

Check-In
The front desk staff were all very friendly and helpful, especially on our last night when we got a highly competent and helpful staff member who, though young, really knew her stuff and provided great service, going the extra mile for us.
In the lobby, there’s a very spacious café that serves Starbucks coffee, which we never used but seemed to be popular. In addition, the lobby had an extensive Christmas tree decoration with machine-generated artificial snow falling on the trees from a few stories above. One evening, there was a classical music performance and, on another night, a musical bell-ringing performance of Christmas music, which drew a decent crowd, even though occupancy appeared to be low.

Room
Our room, a 1 Bedroom Executive Suite (78 sqm/839 sqft), and all suites are located on the top 21st floor where the club lounge is located. It doesn’t look quite as nice as the photos, but it was spacious, and since it was toward the back of the building, it had a limited ocean view. Also, one of the TVs had poor reception with lots of static. The bathroom too is spacious, and the bath has a button to turn on a jet spray, albeit a weak one. The spacious closet was nice to have but the room looks a bit tired.






Dining
The only meals we ate at the hotel were breakfast at the 1st floor restaurant Taste, and evening food and drink at the Club Lounge during cocktail hour from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. The breakfast buffet was fairly extensive, but the food presentation was poor and unattractive. Mixed among standard breakfast offerings were selected local and Asian dishes such as fried noodles and udon or ramen, but fortunately, no Spam®, though I did miss the absence of yogurt. There was also an omelet station. The restaurant is spacious with lots of tables and plenty of light.

Club Lounge
The club lounge is probably the best thing going for this hotel. It is spacious and comfortable with the front of the lounge providing a nice ocean view but against a bright setting sun, so I needed to lower the curtain to sit there.

View from the Club Lounge

The food offering is pretty substantial and can replace a regular meal, but the food quality was generally poor, especially the pizza, yet there were some decent dishes, and the desserts were especially good. The lounge’s strong point, though, has to be its beverage offering, with bottled Heineken beer along with Asahi and red and white wine of variable quality but the sparkling wine was especially good. There was also a selection of canned club soda, tonic water, and other non-alcoholic drinks. All drinks were promptly replenished.

Club Lounge

Beach/Pool
For a reasonably large resort hotel, the pool area is on the small side. There is a staging area on the far side of the pool where live music is performed at night, but we did not attend. The beach bar is at the center of the pool area with flat-screen TVs to watch. The beach is just steps away from the pool and we spent a lot of time snorkeling there with the many fish that we saw but who paid little attention to us. There are lots of stones and coral on the beach when you enter the water which makes it very uncomfortable to walk on, so it’s better to wear flippers or rubber sandals when entering but once you get several feet out, it’s mostly sand and easy on one’s bare feet.




Gym
The gym is open 24/7 and is reasonably well equipped with cardiovascular equipment and weight resistance stations but it’s a little dark with only a partial ocean view and a view of an underground garage or storage area.

Service
Service was very good, and the staff was uniformly friendly, especially the front desk staff. The concierge at the club lounge entrance was also very good and answered our questions and handled issues that arose.

Location
The Westin is centrally located for tourists right on Tumon Bay and just in front of Pale San Vitores Rd. where all the duty-free and luxury brand shops are situated, so if shopping and touristy activities are your main goal, the Westin is probably in one of the best locations for that. That said, many of the shops including the luxury brand shops on the street had very dilapidated exteriors, and except for the DFS mall, had a very run-down look.

Main shopping street

Overall
The Westin has entered a fairly deep state of entropy with rust and decay readily seen in the garage, the building exterior, and the pool area. The rooms too are tired looking, and the suite’s bathroom piping and fixtures generated odd noises and needed repair. This state of decay and disrepair is not unusual for hotels of this age in the tropics, even in Hawaii, but I find the situation considerably worse in Guam. Overall, the hotel looks and feels like a low-tier Westin in need of a serious upgrade. I also concur with a review upthread that the lobby is confusing and poorly laid out. On the positive side, the location is excellent, the club lounge is probably well above average for a U.S.-based Westin, the service was very good during our stay, and the Christmas entertainment in the lobby was interesting and popular with tourists. As I live in Japan, it was nice to be in the U.S. and able to freely speak English again, and only four hours from Japan, as opposed to Hawaii’s eight. That said, if one is looking for a more upscale stay in a central location, I would recommend the Dusit Thani next to the Westin, or even the Hyatt Regency.