Still Working Out the Kinks
Written: Jun 14 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Brand new (opened March 1, 2006). Clean and comfortable.
Cons: Better hope they don't have any problems.
The Bottom Line: I experienced this hotel on what was undoubtedly its worst night. However, I could see that it was a nice hotel and I'll consider staying here again.
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| belynch's Full Review: Westin Arlington Gateway |
This review is based on what was supposed to be a two night stay during the month of June, 2006. I ended up being “walked” to the Westin Grand in downtown DC the first night because of electrical problems at the Westin Arlington. Although I only spent 6 hours at this hotel, I did see my room and ate at the restaurant, so I feel like I’m familiar enough with the hotel to provide a review. Rate paid was an internet pre-paid promotional rate of $139/night USD booked on westin.com.
I’ll be up-front about my 3 star rating and explain it a little bit. In all fairness, this is undoubtedly a hotel deserving of 4 stars. However, my experience left me wanting to give it 2 stars. But, knowing that my experience was a horrible exception to the standard of the property, I aggregated the two and came up with the final of 3 stars.
If you’re traveling to Clarendon / Northern Virginia, I’d feel confident recommending this hotel, and I might try and stay here again myself.
Location
The location of the Westin Arlington Gateway is on North Glebe Rd., a major thoroughfare through Arlington. Located in the Ballston / Clarendon area, there’s plenty of restaurants and bars in the area as well as businesses nearby. The Ballston metro station is about 3 easy blocks from the hotel and Regan, DCA airport is about a 10 minute drive with traffic. (I’m guessing it would be about $20 in a taxi, even though I think it’s only a 4-5 mile trip)
The area around the hotel is going through a major renovation and it’s constantly changing. I remember visiting five years ago (pre-Westin) and the whole landscape of the area was different. It’s not necessarily better now, it’s just newer with a lot more to offer.
If you’re thinking of staying here as an alternative to a downtown DC hotel I’m going to caution against it because you’re not in downtown DC. Although the Metro (once you figure out the fare card system) is a very clean, efficient, and economical mode of public transport, you’re still at its mercy. It’s my personal opinion that you’re better off spending the extra couple of dollars and staying downtown. With that being said, this Westin is very much a business hotel so it’s not really set-up for tourists in mind.
Adjacent to the hotel is a shopping mall.
Property
Driving south on Glebe Rd. I got my first glimpse of the Westin ahead on my right. Driving by what I thought was the front entrance I was baffled that there was nowhere to turn-in. Just past the hotel however, there’s a little street and turning down that revealed the actual entrance to the hotel. Parking is done only as valet (or street parking if you arrive late enough) in a covered garage, for a charge of course.
Entering the hotel from the valet / main entrance the restaurant, Pinzimmi, is to your immediate left and to your right and around the corner is where you’ll find the concierge, front desk, elevator bank, meeting rooms, and another entrance to Pinzimmi (bar and lounge area). There are also stairs up to the second floor meeting rooms.
The whole area isn’t that large, so it’s not difficult to find your way around.
There are plenty of couches and comfortable seats in the lobby in case you are waiting for someone. I also believe there is free wi-fi in the lobby (however this wasn’t working when I arrived, as I’ll explain later). There is also a table with complimentary flavored waters near the front desk.
Just past the front desk is an attached Starbucks.
The hotel also features a heated indoor pool and a Workout by Westin exercise facility.
The hotel is very modern, it was opened on March 1, 2006, and reflects that in its styling. Light woods and muted greens and browns are the dominating colors. It’s all done tastefully in my opinion.
Checking-in
When I entered the hotel I was asked if I needed any assistance with my bag by the bellman. I didn’t, but I appreciated the offer. Taking a look around I was impressed with the decorations, but I was met by two odd sensations. It was super hot and stuffy in the lobby (the doors were propped open) and some of the lights were either flickering or not on (kind of reminded me a Stanley Kubrick movie for whatever reason).
More or less ignoring this I walked over to the front desk where I was met by a cheery associate. She quickly explained that they were having electrical problems, “a brown out” and apologized that she couldn’t check me in now as their computers were down, but she could manually check me in, in about 10 minutes. She then informed me that I had a message (she must have done this from memory as her computer couldn’t have told her) and relayed it to me.
I was extremely impressed by the service and the level of professionalism. I can’t fault the hotel for the power problems as it’s a little beyond their control. I walked over to Pinzimmi to have a drink and relax after my flight over from Germany.
About thirty minutes later there was no change in the condition of the electricity of the hotel, but desperately needing a shower I went back over to the front desk and the associate remembered my name and handed me the keys to my room. She apologetically told me the elevators weren’t working, again, because of the electricity problems and asked if I needed help up to the fifth floor. I figured I could hoof it no problem and set off.
The Room
My first impression of the room was that it was immaculate. Everything was brand new and it was superbly clean (of course I couldn’t see that well because only one light worked, but I didn’t see anything dirty about it), it even smelled new. The room featured the Westin Heavenly bed (which is worth a detour to a Westin in my opinion) and the Heavenly bath, a double-nozzled shower.
There was a large plasma TV, a work desk with wi-fi internet connection (charge) and an ergonomic desk chair and a chair with ottoman. The TV has cable channels as well as pay-per-view. There are a couple dual-line phones throughout the room. An alarm clock sat on the table next to the bed.
The décor of the room echoes that of the lobby with light wood and muted greens and browns. Everything is very modern and chic.
Immediately to your right when you walk in is a mirrored closet where you’ll find a complimentary iron and ironing board and coat hangers that aren’t permanently affixed to the rod (I hate it when they do that).
The bathroom wasn’t overly large, but it certainly wasn’t small either. There was one sink surrounded by a marble counter-top. The toilet was straight ahead and there was the aforementioned Heavenly shower and full bath. The water pressure in the shower wasn’t that strong, but it was fine for my needs (wasn’t weak), and the temperature control worked flawlessly.
There is an in-room safe as well as a mini-bar. You can request a key for the mini-bar at check-in.
My bottom-line on the rooms are that they are clean and very comfortable.
A/C, had there not been power problems, was a central unit controlled by a separate thermostat. I’m sure it worked fine.
My view was of downtown Ballston, and nice (I think on the other side of the hotel is a park).
Food and Beverage
Killing time in Pinzimmi whilst I waited for my room was done at a table in the expansive restaurant. Service was prompt (except for the check delivery as this had to be calculated manually) and the food was good.
The menu features Nuevo Italian food with a strong emphasis on pasta and meats. Because I was planning on having a full supper later I shared a grilled pizza appetizer ($12 I think) with someone. It was 12”, which was larger than I expected, and flavorful topped with Italian sausage and onions.
For lunch they offer fresh grilled paninis. I sampled the vegetarian panini with fresh roasted vegetables and it was excellent. The restaurant also serves a fantastic bread and selection of oils.
The restaurant has a separate, but attached, lounge area and bar. The floor-plan is open, so I’m sure it can get a little noisy in there if it was busy. There’s a separate “private” room, which is separated from the rest of the restaurant by this sheer white curtain. It made for a very unique look and effectively separated this area, but it provided the guests in the “private” area no noise insulation from the general restaurant and no visual barrier (so you couldn’t hold a sales meeting in here).
Service
For the most part the service was excellent both at the front desk and in the restaurant. The general manager of the hotel was even walking around apologizing to guests for the inconvenience of the electrical problems and offering his personal assistance.
We troubled the concierge to hunt down a phone number for us and she did it with a smile.
And then the story gets a little dark…
With each passing hour more and more lights were going out. Because the generators were powering the emergency lights in areas like the stairwells for such a long time, they too began to fail. The solution of putting glow-sticks in key areas was well intended but it didn’t really solve any problems.
Finally around 10pm I asked the front desk what the story was with the power and if there was any prayer in getting it restored. After three contradicting stories (this hotel was the only building in the immediate area without power) I asked about the possibility of moving hotels. At first I was told this could not happen.
After much discussion about the safety of the hotel (remember, there were no working lights in the stairwells, heaven forbid there would have been an emergency) they finally relented into moving people. The mass in the lobby seemed to have all been told different things. Their first offer of moving people to the Holiday Inn in Alexandria was taken by no one, as this is not a comparable hotel to the new Westin we had all booked (hospitality law states that if a hotel can not accommodate you it must move you to another property of equal or greater standards).
15 minutes or so of more discussion and I gave up as I was tired and didn’t feel like fighting with the front desk. I would rough it in my room (remember, there was no A/C and it was in the mid-80’s and muggy outside). As I turned around, telling them to forget trying to find me a new room the entire hotel plunged into complete darkness.
All of the sudden, now that we were in complete darkness and they had a huge problem on their hands, they were able to start finding people rooms at the Westin in D.C., about 5 miles away. I took them up on this offer and transferred over to what turned out to be an exceptional hotel (I’ll write the review on that soon). Although it’s considerably older than the Westin Alrington, this property was just as nice (if not nicer) with exceptional service and amenities.
My thoughts on the whole experience
I tried my best to be extremely nice and understanding to the staff because of the electric problems. When I finally realized there was going to be no resolution in site I asked them to do the right thing, and move me, something I was not out of line in asking them to do. Their response to this (it wasn’t just me that was asking) was unacceptable. Giving your guests such a run-around and providing everyone with contradictory information is unacceptable.
Instead of challenging people they should have been more accommodating. Loosing a guest for one night, while keeping their repeat business, should be more important than loosing a guest forever. They eventually did the right thing, but I hated that I felt like I was twisting their arm, and even got so sick of debating with them about it that it took a complete power-out to get them to move to action.
But that’s not all folks
I’m currently in a credit card dispute with this Westin as I was charged for both a night at the Westin Grand and the Westin Arlington. I called the Westin Arlington’s accounting department three times to talk with them about this, but they never bothered to return my call. A perfect ending to this little saga.
The ironic thing is, is that they comped everyone’s night here, even the folks that ended up staying that night. My problem occurred in my rate booked, which was pre-paid on the internet with no cancellations or changes. Of course this was an exception to this, but it complicated matters.
Bottom-line
Even with my little tale of horror this hotel is very nice. The location, if you’re traveling to the Arlington area is fine and the hotel itself is almost perfect. I trust that this was the first major problem the hotel has experienced and they’ve learned from it. I don’t doubt that if the whole scenario were to repeat they would have a better plan of action executed.
Hotels are not easy businesses to operate and with any new property there’s going to be growing pains as they deal with real world tests. I was just unfortunate to experience The Westin in Arlington at what was probably their worst night. No one can plan for such a bizarre brown out to black out incident. Yes, they could have responded better, but they were well intentioned up until the end.
When I go back to Arlington I think I’ll give this hotel another go-round. It’s certainly nicer than many in the area and I’d like to give it a fair shot on a “normal” night.
Travel safe.
www.westin.com/arlington
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
belynch
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Location: Nyack, NY
Reviews written: 64
Trusted by: 17 members
About Me:
A full-time consultant, a part-time writer, and a volunteer EMT.
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