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| this is puppy. he is our traveling companion. |
I always get excited about staying at a hotel. Whether it’s for a family vacation or a business trip, like the one I’m about to tell you about, I just love hotels. I love travel in general, and hotels are just one fabulous part of it all. Maybe it’s the crisp clean sheets (hopefully!) or the fact there’s no pressure to do stuff like laundry and dishes.
So recently I had to go to Boston on a business trip. My work in tourism marketing has me attending or participating in events to promote my region. In this case, my region agreed to send a volunteer to help man the Maine booth at the Boston Globe Travel Show. I’ll tell you more about the show later but today’s post is about my swanky accommodations while I was in Boston representing my state to the traveling public. The show was at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston harbor and I booked a special rate room at the Seaport Boston Hotel.
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| orchids in hallway |
Getting to Boston from where I live in Maine was easy. At the very final moments of the road trip, my gps told me to go right when I knew it was left, but I figured it had some kind of lock on one way streets and such so I followed and found myself in a multi block loop of right turns. When I wrangled us out of that I was a little flustered. I found the hotel and pulled up near the curb. I got out and asked the valet how to find the garage. He smiled and said “a right and a right. Follow me” and I did, really relieved to have found a helpful person.
He wasn’t the only helpful person at this hotel. Check in was smooth and easy. We had quite a few bags and I can usually handle that myself but a porter brought the stuff up. Service is included in the price, so there’s no tipping expected which was kind of nice. I never know how much to tip this person or that person.
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| upon first arriving to our hotel room |
The room wasn’t huge, but I didn’t expect huge. What I did expect was clean, modern and nice and I got it. It had a Keurig coffee machine with a couple of choices of their Kcups, including tea. I don’t have one of those at home and it’s a treat to be able to make different flavors just one cup at a time. The bad thing that I discovered the next morning was that there was only one little packet of powdered creamer and sugar, barely enough for one cup, and not really a good one at that. I like my coffee light and sweet (like my men) and despite the cool little machine, the coffee sucked. I would recommend that if you like coffee in your room in the morning and don’t want to go out to get that first cup, you bring some cream with you somehow. Or you can get room service and I’ll write about that later.
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| nice terry robes |
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| shampoo & conditioner |
Some nice touches included the two very plush terry robes, a special black towel in the bathroom to wash off makeup (1. sorry my photo of this didn’t come out clear 2. you can buy them in the gift shop for $6), and the shampoo and conditioner wall dispensers in the shower. If you’ve ever tried to stretch one tiny bottle of shampoo over two or three people, you’ll recognize that this is a wonderful thing. I usually pack my own shampoo and conditioner for this very reason. It was plentifully dispensed. The brand they advertised and used was Gilchrest and Soames, a UK based creator. I did wish, however, that the whole product line, the soaps, lotions, shampoo & conditioner, though very nice, would have been a Boston or at least New England based manufacturer. I understand the hotel’s desire to be perceived as internationally sophisticated and that they’re not promoting it as organic or local or anything, but I would have really liked some US made toiletries. Given that they’re not a big chain hotel, they could have sourced something more locally created and made a big difference to a manufacturer in their own back yard.
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| my daughter's bed with pjs and puppy |
Beds were very comfortable, with nice cotton sheets and duvet and an extra blanket. They actually have a “pillow library” according to their website where you can go an select the type of pillow you prefer. I didn’t see it mentioned anywhere in the room, though, or anywhere in the hotel for that matter, only on the website.
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| the view |
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| to the right: the harbor |
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| to the right with zoom |
The view from our room wasn’t very nice. Being that we were right across from the harbor, I would have loved a nice water view, lights twinkling on the horizon and all that. I do understand the fact that a building has four sides and only one can face the water and there are only so many of those rooms available. Add to that the fact that I got a discounted room because of my affiliation with the show and well, I suppose I should be happy we could at least SEE the water. We did get a 9th floor room, though, which was pretty cool.
A couple more notes on the room; perhaps I’m used to staying at hotels that are more family oriented but two things would have been great: a small refrigerator and dare I say, a microwave. I know that’s pushing it. Our bottled water got warm and our dinner doggy bags got cold. Something I really appreciated was the flat screen TV with easy to clean remote (have you read about how disgusting hotel room remotes are?) and the free wifi with no password/login was great. I hate having to set up a new wireless at every hotel and then fight with my laptop when I get back and it’s still looking for the hotel wifi. Something that wasn’t so hot was that our room was near the ice machine and the housekeeping station, also near the elevators, so it was noisy, people coming and going all night and early in the morning. I suppose SOMEONE has to have the room near all that, but it would have been better had it not been me. As a woman traveling with a child, those voices and bumps in the night have a way of disrupting sleep.
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| the lap pool |
I had read reviews about the indoor pool being really small and it was. It was obviously catering to the guests that come for business and want a workout swim along with their use of the gym. The night we went, however, we pretty much had the pool to ourselves, and swam for quite a while. I noticed that the hotel was promoting a school vacation special – pool, play, breakfast, etc – and while I applaud their outreach to this market, I think any parents coming here thinking they could unleash the kids on the pool for the afternoon would be disappointed, or rather, the kids would be.
I’ve got to say this, though: the ladies locker room was FABULOUS! Ok, I only went in to use the bathroom and didn’t take full advantage of it all, but really . . . nice finished wood lockers and cubes for stashing your stuff, wall dispensers for lotion – a really nice touch that I wish all locker rooms would provide – hair dryers, plenty of counter space and mirrors (magnified ones, even!) and large roomy showers.
I wish I could have photographed them for when I win the lottery and want to build a home gym and locker room or just to post here to show you all, but I hadn’t brought my camera into the locker room and would have felt a bit voyeuristic using it in there. Something about a woman’s right to privacy . . . but really, if you go, check it out.
One more note about the gym at the Seaport Boston’s gym; at the entrance, they have a large glass container with lemon water. I thought this was a nice treat. I would have appreciated it more had I actually used the gym for a good workout but nonetheless had a couple of cups worth while sitting by the pool.
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| cool knives |
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| my daughter's plate |
Breakfast at Aura was not what I had planned, thinking by looking at the menu, that the prices were too high for just me and my picky 12 year old daughter. On the first morning there, I went and surveyed the options for breakfast. It was either Aura or the Seaport Café, a quicky convenience mini Starbucks coffee (grande 4.25 thank you). Knowing that it would be the only chance of this trip to have a sit down breakfast (the next day I had to be at the booth early) I decided, okay, lets do it. The breakfast offerings – eggs benedict $14, huevos rancheros $16 – weren’t cheap, but we don’t do that sort of thing often and I knew my daughter would be happy about it. As we were seated and began to place our order, the waiter told us that the breakfast buffet was ½ price for kids and would save us a few bucks. I thought it was really nice of him to make the suggestion and we happily opted for the buffet (I love buffets!). It was beautifully displayed and kept warm and fresh, and was downright delicious. I cleaned my plate and don’t usually do that. Pancakes with warm blueberry sauce, cheese blintzes, crispy hash browns and my favorite: piles of perfectly cooked bacon. The buffet price is $19 per person.
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| my breakfast plate |
The next morning, given my no cream experience of the day before, I did something I’ve never done, ordered room service. Just a small pot of coffee with cream and sugar. It arrived early, around 7:30 and was the perfect amount for me. Two little pitchers of cream, nice cups, all was good. The room service order form said it was $6.25, which I figured was better than two grande lattes at the café, but when I got the bill upon check out, it totaled over $11 after the gratuity, room taxes and other crap was added. Lesson learned: perhaps it wasn’t better than two grande lattes. Easier, but not cheaper.
A couple more things; check out is at noon and I had to work at the show until 1pm so I asked the front desk if I could possibly have a late check out and was given until 1:30, a courtesy that I appreciated. It just eased my mind and allowed me to avoid some morning hassle of checking out, loading up the car, finding something for my daughter to do while I was at the show, etc. When I left the show and came back to the hotel, I had a very heavy box of brochures that I was taking with me. The concierge offered to keep them at his station so that I didn’t have to carry them up to the room and then down with my luggage and kid in tow. Just a little thing, but certainly labor saving and appreciated.
Overall my experience at the Seaport Boston Hotel was a good one, and I’d be happy to recommend the place to others and will plan on staying there for next year’s show.
Stay tuned for my reviews of the restaurants we enjoyed while in the area and of the travel show.
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| fishy graphics on the glass at the pool |
