Stayed Wed 5-27 and Sat 5-30
Rate Search History: The hotel was priced at $74 for weeknights and $59 on Friday and Saturday when I first started my searchs at the end of April 2009. On May 5 the room rate increased to $98 for Wednesday night May 27. I had already planned to stay there but I had not made a reservation. I saw the rate was $74.13 on Orbitz.com and filed a Best Rate Guarantee. The weekend rate had increased from $59 to $71 so I also filed a BRG based on teh $59 Orbitz.com rate for Saturday, May 30.
Starwood Best Rate Guarantee representative approved both claims.
For the nights I was in Denver and could have potentially stayed at Sheraton Denver Tech Center the nightly room rate had a range of $59 to $71 on the weekends. Weeknight rates ranged from $74 to $143 as the lowest nightly rate.
Arrival:
We arrived late – around 10:00 pm. Agent spent some time reading the computer while I waited. I was curious what was in the file.
Desk agent stated that all the upgrade rooms had already been given out. The Club floors are Floors 9 and 10. The top floor is 10 and the elevator exits into the Club Lounge. Key card is required to reach Floor 10. I was given Club Lounge access on my key. We had room 832.
Lobby:
Room:
We walked into Room 832 and the smell of smoke knocked us over. The 8th floor is a nonsmoking floor and the room contained a card stating a $200 charge would be assessed for smoking in the room.
This room had the strongest smoke smell of any room we have been in since Amsterdam a few years back. Kelley was exhausted and didn’t want me to bother changing rooms.
The room entry had closet to the left and bathroom to the right.
King size bed and two endtables with clock radio.
A long desk area with the TV, coffee maker and AV panel with comfortable desk chair. Two upholstered cushions and a coffee table as a seating area.
The room seemed a decent size at 305 square feet but the larger space room was at the expense of a small bathroom under 40 square feet.
Features: Curved bathroom shower rod. 37 inch Philips flat screen TV and long desk counter. Two red upholstered cushioned chairs. It was nice to have two chairs in the room.
Bathroom had no working fan. Windows do not open. Toilet did not refill immediately after flushing. More than two flushes an hour cleared the toilet out and no more flushes allowed. We hoped this would not be a night with Kelley vomiting from her chemotherapy which unfortunately has been occurring more frequently the past couple weeks.
No robe in room which apparently are in rooms on Floors 9 and 10. Only one decaf Starbucks coffee packet in the room so no morning jolt. Fortunately we had lounge privileges beginning at 6am for my morning coffee pick-me-up.
Hotel Facilities:
Outdoor pool and hot tub open 7am-11pm. The pools were covered when we arrived. A posted sign stated management would be happy to uncover the pools for guests during pool hours.
Fitness room is accessed via ground floor and is located in the conference center wing. Fitness room is relatively small with only about 6 pieces of equipment. The door key card lock was broken to the fitness room and I needed two trips to the front desk and an engineer just to get inside the room.
The hotel design is such that a person must either walk through the ground floor conference center wing to reach the fitness room or pass by the hotel restaurant and bar to reach the pool and hot tub.
Two suites on 10th floor and one suite on 9th floor of hotel were the only ones I saw.
10th Floor lounge had one computer terminal and printer. Breakfast was primarily fruit, yogurt, cereal, and pastries. One hot item was bread pudding. No eggs or meats.
The pictures in the guest room were hung at a level that would be appropriate if guests were all 5 ft 0 in tall. I laughed looking at the room hangings. I don’t think I have ever seen wall hangings so low on the walls of any hotel I’ve ever stayed.
M
y criticism of Sheraton Denver Tech Center is focused on the hotel itself and not the staff. The staff were all pleasant, accommodating, and friendly. The Club lounge concierge was highly attentive, friendly, and talkative with guests.
The hotel is a Category 2 for SPG award night redemption and will remain a decent value given low rates and an option to use a relatively small number of points for a free night. The hotel lobby looks nice and the pool is a decent size for a warm day. The appearance of the hotel is fine, particularly the public spaces. Hopefully you won’t experience any room surprises.
My first impression of this hotel after my stays was this hotel should probably be gutted and remodeled from scratch. The hotel has done a decent job with the public spaces, but the rooms still need some major remodel work.
5-30 revisit to Sheraton Denver Tech Center
Kelley really did not want to return to this hotel after staying at the Sheraton Denver West and Westin Westminster. I had a nonrefundable Best Rate Guarantee rate of $59 and decided if the room was as bad as before then we would leave and head to the Sheraton Downtown Denver.
We enjoyed the several parking spaces with the sign “Starwood Preferred Guest”.
Once again the Front Desk read the computer for an inordinate amount of time before checking me in.
We received a 10th floor, top floor club level room this time. The main difference in the room is a wall of windows with electronic shades. Also the room had a red upholstered couch rather than two chairs.
Bathroom was same miniscule design. The bathroom is only 7.5 ft x 5’ and the door, if you don’t close it, rests against your knees when sitting on the toilet.
I was there for an hour thinking I needed to re-evaluate my criticism of the hotel since the smoking smell was not apparent and there was a couch, and the atrium windows are great, and the full-strength coffee packet was present. And hey the toilet actually flushed properly.
The standard hotel room at Sheraton Denver Tech measures out at about 305 square feet. A high ceiling can compensate for a smaller room. There are fifteen 10th floor atrium rooms with a wall of windows and where one-third of the room has an 11 ft. high ceiling. These rooms are more desirable and open than the other 247 hotel rooms.
My main complaint on second stay at Denver Tech Center that we did not notice before is the paper thin walls. The voices I had been hearing and wondering if the noise was from the parking lot became clearer as we sat in a quiet room. There were at least three people next door and I could actually understand 70% of the words being spoken in the next room. The people did not seem to be speaking abnormally loud, but the words were fairly clear through the wall.
All you tech industry people discussing secure business matters should be aware that conversations can be heard and much of what you say, particularly when speaking in a slightly higher than normal speaking voice is clearly audible to your neighbors.
The room hotel guide lists the restaurant as Browser’s Bistro when it is Redfire, so the hotel room guide is even out of date.
37 inch Philips TV and couch and the windows of Floor 10 are the highlights of the hotel. Lounge is nice for computer access and morning breakfast although the color ink had not been replaced between my two stays and I still could not print out hotel driving directions on the lounge printer.
The 10th floor room is great on the north facing side of hotel because a portion of the ceiling is 11’ high.
I just kept telling myself that two nights only cost $150 all-in and I earned a free hotel night that will be worth at least double that amount and over 5,000 Starpoints (4,000 Best Rate Guarantee points and 1,000 platinum amenity points).
Hotel stays are a matter of chance:
It was highly improbable to have so many issues occur during our stay. The heavily smoked out room of 832 was not present in 1026 three nights later. The missing coffee in 832 was fully stocked in 1026. The toilet that did not flush correctly for several hours was working again by morning and there was no toilet flushing issue on our second stay. The fitness center door that was broken on Thursday was working on Sunday. The noise of Saturday night was not an audible concern on Wednesday night.
Before leaving the Denver Tech Center area I toured several other hotels. There is the Marriott Denver Tech Center, Hyatt Regency Tech Center, and DoubleTree Tech Center within a couple miles of the Sheraton. I enjoyed my past stay at the Four Points Denver Southeast and would recommend that hotel for people loyal to Starwood and needing this part of Denver. If you just want a Starwood Hotel in the Denver area and downtown is too expensive, then I recommend the Sheraton Denver West for the best value.
Hyatt Summerfield Suites is next to the Sheraton Denver Tech Center. I would stay there next time given all other factors being equal. The rooms were recently remodeled and looked great and they are much larger with better furnishings than the Sheraton Denver Tech Center.
1 Comment
Comments are closed.