Nice - you'll be happier with a car
by - Written: Jun 18 '08
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Product Rating:
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Pros: With a car, you are fairly close to a number of things.
Cons: The location is rather isolated.
The Bottom Line: Good for a small convention, nice enough place, but you can find similar that's less isolated.
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| mistsy's Full Review: Sheraton Meadowlands Hotel and Conference Center |
This is a pretty nice hotel in a terrible location. It is not unsafe in any way, just isolated and rather inconvenient.
It is close to NYC, but this is misleading. You can't get there (or anywhere) unless you take the hotel's shuttle. The shuttle runs hourly, if there's demand, to such places as the Secaucus terminal, a mall, and a couple of other spots. Once at the Secaucus terminal, you're at a transport hub and can get around fairly easily, except, of course, to the hotel, unless you take a taxi.
The hotel is "across the street" from the Meadowlands stadium complex. Indeed it is, but that "street" is Route 3, a busy, multi-lane divided highway. If on foot, you can get to the office building next door or the Extended Stay hotel at the corner. Otherwise, you're stuck.
Location aside, it's nice enough. It has a big lobby with art-deco chairs and decor, a restaurant (expensive), concierge services, a gift shop, meeting rooms, and all the amenities you'd expect of a hotel of this class.
The rooms are nice and equipped with standard things like cable tv, coffee and maker, hair dryer, etc. Notably absent was a little fridge, a little safe, and an iron/board. The beds are comfortable. Handicapped access is fine.
Views are tough to come by. Some of the rooms have views of Manhattan, most do not. Sacrifice the view - Manhattan is a little far away to see anyway. You'll likely get a view of the NJ Turnpike, but, then again, how often do you get that view anyway?
The cups in the room were cheap, throw away, plastic. One of the elevators wasn't working during our stay and a couple of others had graffitti scratched into them. The pool area was loud and the the jacuzzi was rather cheap-looking and small. Combined with the roadside-like location, it added up to feeling a little downscale.
The staff is great but I wonder about the clientele. I don't think there's a big market for this hotel as a tourist destination and it seemed populated by small conventions (like a Salvation Army thing that was going on) and, above all, graduations and other kid-things that were probably the source of the graffitti we saw.
This hotel isn't cheap but it offers good value. About $160 should get you a room on the open market. That's not bad for this area of the country. However, this hotel deeply discounts. Through Priceline we got it for $75.
I wouldn't necessarily choose this hotel otherwise. Its price category is about the same as the rest in the area and its amenities are not so much better than the rest that it would be preferred.
If you have a car, parking is free (and that's a big, big deal at a lot of hotels where you can pay upwards of $35/day to park!) You will be wonderfully centered for a number of activities with a car, such as the NJ malls and the conurbation of suburbs that surround. We went to attend a wedding in NJ so it was appropriate.
Given a choice, I much prefer the Hyatt in Jersey City (same price roughly) although you'll pay a lot to park there.
Recommended:
Yes
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