I agree with this.

I have stayed at both the Aloft and the Le Meridien on more than one occasion.
As most know, the 2 hotels are almost right next to each other in terms of location.

To be honest, apart from a larger breakfast selection and larger breakfast seating area at the Le Meridien, there is almost nothing else that makes paying more worth it.
Room sizes, hotel location, staff interaction, service levels are almost the same at both hotels.
If a "normal" breakfast experience is important to you, then go for the Le Meridien, but otherwise you're just paying a lot more and getting almost the same exact thing. Even then I was not that impressed by the quality of the breakfast food at either hotel.


Also, a strange problem at the Le Meridien:

The faucet "handles" on the bathroom sinks at the Le Meridien have the most unpractical design I have seen in a long time.
To turn on the water (or regulate the temperature) on the sink, you need to turn one of 2 circle shaped faucet handles which in reality do not have any handle to grab, so if your hands are already wet, or even slightly soapy or oily, your fingers will just slide around in circles without the handle actually turning. After washing my hands I was unable to turn off the sink water, as my wet fingers just kept sliding around the circle shaped faucet handle. I had to use a small towel on the circular faucet handle to finally switch it off.

It just really seems like one of those modern designs that some "concept artist" designs on a computer but never has actually tested or used in real life.