I just stayed at the Westin Seattle this week. I was given a room on the 35th (out of 40) floor. It had a city view that was nice. The room was on a "preferred" floor and was well appointed. The gym has brand new Life Fitness equipment. Four treadmills, three elliptical, two bikes, two stair steppers, weight lifting machines, and free weights. All the cardio machines have cable TV. All in all a nice gym. The check in was very good. I took a taxi from SEA and was picked up the next day. It looked like people waited for a while to get their cars. I went across the street to Starbucks, came back and saw the same people still waiting for cars. I was happy with my stay and will be back in a couple months.

If you're looking for free wifi near the Westin, Top Pot Doughnuts is just a few blocks away with good food and free wifi, and the Ralphs deli up on 4th has a seating area with wifi. You can find a list of other options here:

http://seattle.wifimug.org/

I appreciate that your recommendations were offered to be helpful, but it seems that the real point here is that ldsant shouldn't even have to leave the Westin for free wireless. You don't have to leave a lot of mid-priced hotels for free wireless.

Separately, I have usually had good stays at this Westin, but those go back at least three years. Always got a nice room with a view of Puget Sound -- and this was before I was SPG Plat. The cost for valet is on the high end for Seattle, but one has to expect this in larger downtown areas. The lack of self park is unusual, but it usually doesn't cost much less (excl.valet tip factor). The waiting aspect sounds atrocious and not having the ability to call down in advance makes this worse.

I agree totally. I was just there 2/10-2/11 & the bell told me that there was a "special" event, so no I had to valet. Now having a cold at the time, I was not going to argue.

The problems continued with the same issues: missed wake-up call, room service took 1.5 hrs (when it was guaranteed in 20-minutes), loss of hot water at 9:45AM.... where am I the 4-Pts? :mad:

I am so off of this hotel- for the cost I'll be at the W.

Just returned from the Sheraton Seattle.

I've stayed at the W (which I love) and the Westin (which I like, but too big.. a bit crazy in the lobby at times and a long time to get a car from the valet).

I wanted to like the Sheraton. I really did.

Arrived on a Friday evening and there was only one person working the desk. A large group was checking in ahead of me, I think it was about 8 rooms for teenagers. A line of about 6 formed behind me while we waited as kids swarmed around their group leader.

The lines got far worse over the weekend, as a Starbucks convention checked in. I'd guess 90% of the hotel turned over around the same time, but there were never more than two people at the desk and the checkin line wrapped around the whole hotel. A makeshift baggage camp was set up in the lobby.

I was fortunate to only have the line that I did! Nevertheless, no one was around to help with baggage and I eventually grabbed a baggage cart myself to take up to my room.

Now, I was pleased with the room itself. I had a view of the water which I did not expect (it was not a direct view, but still a nice one). The bed was comfortable, though the pillows were pretty worn out. The door to the room was dented at the bottom.

Getting ready in the morning the plastic covering on one of the lights in the bathroom fell down and shattered in front of me. I couldn't speak to anyone at the desk, so I told the concierge who made sure maintenance went up during the day while I was gone. I had a voicemail when I returned promising 2500 points for the trouble. I was struck by how much I appreciated the gesture, since I didn't ask for anything at all. I was a whole lot more tolerant of other problems as a result, even though I wasn't being compensated for those (and didn't ask).

Billing was majorly screwed up on the stay. I had a car but was charged for two cars on two nights. After waiting in the long line at the desk to resolve it in person, only one of the two nights was fixed. Back to the line the next morning!

24 hours of internet is supposed to be $9.95. But every time I tried to buy that, the screen informed me that my 24 hours of internet would last until X time, which was invariably 4-6 hours in the future. So I kept buying the 30 minutes for $4.95 option. :mad:

On the other hand, there were also billing errors in my favor that -- no matter how hard I tried -- I couldn't get the desk to understand. I gave up and wasn't going to fight the long lines, blowing the rest of my long weekend, in order to find a way to give them money that was due to them that they weren't asking for.

Had room service on two occasions, one took longer than the promised time (menu promises 30 minutes, I was told 15, took 50) and one took less than the promised time (was told 40, took 15). Note that the room service menu is extremely limited.

Public spaces are nice. Room itself was nice. The place was just disorganized over the weekend and had a hard time providing service because there simply weren't enough people on staff to meet the needs of all the guests.

I actually forgot one good thing about this hotel (well may be two): the Icon Grill across the street is a 10-mi. Idine place with decent food, and from the South Tower it is possible to get T-mobile Hotspot signals from the Starbucks Across the street. :cool:

not as bad as the 4Points Austin!

OK - so I'm leaving this hotel after being here for over two weeks and wanted to jot some overall impressions/thoughts (just my 2 cents here):

Overall, the Heavenly Bed and the robes are the best feature of the hotel. Seriously - that bed is just wonderful (I have got to buy one when I finally find a home :)). The robe also is very nice and comfy.

I think that the major irritants/complaints I have with this hotel is that every single day of my stay there was a "little thing or two" that just aggravated me. Whether it was the fact that when I first checked in I asked if they had a pool or fitness center and was told no to finding out last night (my last night here) that in fact they do have a pool. . .to the fact that they just nickel and dime their customers without providing good customer service (no, I would not like to sit at a table that is by the kitchen and bus boy station when you have only 3 tables in the entire restaurant occupied. . ). I think that because it is such a convention hotel as I've been told, they really don't care a whole lot about the individual customer.

Would I stay here again? Probably not (although I do have to admit that sleeping in that bed is wonderful! :). There are other hotels in SEA that, although I'd be missing out on *wood points do provide some level of customer service. I really am NOT a difficult customer at all. I don't ask for anything out of the ordinary and I don't expect anything above what *wood promises. This hotel's answer to everything was "no" or gave the impression that it was just too much trouble (tried to extend my stay one night - was told by the front desk person "well, it's your fault that you didn't make the reservation correctly?! " Huh? :confused: Umm. . .I made it with your colleague at the other desk three nights ago.

The delivery charge for room service is $4 plus 18% gratuity. Luckily, there are many places around here that deliver food for a lot less. I guess I'm just disappointed because this could have been a great opportunity for the Westin to show what they really have in terms of customer service. It's just that the "hassle factor" drains a person after so many days. It really isn't anything "BIG" that went wrong; it's just the daily irritants and not making it right.

At last, it would appear that someone thinks like I do. I agree that those minor irritants build up and create a negative impression. And esp. at a place like the Westin where you expect no detail to be too small. And it sounds those were enough to potentially offset the Heavenly Bed experience.

Here Westin has made a major investment in the HB (and one you like) that was offset or undermined by silly little things that don't cost much, like properly training staff on how to satisfy a customer. or just treat then with respect. I mean. puh-lease, you request to stay an extra night and they cop an attitude with you? Why offend a customer that is bringing you extra business? They truly don't deserve your repeat business because they didn't seem to appreciate the business you gave them.

I booked a reservation at this hotel before seeing this thread (and before seeing the W Seattle deal of a few months ago :().

While everything has worked out in the end, I cannot say that I am particularly impressed with this hotel, and it is unlikely that I would stay here again.

Our first room on the 10th floor had a strong stench of body odor, and when we asked to be moved, we were advised that no other rooms with king size beds were available, so we too a murphy bedded room for one night, with the promise of relocation the following day. Fair enough (and I figured worth the gamble, as the opportunities for this now-statusless guest to get upgraded for the remaining 4 mights.

The following morning we received a call from the front desk -- just pack your bags and call us when you're ready to move. So far so good.

So, we packed our bags, called around noon, and headed out for the day. When we returned to the hotel around 7, we were advised that our bags had not been moved, but they would be in short order. No problem. (As a positive, we were given keys to a room with an upgraded view on 31.)

When we returned to the hotel around 10, the bags still hadn't made it to the new room. We called Service Express and tried to explain the situation without success. So, we went down to the front desk, and the remorseless agent advised that the bags would be moved.

I guess this bag incident a "little irritant" on the scale of annoying hotel experiences, but it's still unacceptable. Guests should not have to count on three times being a charm when it comes to things like "moving bags from A to B."

In terms of the physical plant:

The rooms appear to have been partially renovated. The rooms have the always nice Heavenly Beds, new seating, lamps, and carpeting...but the furniture pieces seem to be remnants from days gone by.

While we did not use the workout facilities, we did take a peek at them. They're nice enough, but nothing too impressive in my opinion, and the changing rooms appeared to be in the same league as Courtyard by Marriott bathrooms. On a separate note, I think the 10pm closing time is a little silly for a major city business hotel.

In closing -- the hotel's "perfectly fine," but "fine" flies for Four Points in my book, and not Westins. We will not return.

(p.s. anyone know of alternative parking options? we're going to grab a car tomorrow.)

I agree 100% with this observation. What surprises me even more is that this location is supposedly one of the flagship Westins given that Westin Head Office is located across the street (at least I think that's still correct). The only redeeming factor about this hotel is the view of Puget Sound on a beautiful sunny day but other than that this hotel has some downright awful FD staff who are reluctant to admit to any mistakes made by either themselves or their colleagues.

After my most recent stay where my spg.com reservation was missing from their hotel res system, the front desk clerk suggested that perhaps I had the booked wrong hotel, wrong date, etc rather than call central reservations and double-checking. I ended up logging in to spg.com with my laptop right in front of him (lobby has wireless) to prove that I indeed had a reservation for THIS hotel and THIS night. :rolleyes: After 20 mins at the front desk in front of him, I was not very happy and wrote a letter to Starwood CS and received a reply just the other day. The hotel GM seemed to be genuinely concerned by the incident and I did receive a Courtesy Starpoint credit but IMHO, this type of situation should not occur at a Westin nor to a repeat guest.

As an FYI, Westin's head office is in White Plains, New York now. ;)

Sincerely,


William R. Sanders
Customer Service Coordinator
Starwood Preferred Services

[email protected]

I'm glad I ran across this thread. I stay at the Mayflower, just down the street. Two excellent restaurants, good staff free wi-fi. Rooms are a little small, NO affinity points, so I was going to move to the Westin. Not now though.

I've stayed there twice. They were two of my worst experiences at *wood properties.

On the first stay I was right across from the elevator. It may have been the noisiest elevator I've ever heard. Kept me awake the entire night and things like that normally don't bother me. Check in was a problem even though there's a separate room for SPG members. The staff was inattentive and rude. The rooms were horribly worn (although one tower was under renovation at the time and I'd assume I just got the bad tower).

I figured I'd give it a second try on a trip about 6 month later (last spring). I once again got an old room. There were no valet attendants and a line of cars literally blocking the street. Again, no one staffed the SPG check in. I asked to switch rooms and was told they were sold out and to try again the next night. The next morning I asked for a better room and was told PLT status wasn't honored there. The gentleman (and I use the term very loosely) was very nasty and we ended up getting in an argument. Nice guy but I ended up moving down the street to the W.

IMHO the W is a much better choice. I'd stay at the Sheraton (spent 4 or 5 nights there) over the Westin unless they've completely changed in the last year.

Recent award stay at Westin Seattle
 

I went to visit my girlfriend in Seattle for two days and three nights during the last weekend. I had booked using my SPG points at the Westin Seattle for a deluxe room. Of course, silly me, I forgot to search/read about the hotel beforehand. So you can imagine my distress when I realized what some experiences written were like.

Anyhow, I stuck with it since the Sheraton Towers was fully booked. The valet service was excellent, they let me keep my car there for half an hour to check in, and grab a quick shower. Check-in had these massive lines, but I was smart enough to remember from the earlier posts to look for SPG check in room. I waited all of 2 minutes before getting great service from the check-in person. He welcomed me to Seattle, and put me on the 42nd floor with what he said was a great view in the north tower. I went up to the room (yes, bloody slow elevators!), and it really was a very large room with an incredible view of the Space Needle, surrounding area, and harbour. I was lined up enough to see the monorail run right up to the Seattle Centre.

Absolutely no bad or neutral service throughout. I used the restaurant twice for breakfast and once for dinner. Excellent food, service, and decor. The 5th Ave Cafe wasn't bad either for a quick morning snack on my last morning. Though, it would be nice if they would keep it open throughout the day for coffee and snacks. The valet always had my car waiting for me even when I only called ahead 5 minutes.

Gotta run, but I thought I'd post my thoughts for others. I'll definitely go back. Cheers