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Unread 21-04-2004, 20:48
KathieK's Avatar Unsung FIRST Hero
KathieK KathieK is offline
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Re: Championship Event 2004 - Rate your hotels!!

I'll expand on the earlier posting about the Embassy Suites - Centennial Park.

The price was the same structure as the other top tier hotels including the Omni. A Quad room paid $310 per person for the 5 night package through the THS-FIRST reservations company. A Triple paid $380 per person and a Double occupancy paid $497 per person.

The package included 5 nights' stay in a suite that included a living room area with a queen-sized pull-out sofa bed and TV and desk/table. There was a mini frig, coffee maker, and microwave in each hallway. The bedrooms contained either a King-sized bed or two Doubles and another TV. The rooms were spacious. They did not have sufficient dresser space, but that was OK.

Upon our late arrival on Tuesday evening, we discovered that there was not enough bedding in each room to cover the bedroom and sofa bed and any students who wished to sleep on the floor. Some of the adults shared their bedding with the students so they had pillows and blankets.

The Housekeeping on the 5th floor was sporadic at best. Most of the rooms were not fully serviced each day. We were missing towels, toilet paper, kleenex. In addition, we did have an issue with some alleged money missing from wallets, as well as a digital watch that is still missing. Suitcases did appear as though they had been searched each day.

As we had a midnight curfew on our students anyway, the adults welcomed the presence of the hotel security patrols.

The common areas of the hotel were bright and spacious. The manager's reception was somewhat of a disappointment as I had expected more than a bowl of Chex Mix for the refreshments. We were allowed two drinks per person (alcoholic for adults) during the reception.

The hotel provides breakfast for all guests and the food was of good quality and variety and if you could manage to go through the long lines, it was all you could eat. But it advertises "full cooked-to-order" breakfast (which I expected for the two days we were there that were not FIRST Competition days) and the only thing you could get cooked to order were omelets in the buffet line. We did not receive the $8 Dining Dollar coupons from FIRST as a result and we also did not receive any discount in the package price. The restuarant also did not open until 7:00 am on Saturday, not earlier as we had been told by hotel management prior to arrival.

The location was great - we packed a whole suitcase of games and frisbees and balls, etc. so that we could take advantage of the beautiful park adjacent to the hotel. Unfortunately for some of us, the train the passed through all night long was located near our rooms and the train whistles kept many of us awake.

I loved having the suites but would have to consider long and hard before going back next year.