W Silicon Valley, Newark, California

Can’t afford a W Hotel? Think again.

There are currently 41 W Hotels open around the world in the Starwood Hotels luxury boutique brand. W Hotels opened in the past year in London, St. Petersburg, Russia; Bali, Taipei and Santiago, Chile. There are several more W Hotels scheduled to open in the next year in Paris, Milan, Singapore and Bangkok.

Think lights and darkness, music and playful whimsy, style and attitude. Guests seem to either really love the W concept or find it pretentious. My wife is a lover of W style. I generally have a great time in W Hotels, but the rooms tend to be too small and the price too high for my comfort. Think $250 to $350 as average rates for this luxury boutique brand.

Starwood’s W Silicon Valley is probably the hotel where I have booked more paid nights than any other hotel over the past decade. W Silicon Valley is undoubtedly the lowest priced of any of the W Hotels. By far the lowest priced during weekends and holidays. The published AAA rate for this Memorial Day weekend at the W Silicon Valley was $81. Even lower was my Starwood Best Rate Guarantee matched rate to Hotels.com price for $64 per night + 2,000 bonus Starpoints. And the hotel even upgraded me to a Cool Corner Suite for only the second time in 8 years.

On top of the low price is the standard large room at W Suites Silicon Valley measuring 447 square feet. Most W Hotels will require a significant upgrade to land a room that size. The standard room at Silicon Valley is larger than any upgraded room I received at W San Francisco, W Washington D.C., W Chicago Lakeshore or W Chicago – City Center.

All standard rooms at W Silicon Valley are basically junior suites with the TV table dividing the sitting room from the bed. The Cool Corner Suite has the same furnishings as lower category rooms, but larger space between the furniture and in the bathroom. Flat screen TVs arrived in the past two years to bring the hotel into the 21st century. The TVs swivel for viewing from couch or bed.

All the rooms at W Silicon Valley come with a mini-bar refrigerator, microwave and sink.

The refrigerator is spacious enough to put your own food and drink inside around the mini-bar items and no electronic sensors to inhibit moving the mini-bar items around to make space.

The bathrooms have both shower and tub.

The rooms used to have large and beautiful blue drinking glasses. Now they are small and clear.

Frankly, I am surprised W Silicon Valley hotel has survived as a W Hotel in the small southeastern San Francisco Bay city of Newark, California. There is no big city life in the vicinity of the hotel. There is actually not much of anything around the hotel. W Silicon Valley hotel is located between a business park, housing tracts and the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge on the shore of San Francisco Bay, at the eastern edge of the Dumbarton Bridge. The hotel is 8 miles from Palo Alto, home of Stanford University and 30 miles from San Francisco.

W Silicon Valley lobby is generally uncrowded unless a special party is happening. The bar, restaurant and lobby are a compact space.

There is a small fitness room and an outdoor pool surrounded by sand at W Silicon Valley. There is also an outdoor firepit. The wind tends to blow briskly at this southern end of San Francisco Bay which makes the hot tub a more popular ‘wet’ experience in my observations over the years.

There are probably not too many people who would list the W Silicon Valley as their favorite Starwood Hotel, but for a loyalty traveler, Newark has been a home away from home since 2003 for this frequent guest seeking to maintain SPG Platinum elite and needing a high quality, low priced hotel within driving distance of Monterey. And the W Silicon Valley, Newark really is 90 miles from Monterey (W Silicon Valley website states 50 miles), so don’t take the W Silicon Valley Acura SUV for a 3-hour complimentary drive and expect to reach Cannery Row and back in the allotted time.

Related Loyalty Traveler posts:

W Silicon Valley Fly-by in HD (July 28, 2009) – This piece touches on the adjacent wildlife refuge and history of sea salt production in San Francisco Bay.

W San Francisco in HD (Sep 4, 2009) – Loads of photos

W Chicago Lakeshore Hotel (Oct. 26, 2010)

W Chicago City Center in Blue Ray (October 27, 2010)