Sheraton Boston Hotel.....Welcome to the Rabbit Warren
Written: May 26 '03 (Updated Oct 30 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Convenient if you are attending a convention there, good renovation
Cons: Cheerless, ugly box of a hotel...remember your name tag
The Bottom Line: Recommended only for conventions and meetings. Everyone else will get lost in the shuffle.
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| tombarnes's Full Review: Sheraton Boston |
The Sheraton Boston is one of those big box hotels which manages to radiate frigidity, even on a blazing summer's day. There is nothing wrong with the hotel in many respects, so I don't wish to dismiss it merely because of its bad architecture, but one must harbor no illusions about the place before venturing inside this miniature city.
The Building
Planned as the Hotel America by the Hotel Corporation of America (known today as the Sonesta Corporation) in 1966, the hotel is a good (or bad, depending upon your taste in architecture) example of the brutalist phase of the Modern Movement in architecture. Picture two slabs of concrete and glass and you have a fairly good idea of what this hotel is all about. The second tower was added in the late 1980's, but it offers little distraction from the first tower, a mind-numbing block of concrete and glass. Only the fripperies added by I.M. Pei, most notably the glowing entrance canopy, added any sort of architectural diversion, and even these were swept away like old leaves in the most recent renovation of the exterior.
The Lobby
Huge, low-ceilinged and impersonal, this lobby is not one of Boston's better public spaces. There is nothing either monumental or inviting about it. One or the other might have made it a success. Betwixt is a space of unpleasantly vast dimensions and a low ceiling, hardly a recipe for felicitous public space. Recent attempts at giving it some vim and vigor, with blue and gold diamond patterned carpeting and new furniture have made it fresh, but not exactly warm or inviting. The requisite marble floors and expanses of wood paneling do not enliven the space.
Take note of the vast reception desk and pray that there won't be a long line. Chances are, there will certainly be one waiting for you. To circumvent this, you might try the express check-in option, something available to Starwood Preferred Guest members, even those at the lowliest levels, to the depths of which I have recently been relegated. Don''t you just love being demoted? My Sheraton stays have dropped off quite a lot lately.
The staff are efficient, if not especially warm. With luck, you may find yourself on one of the Club Floors, not as jealously guarded as their old Towers floors once were. The former Towers floors have been integrated into the rest of their executive levels, so they don't try as hard to keep you out anymore.
Rooms
On my most recent stay, I was given a suite on the Club Level, a pleasant suite, if not one with a terrific view. In fact, I looked directly into the cement wall of another building. There was a grudging bit of river view, but only at the corner. What you really want to have here is a river view. If you are going to stay here, you might as well have a view of the Charles. It's much better than overlooking the Christian Science Center next door, another klunky piece of Modernist exuberance.
My suite was pleasant, if not inspired. I have also stayed here in a standard room, and advise you to at least get a room on the Club Level if at all possible. Most rooms here, while they have had a spunky new renovation recently, are still very average in size and amenities. Don't forget that this is a vast convention hotel (with no less than 1,215 rooms), and you are but a cog in the wheels of name tags which make this place turn day and night.
The rooms have recently been upgraded to match the corporate specifications dictated by Starwood. As such, the rooms are clean and fairly crisp. Attention has been paid to the beds, more notably a preoccupation of Westin (another Starwood brand), to the extent that they are actually comfortable. This was a big improvement from my first stay here (albeit in a regular room) where the bed was like a slag heap with a coverlet.
The furniture has been improved too. Out went the old, neo-Georgian cheap stuff, and in came the streamlined, slightly more expensive furniture. It won't knock your socks off, but it will likely be sufficient for the duration of your meeting or business in town. Harbor no notions of lolling about in the lap of luxury. If you crave luxury, this is not the hotel for you.
The new furniture is far better than the old, and does not offend. They have paid particular attention to the desk areas, so one can actually work at the desks now. Closet space is minimal, unless you happen to be in a suite, where you may find it adequate, if not enormous.
The great advantage that most suites here do have is floor space. Most of the suites are at least double the size of the rooms, ensuring that you will have the space to swing a cat, should you desire. Leave kitty at home if you are going to a regular room. Remember that the rooms on the Club Level offer no more space than the serried ranks of rooms below.
Bath
Remarkably cramped, the baths are at least attractively refurbished. The amenities are standard, and come packaged in un-alluring little bottles. While miniscule, the baths at least have marble trim and magnifying mirrors, scales and the baths themselves are fresh, not tired, as they had been on my first stay.
Club Level Lounge
Perhaps it ought to be called Mr. MacGregor's Garden. At any rate, you may find carrots and celery sticks aplenty. The best thing about the room is the view of the Charles you will enjoy from its expansive walls of glass. The space itself is ordinary, and very often crowded. Legions of travelers will be lining up for their granola before you stumble into the room, so just be patient. They may even run out of your favorite cereal. Club Level or not, this hotel is most emphatically not about personal service, so do leave such expectations behind when pinning on your plastic name tag.
Get here early in the evening if you want to savor the mini-quiche in various flavors of rubber. I arrived late once and found the stocks totally depleted.
Dining
I wish I had better news for you. The restaurant here, Apropos, is an uninteresting one, and is best avoided. While far better than the old one, it is still a large and anonymous cafe. They have got rid of the more formal dining rooms in favor of a sort of corporate mush offering "New England cuisine." Don't believe it for a minute. Carry yourself off to a real restaurant (there are plenty nearby) and only use the place if you can't get complimentary Cheerios upstairs at breakfast time.
Bar
Rather like the restaurant, in that it is large and impersonal, the enormous lobby lounge takes up huge areas of the wasteland of the lobby. I am surprised that the cocktail servers don't have GPS systems to remember their way back to your table. Drinks are on the expensive side, so why bother?
Pool and Fitness
The pool is one of the brighter lights of the Warren. In season, they open it to the sky, so it is sometimes cheerful. What's best about it is that one may actually do laps in the pool. The pool is significantly larger than most in Boston.
Their workout area is well maintained, though a trifle antiseptic. It even smelled like some sort of liniment. Notwithstanding, they have loaded it with all the new machines your muscles can possibly withstand. The attendants are helpful too.
Shopping
Odd that I should mention shopping? Not when the hotel is part of the Prudential Center, with a large number of shops at hand. Don't get too excited, most of them are on the ordinary/meretricious side of things. Think Warner Brothers Studio Store and you have an idea of the mall. The hotel is directly connected to the Pru by skywalks, so one need not venture outside. Be absolutely sure to avoid the terrible restaurant at the top of the Prudential building. .
A new Mandarin Oriental hotel and even more exclusive shops are soon to be springing up in the Prudential Center, so keep your eyes peeled for it all to happen in a few years' time.
Getting There
The hotel is convenient to much of the Back Bay area of Boston, with its many shops and stores. The hotel can be reached easily on the T (subway--green line) as well. The hotel has a huge garage with acres of parking, though parking can be expensive here.
Service
This brings us to service. In a corporate hotel of over a thousand rooms, one would do well to lower expectations. Given the size of the place, service is actually faster than one might reasonably expect. That does not always mean that service comes with a smile. There is an air of the merely perfunctory here. One can almost sense the heavy hand of the corporate guidelines at work here. Servers will stammer out rehearsed lines, the desk agents will happily tell you NO in the matter-of-fact way of nearly all convention hotels. The hotel's great popularity has not done it any favors in terms of customer service. All the new furniture in the world will not substitute for perfunctory service. In short, they have some distance to travel down the road to perfection.
Cost
Here is the good news. While rack rates here are stratospherically high on average, one can usually secure a good rate if with a group or convention. The really bad news is that they are not particularly known for discounting outside the realm of group bookings, at least not notably so. If you spend hours scouring the discounters, you may well come up with a rate you can live with here. Otherwise, you will be far better off at a more elaborate property. Do not pay the rack rate here, or you will come away feeling cheated. You might consider using up some Starwood or even airline points here.
I paid $185.00 for a suite, though I paid a much lower rate for the standard room on my first stay. The "rack rates" are over $400.00, a foolish expenditure for a hotel such as this, but one can easily get a rate of about $150.00 without trying too hard.
Sheraton Boston Hotel
in the Prudential Center
39 Dalton Street
Boston, MA 02199
Tel. (617)-236-2000
FAX (617)-625-5104
Toll free (900)-325-3535 Sheraton Reservations
Want to join the Great Hotel Write-Off? Here's the link....
http://www.angelfire.com/moon/lyagushka/index.html
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
tombarnes
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 - Top 200 |
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Member: Thomas Barnes
Location: Fort Lauderdale & Washington, DC
Reviews written: 688
Trusted by: 443 members
About Me:
With Barbara in Miami, 2004
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