OR Portland Hotel Benson

[CheapZone]

I've stayed here once in March

[LynLyn]

We stayed at this hotel June 2004, for one night. It was a very nice, old, elegant hotel. Everyone was very nice to us - the front desk staff, the doorman, the restaurant staff. When we checked in there was free tea and cookies, we went to the free wine tasting in the early evening, and listened to jazz in the lounge later that night. Coffee and newspapers in the lobby in the morning.

All that said - Our room was small. It had all of the goodies mentioned in the post above, - just not much square footage. I am sure we got one of the smaller rooms in the building as it looked like a wedding had booked out most of the hotel. If we had paid full price we would have been disappointed in the room size. We did not ask for an upgrade though - so perhaps we could have gotten a bigger room. . . .

One thing to point out - the parking (valet) is expensive at this hotel. We parked in a self park around the corner and saved quite a bit.

[mucsea2003]

We stayed here for 2 nights at the beginning of August. This is a good hotel, however there were some concerns.

Check-in: Friendly and fast, mentioned Priceline about 5 times. I asked for a room with two beds, which they wouldn't give to me without paying an upgrade charge because of Priceline even though they were clearly not fully booked on that Sunday night. They had a bowl with two goldfish brought up to our room, which was a nice gesture. And the kids loved that feature.

Lobby: Great old lobby. Very nice, worth looking at even if you don't stay at the hotel. Complimentary coffee and newspaper in the morning. Iced Tea, lemonade and cookies in the afternoon. The wine tasting (5-6pm every night) is in the wine cellar at the very back of the London Grill restaurant. The wine was not too special but it was a very cosy and nice gathering point before going out for dinner.

Room: On the seventh floor (719), not too small with one Queen bed. Looking at the floor plan, all their rooms seem to be different in size. Ours was somewhat on the lower end, but not the smallest. All the above listed amenities incl. in-room coffee. However, the room was clearly not what you would expect from a 4* hotel. In fact it really needed some refurbishment. The carpet was very worn and had stains and bumps all over the place. At the entrance to the bathroom it was so worn you could see the wood underneath it. :) The bathroom itself was tiny and had pretty old motel-style fixtures but was very clean. Bed was comfortable and the room was clean. We had an extra rollaway at no charge.

Service: The staff including housekeeping was very helpful and friendly and happily fulfilled every request. WiFi high speed internet is $9.95 a day, so bring your laptop, becuse the business center which is only open during the week is pretty much useless (just one computer and Internet didn't work when I was there.) and they charge like $6 for 30 minutes. No pool unfortunately.

Parking: Valet with in and out privileges is about $22-24. We didn't do that and instead street parked which is free and widely available from 6pm to 8am and all day Sunday. During the day we parked one block down in a garage that had an $8.25 early bird special that was good until midnight. When you buy something downtown (which is not hard - no sales tax!) you can have your parking ticket validated, which in our case resulted in free parking.

Location: Perfect, just three blocks to Pioneer Square and only a short walk to Powell's book store.

Overall: A nice hotel with (at least one) clearly substandard priceline room. (I liked the 5th Avenue Suites much better.)

[[email protected]]

Not happy with the Benson. Stayed there one night in Dec 04. Rooms are tiny, street noise kept me up all night. Advertised (brochure in room) turn-down service, didn't get any. This hotel is run down and valet parking, I believe, was 23 dollars (there is no self-park, unless you want to park on the street and go out early to feed the meter). No pool. The only thing I enjoyed was a restaurant down the block, Pazzos, which I cannot say enough good things about. Tip--I think the Benson is the only 4 star hotel offered by Priceline, so BID LOW. I bid 100 a night and got it immediately. I should have bid 70.

[AEmgee]

Just completed a one night stay with a winning bid of $53.

The hotel is located on Broadway and Oak. When driving in Portland, try to find a detailed map since most of the streets are one-ways and not all are perpendicular/parallel.

I parked directly in front of the hotel side entrance at a metered space (free after 6pm). I checked in late with no mention of Priceline. I was asked if a queen non-smoking room would do, and since I knew that if I said no there would be extra charges, I just nodded and took the room key. I was in room 715 (the seventh floor is non-smoking).

The room is the tiniest room I've ever seen in a North American hotel. It had one queen bed and enough room to walk on either side, and that was it! Probably the room was 12'x10' if even that large. The furniture looked reasonable and the bed was comfortable with a memory foam top. Unfortunately, the bedding consisted of old yellow blankets and not the trendier down comforters now offered in many hotels.

The bathroom had no counter space to put anything since it had a pedestal sink. The window in the bathroom looked really old but the bathroom fixtures looked modern. The showerhead had good water pressure but the bathtub drain moved water very slowly. A small hairdryer, shampoo, conditioner, shoe mit, sewing kit, shower cap, mouthwash (don't see this often), body lotion, and shower gel were all stocked in the bathroom.

Despite the room and bathroom being tiny, I enjoyed my stay because of all the nice touches. On the notepad in the room, there was a hand-written note welcoming me to the hotel. USA Today was delivered early in the morning and in the lobby there was an assortment of other newspapers. Also in the lobby, complimentary coffee and tea was served along with Cameo apples. All the staff were very friendly during my stay as well.

I noticed on the TV checkout that the price on the room was $59.06 so it looks like the Priceline fee was about $8.00.

Overall, tiny room but I would stay again if I didn't really need the extra space.

[Jorge J]

Stayed at Benson Sat. April 13th. Started at 50 and got it at 70.00. We were offered a king smoking and had to pay 20.00 extra for 2 beds. Room was adequate but next to an elevator which rumbled all night. Yes, it does have a social hour and they did turn down our bed. The room was nice. However for 66.00 I have stayed at the Larkspur and it is a WONDERFUL 4 star hotel on the river. All the rooms are great and there is no downtown noise. I live near Portland and will share this about the Bensen. It is old...old. Some parts are nice and some aren't.

I do not want to stay in this hotel again. Is there a way to bid around it? Also there rack rate for Saturday is 159.99 double or king so why does priceline let them get away with this. Would you suggest writing Priceline? I already have sent a letter of protest to Coast Hotels, their owner. Jorge J

[irishdream]

My husband and I stayed at the Benson over Memorial Day weekend this year for $69/night on priceline. The lobby was as beautiful as everyone claimed, and the staff was pretty friendly, with little pretension or anything like that. We also enjoyed the jazz and wine-tasting. The concierge became our best friend over the trip, helping us with restaurants and getting massages in our room. While it was all very expensive, of course, he he made it as painless for us as possible otherwise.

The worst part of our stay was this crazy Swedish foam bed they tout in their brochures. Supposedly, it's supposed to conform to your body and support you, but I swear, those were some of the worst nights of sleep I ever had. We tossed and turned and became increasingly tired and grumpy for our trip. I finally complained to the front desk, and for $20 we got upgraded to a suite with a 'real' mattress. It was fantastic. I only wish I'd done it sooner.

Another weird thing that happened was that when we came back one day, housekeeping had been through and on our Benson stationary, someone had scrawled all sorts of Bank of America account #s and information (no, not ours). I got the impression the maid took a call or something while cleaning and wrote down her stuff and then left it. I took it the front desk. Really odd.

Finally, I second those who skirted the overpriced parking. We used our car a lot during the day. When we'd get back around 4, we'd just pay a street meter until it expired at 6 and leave it over night. No problems whatsoever.

[CrazyOne]

Stayed one night at Benson, Thursday 6/24/05, at $83 bid price.

A little surprised at the negatives here, but I guess the rooms must vary somewhat. Here's what I remember:

We did have a car, and we parked in the garage of the next building down. Perhaps the hotel parks its cars in here too. This didn't save a whole lot vs valet, but we knew we wouldn't move the car until the following afternoon. This garage cost $17 max for 24 hours, I think quite possibly pricey by Portland standards. But it did have a direct connection under the street into the lower level of the hotel. We found a parking spot right next to that door. Nice bonus for retrieving a few things later and also dropping stuff off there upon checkout (but leaving the car there a bit longer).

Check-in was fine, the woman at the desk was very friendly and efficient. No mention of Priceline, just a standard room/tax prepaid line. Other staff we encountered were also friendly, though there weren't that many of them that we really talked to. We did not dine in the hotel at all. Common areas are decorated with lots of dark wood and coordinating materials. Looks like a fancy-ish old hotel, basically.

Room was fine I thought, I think 9th floor, no smoking. Had a running laugh about in-room coffee being in the bathroom in many hotels during our trip. That was not the case here. The main part of the room was a little tight perhaps with the desk, bed, nightstands, armoire with TV and at least one chair. Certainly there wouldn't have been room for another bed in there. (We had one queen.) The layouts probably vary depending upon where you are on the floor and would have much more variance than a more modern hotel. Some space in this particular room was wasted as a sort of entryway off of which were the closet and the bathroom. Because of this sort of T-shaped layout, I didn't count that space in my observation of the "main" part of the room. Judging vs some other 4* properties (and I just stayed at one last week), it may well be a little small, but it did not bother us.

Bathroom again was fine, stocked with all manner of toiletry stuff and everything placed just so. Not a lot of room for your own junk, but it's not a huge bother to us. Fixtures seemed modern. Robes were in the room too, in the closet. In our room layout there is not a window in the bath; there were two windows in the main part of the room.

I don't recall anything looking particularly worn in the room. Not sure if this is due to any renovations which are either slowly happening or recently happened. The doors and their hardware appeared to be original (apart from the modern electronic lock on the main door). The windows had old-fashioned roll up blinds behind the sheer curtains. Funny, but they work. As always, difficult to get them to roll up in the morning. :) I don't remember the bedding that much, but there was a brochure for the Tempur-Pedic mattress in the room. (I suspect it is a joint venture, offsetting some or all of the mattress price with the in-room ad placement.) There was a handwritten welcome note on the note pad. And right after we checked in, a guy from maintenance came back with a new lightbulb for one of the lamps, apologizing for the interruption. (This is not insignificant; both rooms I stayed in last week including a 4* Marriott had at least one nonfunctional lamp.)

Hm, not sure what else. The location was great. We did of course go over to Powell's, just a few blocks away. Had dinner at the excellent Typhoon! just down the street. http://www.typhoonrestaurants.com/ It says Thai cuisine, but this is not your average Thai restaurant at all. Highly recommended. Can't remember the name of the place we ate breakfast, a little further away and in a different direction but also really good.

Overall my impression of the hotel remains quite positive. I wouldn't hesitate to bid this area again and hope for the Benson.

[keithf]

The lobby's nice, but my room left a lot to be desired. Small, dark, pretty aged. View was the back side of an ugly building, and noisy cooling towers inbetween. In fact the constant noise and vibration of the cooling towers created rattles in my room (the closet and bathroom doors mainly, just leave them open). I was on the 12th floor, can't imagine the annoyance for people staying several floors down much closer to those things.

I agree with the comment about the weird uncomfortable beds. Just afwul. The worst part of my stay.

Wireless access in room was $10/day and slow, low signal strength.

Decor was fairly nice, but the other negatives outweighed that.

Whoever rated this place a 4-star clearly never stayed on this side of the hotel. With the noise, and bad bed, I'd give it a 2 at best, 3 if they corrected those issues.

I've stayed at the Marriott a block south, and it is much nicer.

I paid $72+tax for a Tuesday night stay through priceline, booked about 10 days ahead.

[pirate]

Stayed here in August 2007. Quite simply this is one of our favourite hotels in the USA. It manages to be upmarket without ever being stuffy; the staff are first rate; the location is unbeatable and we love the atmosphere in the public rooms.

After I scored a room on Priceline I contacted the hotel direct and paid $50 per night to upgrade to a suite, a strategy that I have employed whenever I have stayed at The Benson. I ended up with a lovely, spacious, beautifully appointed room for $60 less than the rack rate for a standard room.

:) Pirate