Hotel Choices
Mary has written another Frugal Hedonist article that I've included below. It's in response to a question we've heard and even asked ourselves from time to time. Why do we stay in one type of hotel as opposed to another? And why don't we always stay in the least expensive or the most luxurious hotels all the time? So the following article outlines somewhat our reasoning on this issue.
So far on this journey we've stayed in four high-end (four and five-star) hotels as well as two mid-priced airport hotels. In fact, we have even bounced between these very different hotel types: after the Grand Hyatt Kaua'i, we had a quick overnight in San Diego, where we spent the night at the Homewood Suites at Liberty Station near the airport; then we flew to San Francisco, where we had a slightly longer stay (about 24 hours) and wanted to meet up with a friend for dinner downtown, so we opted to stay at the Four Seasons; and then we jetted off to New York, where we again had only a short overnight stay, so we chose the Hilton Garden Inn near JFK.
Needless to say, there is a significant difference between these hotel types. The most obvious is the surroundings: luxury hotels tend to offer spacious rooms (our Four Seasons room was easily four times the size of our Hilton Garden Inn room), often with enough seating for modest entertaining. We were able to have our friend visit with us in our room at the Four Season and we could all sit comfortably in armchairs. For a longer stay, or even a change of pace during a long trip, that extra space and the ability to spread out can be really relaxing.
Naturally the décor in a luxury hotel will be elegant, with soft comfy sofas and chairs and top-quality furnishings, including original artwork. Expensive and delicate fabrics will be used in the upholstery and draperies - in the case of the Four Seasons, that meant silk everywhere. Bathrooms are typically lavish. Most luxury hotels offer pretty, or even spectacular, settings or views, and if they are located in a city, they may be in the most convenient part of town.
Contrast this with a midrange business hotel like a Homewood Suites or Hilton Garden Inn, where the seating will consist of a hard sofa or chair covered in stain-resistant fabric and a basic desk of relatively cheap quality. The furnishings and décor, while perfectly adequate, will have been primarily chosen to wear well. Bathrooms are functional and small. That's not to say that such business hotels are necessarily dumps. I chose the Homewood Suites because it was new, and the Hilton Garden Inn because it was recently redone from top to bottom. Both hotels were very clean, up-to-date and pleasantly decorated in a mass-market fashion. However, in no way could the surroundings be described as luxurious, and naturally you can't expect nice views at an ordinary hotel, particularly one near an airport: our Homewood Suites view was of the next building and a basketball court, while our Hilton Garden Inn room overlooked an expressway.
So yes, there are obvious differences, but what struck me is this: if you just need to have basic needs met, most well-managed American chain hotels, especially those that cater to business people, will provide you with a pretty decent level of accommodation. In fact, depending on your specific needs, you may find them a better option than a very expensive top-end hotel.
Here's a classic example: laundry. The first part of our stay on Kaua'i was at the Princeville Hotel, which like many luxury hotels, does not offer self-service laundry facilities. If you need to wash some clothes, you'll have to send them out to be laundered by the hotel (or, more often, by an outside laundry that contracts with the hotel). This, I can say from sad experience, will cost an absolute fortune, and about half the time the clothes don't come back looking particularly good. Laundries generally just chuck your clothes into a machine and then press them while damp. If they were stained, they're now stained for good.
(We were pleasantly surprised to find that the upscale Grand Hyatt Kaua'i did offer self-service laundry facilities - and they were free, except for the soap. That's pretty unusual for a four-star hotel. The Grand Hyatt seems to do a lot of convention business, so perhaps this is in response to the demands of convention groups. Whatever the case, Mike gladly took advantage of the facilities on our last night and got his laundry done. I had some work to do, so I decided to wait.)
We arrived in San Diego late and didn't reach the Homewood Suites until about 10:30 pm. We needed to leave for the airport again the next morning pretty early, and I really needed to do some laundry, as that was Day 10 of the trip and I've only packed about 10 days' worth of underwear and socks (well, plus a couple of emergency spares). For this purpose, the Homewood Suites was perfect - the self-service laundry room was only two doors down from our room. Mike went up to the perfectly adequate fitness room and did his thing on the treadmill while I started my laundry. I was able to fall into bed by midnight with my laundry all done, and without breaking the bank.
On the subject of fitness rooms - sure, the fitness room at the Four Seasons was tremendously nicer than the one at the Homewood Suites. But as Mike noted to me, in terms of function they weren't that different. Both had treadmills and a TV he could watch while he walked - and that's all he needed. In fact, he found the personal trainers who fawned over him at the Four Seasons were an annoying distraction.
So if you just need a place to rest your head, a cup of coffee in the morning, and Internet access, there's nothing at all wrong with a midrange chain hotel. And the price differential between chain business hotels and luxury hotels can be tremendous. For instance, our Homewood Suites room cost $189/night, while the Four Seasons was over $500 per night. So what are you getting for all that extra money? In a few cases, we've frankly wondered... but usually we feel the extra cost is worth it, at least for a leisure stay of more than a few days.
Here's why. In addition to the luxurious surroundings, we've learned that what you get at a luxury hotel is service and ease. More things are done for you (or can be), which means life is just simpler if you take advantage of the services offered. If you find yourself with a problem or in need of something, someone on the staff will probably either find it, do it for you or make it very easy for you to get it done, so you don't have to go chasing around some city you don't know, trying to get your problem solved. This can save you time, aggravation and sometimes money.
Food service provides an example of this. Luxury hotels will have at least one very good restaurant serving three meals a day, plus room service, which means you can enjoy a high level of food service pretty much whenever you need or want it. That's particularly nice when you arrive or depart at an odd hour, or you've overslept, or you're just tired from a day of sightseeing and don't feel like finding a restaurant elsewhere. Plus, the food service will often be very flexible. For instance, at the Four Seasons' restaurant, the chef gladly substituted an ingredient in a salad I ordered. At Trump International (on a previous trip), I called Room Service 30 minutes later than the "breakfast hours" listed in the in-room menu, and asked if I could still order breakfast anyway. The answer was "of course."
By contrast, a midrange business hotel may not have a restaurant at all, although both Homewood Suites and Hilton Garden Inn offered a basic breakfast with a few hot items, during limited hours. We ended up ordering pizza from a local restaurant when we arrived at the Hilton Garden Inn late at night, and waiting quite a while for it to arrive. If we'd arrived much later, I think we'd have been out of luck as far as getting any dinner.
Another example: a high-end hotel will typically offer a full-service business center. At the end of our stay on Kaua'i, we needed to ship home Mike's non-functioning laptop and my non-functioning "smartphone," plus some random stuff we'd picked up during our stay and didn't want to drag around the world with us. We simply went down to the business center at the Grand Hyatt, where a pleasant, smiling staffer helped us print some documents, got us a box, packed it up for us, and used our FedEx number to ship the stuff out, all for a modest fee. Sure, we could have gone to a FedEx/Kinko's store instead, but it would have taken a lot longer, and we wouldn't have been able to enjoy the leisurely breakfast we had on our last day.
We've been interested to discover that there can be even be small savings associated with stays at luxury hotels. For instance, we'll often receive some fruit and bottled water in our room at no additional cost, so we won't have to run out and buy a snack - and occasionally we even skip a meal because we're not that hungry and can make do with an apple. In a similar vein, you can usually choose which newspapers you want delivered to your room each day. The hotel may offer to do small services at no cost, such as polishing your shoes overnight or making some copies. And sometimes the extra benefits are really very nice - for instance, we asked the doorman at the Four Seasons to get us a cab to a local restaurant and instead he offered us a complimentary chauffeured drive in the hotel's luxury SUV. (We've had the same experience at the Ritz-Carlton in New Orleans.)
Is this small stuff? That depends on your point of view, your budget, and your circumstances. Sometimes I'm happy to suck it up and do more things for myself, in order to save money (laundry being a classic example). Other times, I just want to enjoy my time and let someone else sort out the little hassles for me.
