Two Hiltons & a Hyatt: a Tale of Three Chain Hotels

As I mentioned in my review of the Renaissance Orlando, I don’t normally review chain hotels because I don’t normally stay in chain hotels. But the last few months has seen me traveling more for business than pleasure, so chain hotels it is. Two chains, in addition to Renaissance, have dominated my recent stays: Hyatt & Hilton. So if you find yourself in Boston, NYC (check out my other favorite NYC hotels here, here & here) or the ‘burbs of Minneapolis, & need a basis place to stay, here are some suggestions.

The Hilton Boston Logan

I arrived at BOS early one morning on the first flight out of DC. With two hours until my conference at the Hilton Boston Logan started, I figured my best hope, was to find a comfy chair to camp out on in the lobby & try to get some work done. So imagine my surprise when the front desk told me that my room was ready for check in. My King Room was pretty basic, as far as hotel rooms go, but had a large work space &, better yet, a huge picture window overlooking the airport.

As I settled in for an evening of post-conference work in my room, I was surprised that, despite my panoramic view of the comings & goings at an international airport, it was very quiet. After a few hours of work, a few beers, & a few snacks from the cafe downstairs (there’s nothing like biz travel dinner on the fly), I crawled into bed, falling into a pile of fluffy pillows. Unfortunately, what was not quiet was the family that checked in next door in the middle of the night with their screaming baby. But c’est la vie I figured. When I tweeted about my great sleep quality, minus the screaming infant, I was contacted by the hotel manager & $50 was taken off my room bill – an incredibly generous gesture, considering the hotel did nothing wrong. After the second day at my conference, I was able to take advantage of the airy lobby (& the free wifi there) to get some work done before my return flight.

While certainly not special by boutique hotel standards, the Hilton Boston Logan Airport far exceeded my expectations by airport hotel standards. Should I ever find myself traveling through Bean Town again, & needed a place to stay convenient to the airport, I wouldn’t hesitate to stay here.

Hilton New York

In all the times I’ve been to New York City, I’ve never stayed at the Hilton, the behemoth hotel that fills almost an entire city block at 53rd Street& 6th Avenue. So when I traveled to NYC with a client last fall, & I realized that all of our meetings were in a a three block radius of this NY icon, I decided to give it a try.

Walking into the lobby is immediately overwhelming: it’s buzzing with people socializing, running to meetings,  & milling around with their electronic devices to avoid paying the $14 per day in-room Internet charge. When I checked in, I was upgraded to a “larger” room since I’d only be staying at the hotel for one night. Given that there were multiple conferences going on at the hotel during my stay, it’s amazing they had any extra rooms to spare.

I couldn’t believe my “larger” room when I opened the door: it was tiny, even by New York standards. The two full sized beds (haven’t slept in one of those since high school!) took up much of the room, with a small desk space jammed in one corner. The bathroom was actually smaller than the bathroom in my 1940’s rowhouse, which I actually didn’t think was possible. This was a far cry from the Four Seasons people! The view out the small windows, though? Pure New York.

The sleep quality was pretty good, even though I was woken up twice by people shoving flyers under my door advertising various events at the conference taking place at the hotel which I wasn’t attending.

It wasn’t all bad: my room service breakfast was delivered promptly & hot (but at a staggering price for two eggs, some bacon, & toast). The location absolutely cant be beat: you’re literally smack in the middle of Midtown. But, overall, the entire experience felt generic, like I was just a room number. I suppose in a hotel with 1,980 rooms, that’s going to happen. And, sometimes, it’s nice to be a little more anonymous.

Hyatt Place Eden Prairie

When traveling to Minneapolis recently for a funeral, instead of bunking in with family like normal, we decided to stay in a hotel. And not just B & me: my Dad, my brother, my aunt & uncle, their four kids & spouses & kids.We were quite the hearty group! Unfortunately, we were no match for the Hyatt Place Eden Prairie. For they had two things even rowdier than a large Italian family: a youth hockey team running around the hotel & near round-the-clock construction going on. During our three night stay, I think I saw more construction workers roaming the halls than hotel employees – had I been a female traveling alone, this definitely would have given me pause. The real bummer of the stay came on our second night when the Canadian youth hockey team took over our floor. The kids were running up & down the halls until late into the night g& the adults were having their own drinking party until the wee-hours of the morning. On the third night of our stay, I called the front desk three separate times to complain of noise. Only after that third call (at 3:30am) – & a lot of tweeting at Hyatt HQ – did someone come up to assess the situation.

It wasn’t all bad: the renovations they’ve made to the hotel are really nice & the lobby is well designed (but looks identical to every other Hyatt Place). Our standard room was comfortable, with lots of seating. The complimentary breakfast provided with the room rate is more than ample (although they definitely need additional breakfast seating). It’s in kind of a random location – near a lot of offices, rather than tourist attractions – so probably not somewhere you’ll stay if you’re planning on spending a lot of time in the Twin Cities themselves.

Overall, a solid B+.