Jon Maiman

Now tell us how you really feel....

--Jon

DELee

Picture yourself in the crappiest hotel room you've had to stay in overnight and, for whatever reason, you can't leave.

Embrace the shudders that you now feel.

Now install an explosive device and, having evacuated the room, detonate the explosive device.

David

DELee

So did the retreat occur?

David

nevansm

Intro
As I mentioned above, I had a corporate retreat at this property this month. I had a 3 night stay, approved SNA 5 days out for Junior Suite. This post will outline all of the aspects I experienced and some additional details. The rooms and non-conference space were about 95% completely gutted and rebuilt. I blieve there was also a brand new tower built which sits over the retaurant and is to the right of check-in. There were some corners cut though for sure. For example, you could notice woodwork elements that were not replaced but attempted to be resurfaced. In addition, the elevators still had the very distintive Sheraton dark wood insides which were very beat up. In addition, the meeting spaces only recieved some paint and new carpet, which I think is a big miss. Lastly, the old inn build IS still standing, however it's not at all being used. I didn't inquire, but there were dumpsters and a fence around most of it, so I'd guess it'll eventually be torn down. The hotel did add (I think?) a rooftop double wide lap size pool (outdoor) along with an event space (more on that later).

Welcome and Room
I did not do mobile check in, but arrived around 330pm. I was warmly welcomed, Ambassador benefits explained, was given 1000 points + breakfast in the restaurant each morning. Several of my non-status colleagues had to wait until 5 or 6pm for their rooms. I was in room 608, which had a nice view of the lake behind the property. The room was definitely a junior suite as described. It was laid out nicely with a separate sitting area, small pedistool table, large bathroom, mini fridge, and comfortable bed. The AC in the room was SPECTACULAR, I like it bone chillingly cold, and it get to that point (63) within just 20 minutes, though the outside temp was only about 50. The room also had a balcony with 2 chairs. There was also an ambassador welcome bag consisting of a large bottle of water and some snacks, along with a handwritten thank you note.

Bar and Dining
I'll talk about the bar and overall (non-meeting) dining in this section. The hotel has a single bar in the lobby that has a decent selection of craft beers, and a somewhat limited selection of spirits (especially for an Autograph property). The bar was extremely busy every night, and service was hit or miss. While my request for several different cocktails was met with "yeah we can do that", usually it took a few minutes for some of the bartenders to even acknowledge that there was someone waiting to order (I noticed this and heard thid from my colleagues as well). The drinks themselves (negroni, old fashioned, vesper) were all perfectly fine, though not made exactly to traditional recipes, using free-pour instead.

I had breakfast 2/3 mornings in the restaurant, which allowed for menu ordering (very small menu) or a small buffet set up. Buffet set up had the usual suspects - scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes, turkey sausage, fruit, pastries, and lox for bagels. Service was great in the morning, with a full compliment of tea and juices available as well. Was told specifically that tip was included in the breakfast vouchers. I had a snack one night (a flatbread) at the bar which was perfectly fine, but nothing you wouldn't get at any suburban property of a "lesser" brand.

Meeting Services
As a point of information, I was not involved in any of the planning, choosing of amenities/menu for this event.

Our group of 50 had 2 large rooms reserved. We did outsource our AV needs, and I'm not sure of pricing or availability of the AV equipment at the property. Our setup was the typical "conference with tables facing stage". Given the size of the room, I have a few complaints. The tables were ridiculous close together, so much so that any person had trouble getting in and out of each row. I eventually just spaced out the tables front to back better and folks were much happier. I don't know if it's standard hat or not, but the rooms did not get "refreshed" each night. They were cleaned of trash and vacuumed, but tablecloths, table alignments, chairs, etc. were all left askew. In addition, the HVAC was insanely whacky. In the hallways it was about 60 degress, while in the rooms it was over 77 all day. The hotel staff weren't great at keeping the tea/coffee/refreshment centers stocked too. By lunch on the first day, only one type of tea remained, the coffee wasn't replaced, and the other refreshment were all depleted and not replaced. This continued throughout the week.

As for food... well, the consensus was that, we've had worse, but this was some very middle of the road conference food. Breakfast was almost the same as the restaurant buffet, with no bagles or lox. Annoyingly, there was condiments for any of the meal services (salt, pepper, hot sauce, etc.) even after our team requested them after first breakfast service. Menus had 2 proteins, 2 starches, a vegetable, and salad, along with a bread of some type. All the proteins were incredibly overcooked (stringy chicken and fish, well done beef), and lacked any sort of flavor. I understand there's varying levels that can be purchased, but given the proteins (skirt steak one day, fried chicken 'picnic' another), this didn't seem like the lowest package.

I will give credit to the staff who were always friendly and accomidating when they could be. I think perhaps some just aren't trained up to a typical conference event standard. For lunch one day, this happened in the rooftop/top floor "lounge"/event space. This offered great views with huge windows, had a nice ambiance, and a unique lunch time experience. We also had lunch one day downstairs in another event space which was nicely appointed.

Wrap-up
Overall, of course this property is a huge improvement to what it was before, but that would be tough not to achieve. I don't feel it lives up to the Autograph Collection brand though. The bar/dining program lacked sophistication and the meeting space and experience was sub-par.

To add a couple additional miscellanious items:

• The hotel does not offer laundry service. This trip was in the middle of a larger 11 day trip for me, and I had just kind of assumed that an Autograph Colleciton property would offer this. This was very frustrating for me.
• There is a nice space to smoke (we smoke cigars) just outside the restaurant on a huge patio. The staff said smoking out there was fine, and just requested we bring in our barware. Given the low temps, there was no one else out there so we weren't bothering, we try and be respectful when smoking as manydon't like it.
• The mall area around the property is declining. While there are some nicer chain-ish restaurants (Cheesecake, PF Changs, etc.), the mall itself is on life support, if you want any large swath of nicer non-chain dining, you'll need to drive/uber.
• The rooms were definitely renovated nice, but the conference space was not.

This property is in a weird, kind of dead zone of accommodations which is why it'll probably do fine, seemed about 75% occupancy during my stay. However, I'm not eager to return any time soon as it's not near any of my customers or offices.

DELee

Many thanks for the detailed review and status of differing parts of the property and how they did (or didn't do) event services. I've noticed that many of the hotel properties in the area, not just in Columbia, but all around BWI seem to be declining both in how poorly the physical plants have been maintained as well as the standards of service.

David