Corner to Presidential Suite move for air con failure, but nice stay at LM Cambridge

100   Recommended
Room 827/834 , Corner Suite/Presidential...
May 15, 2017 by EXPERT

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Le Meridien Cambridge-MIT
 Map | 2 Reviews | 50% Recommended

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Room 827/834

Corner Suite/Presidential...

Liked:
Location
Service
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Room
Corner Suite/Presidential Suite

I was at the Le Meridien Cambridge for 3 nights over the first weekend in April 2017. Originally, I was pre-upgraded to a Corner Suite due to my SPG Platinum 100 status and the fact that I had two SPG Pro groups (20+ rooms) staying at at the hotel.

I have stayed at this hotel too many times to count when in Boston/Cambridge. 

I really like the hotel, with its airy, open, and inviting modern lobby and modern, clean design for its guest rooms. I also have had very good luck with the hotel team in helping out and accommodating my groups. I also like the location, just a short 5-10 min (0.3 mile) walk to the Central Square T stop, a few minutes walk to the MIT campus, and with numerous wonderful restaurants and shops in the blossoming Central Square vicinity. Craigie on Main, one of Boston's finest restaurants, is literally a 2 minute walk.

Check In

Because I arrived with one of my groups, check in was seamless--they always have my group room keys ready for me. I was assigned a corner suite on the 8th floor.

Room

I originally was assigned one of the corner suites, a room type I love. Unfortunately, I was moved due to air con issues to the Presidential Suite. Both are reviewed below.

CORNER SUITE (room 827):

My first suite assigned was a corner suite on the back side of the hotel. I enjoy these corner suites, as they offer just enough extra space while not being so large as to be ridiculous for a single business traveler. 

The entrance:

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To the right of the entrance hall is the nice sized bath:

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The bath products (for those who care) are fine by me:

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You walk from the entry hallways into the living room with tons of natural light:

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Just out of view is the doorway (with true door) to the small bedroom:

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All in all, it is a very comfortable space for me--one of my favorite suite configurations that I frequent in the entire SPG system, to be honest. The only weakness may be the fact that the bathroom is not adjacent to the bedroom, but that is pretty common in my experience.

I unfortunately had two problems with this particular suite on this visit: the chairs to the desk literally folded back all the way when you sat in either of them, and the air con was not working!

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They did bring a replacement for the chairs on request--though it took two tries!

After complaining a few times about the air con, the hotel manager graciously moved me to the Presidential Suite.

PRESIDENTIAL SUITE (room number 834 if I remember right?)

As many times as I'd stayed here, I'd never been in the Presidential Suite. (I'd occasionally been in a different but larger entertainment type suite--much larger than the corner suites--located behind the elevators, which have a small bedroom and small bath but very large living area. I actually prefer the corner suite to that.)

The Presidential Suite was HUGE. Its design was also curiously traditional compared to the more modern, clean design throughout the rest of the hotel. The manager mentioned that they weren't sure on the next refurbishment as to whether or not they would refurbish the Presidential to match the more modern style. My vote would be to do so, though I had a very comfortable stay for the most part.

The main entry to the suite (you actually enter through a regular door off the righthand side of the foreground below):

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Looking back on the entry vestibule, you can see that you enter from the door on the left side:

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To the right side of the above entry vestibule is a spacious powder bath:

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Also down at the end of the leftward hall was the entry to the kitchen:

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The stove actually didn't work, as we discovered later when trying to re-heat some take-out:

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Walking from the entry vestibule into the main suite, you have a living area:

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I used that living area space on the Saturday night of my stay to watch the Final Four basketball games, including my UNC Tar Heels defeating Oregon in a rebounding thriller. The TV is surprisingly small here for such a big suite, ironically.

To the left of this living area is the dining area, which connects back to the other side of the kitchen for convenience:

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We used the dining table to eat dinner during the period between the two Final Four games, actually.

Just adjacent and around the corner from the dining room table was a bar area with more seating against the wall (next to the doorway into the kitchen):

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To the right of the central living area was another odd seating area that we never used, along with a doorway into an odd office space:

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Just past this odd area and office space were the double doors into the bedroom:

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The view from the other side:

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To the left of the double doors above was a small closet for extended stays:

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Just beyond the closet was the door into the very spacious but dated bath:

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There was a separate toilet room:

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A walk in/ADA shower...with a faucet contraption that barely sprinkled water. The water pressure was so pitiful, I was afraid I was going to have to use the sink! I asked for it to be repaired, but the maintenance engineer said it just needed to be replaced. For the Presidential Suite?

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Almost around the corner from the toilet room was the recessed/almost hidden bathtub. The picture doesn't do it justice, but it was curiously half-hidden from view from the main bathroom. Very strange.

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The Presidential Suite was enormous and very traditionally appointed with quite dated furnishings, as you can see for yourself. It is a surprise that the hotel's top accommodation is so dated...and then has a barely functioning shower!

The other major issue with the Presidential Suite was the unfortunate and tragic miss on electrical plugs. There was but a single plug in the bedroom--across the room from the bed behind a chair! I had to ask the manager and maintenance to bring a power strip and move the bed so they could plug it in so I could have plugs bedside.

BUT, the air con in the Presidential Suite worked like a charm. The bedroom thermostat indicated 60 F, but I imagine it was closer to 66 F. The air worked even better in the main living area than it did in the bedroom, but both were more than sufficient for me! That made me VERY happy.

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Even though it was quite cold outside (the view from the bedroom window):

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Service

Service was mixed, but overall I would say it was quite good.

Obviously, there were several misses as the team tried to fix the unfixable air con in my original suite. It took 3 visits from the engineer and them my opening the windows to let in cold air...before I finally realized the thermostat itself was just wrong/broken. With the window open, the air con believed it to be too cold and turned on the room heat. Oh no.

There was the unfortunate fact that the hotel suite had 2 "broken" chairs. They were replaced, but it took 2 calls. 

In the end, I was thrilled that the hotel solved my air con issue, which was the biggest problem for me, by moving me to the Presidential Suite. I didn't really need that massive suite but its being so cold made the rest of my stay very nice. The letdown on the plugs was solved quickly with the power strip. The letdown on the shower was never solved...but I preferred dealing with that issue than having to worry about bad air con!

Service at the lobby/bar restaurant was slow but very friendly and always trying to help.

The valets all know me from so many stays. They always are incredibly friedly and always trying to help.

All in all, though the stay wasn't perfect by any stretch, I still appreciate the team's efforts to always admitting there may be a problem and always trying to fix it for me.

Dining

Dining at the hotel has been revised since previous years. The main reception area has been turned into a W-esque living room of sorts, with a bar and bar seating, along with bar-like high tables and chairs. We had dinner there on two nights with different clients, and largely enjoyed the simple fare. Service was terribly slow, though. I think staffing could resolve that problem. The servers were all very friendly and trying hard, though!

Room service was wonderful...as it has been for many years here.

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Location

As mentioned above, I love the location. It isn't in the middle of the hub-bub like the Sheraton Commander in Harvard Square, but it is easily accessible to that being only 0.3 miles from the Central Square T stop (just 1 stop from Harvard Square outbound and 1 stop from Kendall Square in the other direction). 

The Central Square area has seen a massive resurgence in great restaurants, and so there are tons of wonderful places nearby. 

MIT is just a short 5-10 min walk towards Kendall Square. 

Overall

I still really like this hotel. It feels like a nice modern boutique hotel as opposed to the big chain hotel it actually is. The staff and management really do take pains to try and individualize the experience and always go to great lengths to make me comfortable. 

Even though I love the corner suite, the Presidential Suite was a fun place to hang out with friends while watching the Final Four games. It also kept me comfortably cool! It is dated, so I'd not want to stay again until they refurbish it and make the shower/plugs more functional!

My clients all love the regular rooms in the hotel, as well. It's a great hotel for the SPG system.

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