Not so pleasant stay We traveled around the U.S from Australia staying at 4 star hotels using Priceline. This one was a disappointment. We arrived from New York on Dec 29 after a delayed flight and were so tired that we did not check the room(869). As I tried to get to sleep I kept hearing a noise that I put down to the cable cars outside on Powell Street. At 2am I realised that the noise was not the cable car but the elevator and our room was directly behind the elevator shaft!! On thinking back to the checkin I remembered the woman behind the desk grimacing when she saw what room she was giving us and a slight look of panic as she handed us the room keys. At 6am, after getting no sleep I rang down to the front lobby to get a change of room as we were staying 4 nights and the room was too noisy. The clerk on the front desk asked what room I was in. I told him and he said he understood perfectly. He told me we could go to 874 and I should come down to reception to get the keys. After packing our bags and moving them to outside 874 (at the other end of the hotel) I went down to the lobby to drop off the old keys and pick up the new ones. I asked the clerk if 874 was next to an ice machine, stairs, elevator etc and he said "I wouldn't do that to you, brother. I'll just make sure". He opened a drawer and consulted a sheet of paper which I guess contained all the Priceline rooms. It took him 15 minutes of consulting the computer and the sheet of paper before giving me the keys to room 867 (two rooms from the first room, 869). So I went back up to the 8th floor, told my partner that we had to move the bags back to the other end of the hotel. I wondered what was wrong with 874. So, after carrying our bags all the way back to the other end of the hotel, I opened the door to 867 to find the new room was a lot smaller than the first one and we had been downgraded from a king-size bed to a queen. I rang the front desk again and was told that I was given a standard room with a queen bed and the only standard rooms with a king size bed were next to the elevator shaft. I am 6'6" tall and am used to sleeping in a king sized bed but having had no sleep that night I resigned ourselves to this room. The room did not appear that clean- it looked like it had not been vacuumed in quite a while (there was visible dust and the bath looked like it had not been cleaned with a creme cleanser it a while). Little did I know this was just the start of our hygiene problems. On New Years Eve, the 8th floor rooms started filling up with what appeared to be frat aged guests. The hotel was hosting a New Years party and the atmosphere became quite lively which I enjoyed. In the early morning we stepped out of our room to go on a tour to find a pool of vomit just outside our neighbor's door. A few more yards along another pool of vomit and then another one just outside the elevator. I thought I should mention this to the front desk as it would be hours before the housemaids would be coming around. With the smell still in my nostrils I mentioned this to the women behind the front desk. She did not look surprised and asked if we would like another room. I said no as I had already been moved and I was just mentioning this as it should be cleaned up as soon as possible. I told her where the vomit was. She consulted her computer. After a few seconds she said "Priceline" to herself out loud without looking at me and opened a drawer. She removed a couple of complementary coffee coupons from the drawer and asked if could she offer me them in apology. I said no thank you but felt quite insulted by her manner. First of all, a coffee costs 20c to produce and secondly, she categorized me by the fact I was a Priceline customer. When we returned to the room that evening the "solid" bits of the vomit had been cleaned up but the smell and stains were still there. I rang the "Express Service" number and mentioned it to them. Two hours later, after no action, I asked one of the housemaids cleaning a room next door (late checkout) to address it. The stain outside my room was shampoo'ed but not the others. Is "Express Service" an oxymoron at Westin?? In our travels around the U.S we used a mix of Priceline and hotel chain websites to get good value rates. In comparison to to other hotel chains where I received excellent service and value for money I don't think I can recommend Westin.
