Shilo Inn Suites Hotel ~ Huge Suites For Everyone…
Written: Jun 25 '08
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Large Rooms, Plenty Of Amenities, Comfy & Clean
Cons: No Extra Locks On Doors, Fireplace, Elevated Beds
The Bottom Line: Great for adult travelers, not so great for small kids.
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| susieq112's Full Review: Shilo Inn Bend, LLC |
After a short visit to Crater Lake (amid heaps of snow) and a disappointing inaccessibility to the Newberry Crater National Volcanic Monument, we found ourselves seeking for a place to stay for the night. Our search led us to Bend, Oregon where we found the quaint Shilo Inn Suites Hotel, what a find!
Hash Out The Price
So, I’ve only stayed at one Shilo Suites before, but I know their gimmick -huge rooms-, but my Mom goes in dealing for what she thinks a regular hotel room looks like. Surprisingly enough the starting rate for a room we were seeking, which would be one with a double bed, was $140. More surprisingly, my Mother talked them down to $105 for the night… Good deal, lets go see the room.
Hotel Setup
The Shilo Inn Suites Hotel is pretty inconspicuous. If not for the sign it would be difficult to identify as a hotel while your driving down the road. The rooms are clustered together in 2 floor building that are scattered around and over a pretty large area.
The main lobby is just off the main road and across from the lobby is a separate building that houses a restaurant and a number of meeting and banquet rooms. Behind this building is a fairly large outdoor pool and 2 building with rooms around the pool.
The rest of the buildings, 5 total, are lined up along the Deschutes River, which is back a ways from the road. The center building, in this set of 5, houses a small indoor, 2 hot tubs, a small fitness center, sauna, steam room and dressing and shower rooms. The top floor of this building has 3 meeting rooms.
Our Room #608
Our room was what the hotel titled as a ‘Kitchen Suite’. While it is my understanding that some of their rooms are laid out completely different, especially those with different bed configurations, I didn’t get a glimpse of any other rooms.
Our room was broken into four different sections. The front of the room has a full bathroom (sink/vanity, shower/tub & toilet) closed off into a separate room to one side and an additional vanity/sink with additional counter space was located on the opposing wall, just in the entrance.
The sleeping area had 2 queens beds with a night stand in between. On the opposing wall was a dresser with a 32 inch LCD TV on top. Next to the dresser was a desk with an office chair.
The back part of the room included a sitting area with a full-size couch, 2 sitting chairs and a table. This setting area also included an additional TV. Also located in the back of the room was a kitchenette. This area included a refrigerator, microwave, counter, cabinets and a small sink. In the back corner of this back area was also a Natural Gas Fireplace and a backdoor that goes onto a small patio with 2 chairs over looking the river.
Clean?
Extremely, but the room also appeared to have been recently remodeled, so… The linens on the bed we’re well taken care of, ample and the bed slept beautiful, but… it was extremely high off of the ground. So high in face that the top surface of the bed was as high as my waist (I’m 5ֹ”, but that’s still a highly elevated bed).
The entire room appeared spotless from top to bottom, so I didn’t have any complaints with the rooms cleanliness.
Room Issues
I had only one real complaint with our room, which wouldn’t matter to many. The doors (both the front and the back) didn’t have any additional locks (ie chain or bar style), which meant my 2 year old son could open the door on his own. Without these extra locks we had to resort to placing chairs in front of the doors to keep him in.
I didn’t care for the fireplace in the room either. The fireplace has a pilot light that was on when we entered our room. I wasn’t kosher with the idea of a flame in the same room as my son so I tried to turn it off. When I couldn’t find any clear cut instructions I ended up having to try to call down to the office, it took about 3 phone calls where I just let the phone ring and ring until they answered. Once I got my point across they sent someone right down to the room to get it turned off.
This hotel does have another issue and that revolves around parking. While the hotel doesn’t seem to have a lack of parking, they do have a problem with the spacing on their parking lot. The building that our room was located in was the last of the 5 buildings running along the river, there wasn’t any ‘real’ parking area for this building so we ended up walking quite a ways from our car to our room. Furthermore, when we scouted the restaurant across the street from the lobby we ended up walking quite a ways once we headed out from our room, which was the building farthest away from the lobby.
The Amenities
The hotel offers a number of amenities in addition to the ones I mentioned. These include free high-speed internet access; free USA Today newspaper; Free coffee, fruit & popcorn in the lobby; Free limited shuttle service, free local phone calls, guest laundry area, short stature accessibility kits, satellite TV and a business center.
The business center is located within the lobby and simply consists of 2 computers and a printer and is offered free to the guest of the hotel. The hotel also offered a complimentary breakfast, but it was pretty slim. It consisted of Danishes, muffins, bagels (all pre-wrapped), oatmeal (in packets) and they had juice or coffee to drink.
More surprisingly about their breakfast, was their lack of space to eat it in. While the lobby is spacious they have a large area with couches, but no tables to sit down and eat their breakfast. Because we vacated our room and made our way up to the lobby we were forced to munch on a couch…
Final Thoughts
For me, I loved the room we had at Shilo Inn Suites. It was a huge room and it would be great for an extended stay -very comfortable-, but with my son the room was a bit inconvenient. I had to worry about him falling from the high beds, escaping out the doors and messing with the fireplace. Therefore, I can easily recommend this to adult travelers, but, if you have kids along I would avoid it.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
susieq112
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Procrastination ~ At this rate, I'll never finish my mini-doumentary...
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