Hotel Review: Sheraton Bellevue Hotel

I was recently in Seattle for the First2Board.com Sessions, a two day boutique travel-focused event that allows a small group of people to gather, share, learn, eat, and have fun in a new city every year.

The event was held at the Sheraton Bellevue Hotel, which is a Category 4 hotel requiring only 10,000 starpoints. My partner’s corporate rate was able to score me a room for $118 a night, so I ended up booking using cash.

I rented a car at the airport and drove to the hotel in about thirty minutes. From the outside, the hotel looks a little dated. 

The lobby was small, but recently refurbished. The lobby wasn’t large, but it did have plenty of seating and the typical lobby business center that you’ll find in Sheraton Hotels.

There was no queue to check-in. The associate that checked me in was prompt, friendly, and processed everything quickly. She explained all the benefits I’d received for being a Platinum member, and notified me that I had been upgraded to a Club Level quiet corner king room. Since I was on the Club Level, I would receive complimentary breakfast each morning and afternoon hors d’oeuvres would be served in the Club Room on the seventh floor. I also was offered a Platinum amenity of 500 bonus Starpoints.

I took the elevator to the sixth floor to the assigned room, 609. 

It was located at the far end of the hallway, and was a standard king room.

When I first entered the room, a bad smell hit me. It wasn’t a strong bad smell, but just enough to notice, and slightly annoy you. My second thought was that it looks like hotel recently underwent a facelift and they didn’t spend much money on the renovations. Cheap (and faux) wood floors were in the entryway.

The room featured a king size bed, small armchair and ottoman, coffeemaker, desk with chair, and flat screen TV. Pretty standard stuff.

The view was okay. I mean, it was much better than the view I had at The Liberty Hotel in Boston not too long ago.

The bathroom was very small, with a sink, tub/shower combo, and toilet. By small, I mean that the shower curtain hung over the toilet, so if you were cold when going to the bathroom, you could literally wrap the shower curtain around yourself. 

The bathroom featured Sheraton-branded toiletries, and included a loofah as well as shaving cream (always a bonus).

On the whole I thought the room was small and very mediocre. Even though the room seemed to have undergone a recent renovation, there were no electrical outlets anywhere near the bed. This drives me nuts as I use my iPhone as my alarm clock and want to have it charge overnight within arm’s reach. 

On the level below the lobby (the lobby is on floor 2, which is the level you walk in on) is the gym, which was nicely equipped.

The Club Lounge was on the 7th floor and I needed my room key to access both the floor via the elevator and the actual lounge itself.

I thought the room itself was quite nice. It had a bunch of tables and chairs, a separate “living room” with TV, and a computer with a printer.

It should be noted that the Club Lounge was a 24-hour lounge. There was a refrigerator of regular-sized bottles of water (yay!) but no sodas or hot water (boo!) A carafe of coffee was refilled several times a day but once it was out at night, it was gone until morning. There was an espresso/coffee machine in the room, but it was broken (and apparently had been broken for some time).

As explained to me during check-in, breakfast was served in the Club Lounge from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and hors d’oeuvres were served from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. each day (in the evening there was also a cash bar). I never made it to the lounge for hors d’oeuvres, but I did experience the breakfast spread.

Folks: nothing to write home about. Don’t stay here for the club lounge breakfast! The spread consisted of oatmeal (with all the fixin’s), scrambled eggs, roasted potatoes, waffles (with a fancy make-it-yourself maker), yogurt, cereal, and bread.

I didn’t see it, but someone mentioned that there was also ‘fresh’ fruit somewhere. I say ‘fresh’ because they said that the fruit was sitting in a pool of syrup. Mmmm, right?

Because of my partner’s platinum status, I was given a couple breakfast vouchers for use in the Sheraton Grill restaurant. The restaurant is across the driveway to the hotel, so it is not in the exactly in the hotel. Because of my disappointment with the Club Lounge breakfast, I tried the breakfast buffet at the Sheraton Grill.

I must have waited between ten and fifteen minutes to be seated. It’s not like the restaurant was busy, it’s just that there were no employees to be found.

The buffet spread was not much more impressive than the Club Lounge spread, but the buffet at the restaurant included bacon and sausages. BACON!

Overall impressions. Where to start? The Sheraton Bellevue was a tired, dated property. The rooms were small, the amenities were bleh, and the food options were nothing spectacular. It really annoyed me that the Club Lounge only offered water and coffee as it would have been nice to have the option to have a cup of tea before bed. Finally, the air conditioning in the room was odd. Like usual, I turn the temperature way down (usually as low as it goes). While the air vent in the room was constantly blowing cold air, the room never seemed to get cool. Wait, let me rephrase that. The area around the bed never got cold. Sitting at the desk you needed a shawl. In the bathroom? Icy cold. Front entryway? I could see my breath. But once in bed, all the cold air would vanish. Odd.

The staff at the Sheraton Bellevue, however, were beyond superb. Every employee that I interacted with was friendly, smiling, and in a good mood. One night, a group of us were hanging out in the Club Lounge after dinner. We were having a good time talking about travel, miles, and points, and before we knew it the coffee was gone. A quick call down to the front desk for more coffee led to a slight misunderstanding. When we asked for more coffee, we were first told that we could come down and get it from the front desk. An odd response, so it was declined. Next thing you know a police officer enters the Club Lounge with a handful of coffee packets. Brett, the friendly Chief of Sheraton Security, asked who wanted more coffee. We thank thanked him, but explained that there was no way to brew the coffee. He looked around, agreed, and asked if anyone of us wanted coffee for our rooms. Brett really wanted us to have coffee. We all had enough coffee so, dejected, Brett left, with all of the coffee packets. But, not before we got a picture!

Would I stay here again? Most likely not.

Have you stayed at Sheraton Bellevue Hotel? If so, what was your experience?

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