The Westin Bellevue — Hotel in Bellevue

We have been coming to the Westin for years, and came down this past weekend for my partner’s birthday. The renovated rooms are excellent and this would be a five star review, however we encountered some issues with housekeeping. I am quite sure the issues we encountered are not reflective of the level of service this hotel normally provides. We are happy to give it another chance in the future. However, given the fact that we raised the following issue with housekeeping with the hotel and nothing was done about it, I hope the hotel can consider this feedback going forward to ensure other guests are not treated in a similar manner.||In terms of the housekeeping,we encountered two issues. First - and the main issue — is that we did not receive any housekeeping. Bradley asked us if we wanted our room cleaned at check-in and we confirmed we did. We left on Sunday at 11am and returned just after midnight to find our room had not been touched. I had to go down to the front desk to get some coffee and towels. We then raised this issue at check out and Bradley could not say why they did not clean our room. We did not leave the do not disturb sign on the door. Bradley printed our bill and then just said he hopes to see us again. Given that Bradley was aware of our inability to access our room at check-in (the second issue discussed below) and now was informed our room had not been cleaned, I would have expected some gesture of gratitude from the hotel to make things right. It could be Marriott points, a free breakfast, a reduced room rate (since we did not receive what we expected to receive), or some other way of apologizing for not providing the service their guests expect to receive. Maybe I am expecting too much, but we had never encountered these issues previously. Even if Bradley is not authorized on his own to do anything, he should have spoken to a manager to see if anything could have been done.||The second issue was having to wait with a few other groups of people in the lobby for our room to be ready. We arrived on Saturday after 4pm, well after the 3pm check-in time. We were told our room was not ready and we could wait in the lobby. Bradley kindly offered to move us into another room, but we preferred our assigned room (or so we thought). We waited in the lobby for about 20 minutes or so, along with a few other groups whose rooms were also not ready. We understand this can happen on occasion and just hope the hotel is generous with a late check-out, which this hotel was. However, this was the first time we had encountered this issue at the hotel, and other groups did as well, which suggested a bigger issue of getting rooms ready on time for hotel guests. This is an issue that should not be happening when guests are now paying rates that are close to double what we were paying pre-pandemic. The front desk agent, Bradley, who was very nice, tried to explain it was because the hotel was busy, but frankly, the hotel knows how many check-ins it has and should be prepared accordingly. ||Once we got to our room, we were surprised this was actually our assigned room (1721), because it was right beside the elevator door and my partner has on his profile a preference to have a room away from the elevators. I am not all negative. In terms of the room itself, we thoroughly enjoyed the renovated room. We prefer it over the W which we have also stayed in, but the minimalist style is not our thing. The bathroom was great, the beds were comfortable, the room was clean, and most everything you needed was there. We did not have any robes, as is advertised on the hotel website so perhaps those could be added, though our closet was quite small. Also, maybe it is due to some agreement with Starbucks, but the use of paper coffee cups with plastic lids seems unnecessary and wasteful when mugs could be provided. Particularly for a company that says they “minimize our environmental footprint by … reducing our waster and carbon emissions”. Replacing paper cups and plastic lids with mugs seems like an easy change that would facilitate that reduction. These are very minor points, but wanted to mention them since I am writing a review.||All in all, despite the housekeeping issues we encountered, we had a great stay, the location is excellent, the staff are friendly, and the rooms are beautiful and clean. We won’t hesitate staying here again and hope the housekeeping issues we encountered were just a blip in what has been many great stays at the...

I've stayed at Westin Bellevue many times in the past and know what to expect of this property from the bricks-and-mortar perspective: standard medium/high-end business-type hotel with solid amenities from start to finish; clean lobby; solid room; etc. I hadn't reviewed this property after past stays, but thought to do so after this particular stay:

From check-in to check-out, the team that we had during our stay was amazing. From the front desk to the valet to the housekeeping, the team was warm, helpful, and compassionate. We booked two rooms, had young children in our room, and needed some extra considerations -- and the team went above and beyond to accommodate us.

At the Front Desk, Charlene was amazing. She spent some additional time to help us find a room that was connecting. When she realized that we had young children, she sent up a play tent so that the kids can have some fun. It was very clear to me that Charlene was committed to ensuring that we had a fantastic stay -- she genuinely wanted to know whether there was anything that we needed. Whenever we passed by the lobby and Charlene saw us, she waved enthusiastically. An absolutely lovely presence and a great way to start our stay.

Checking-out was just as seamless and warm. Helen (I think that was her name) was incredibly friendly, warm and efficient. In between, check-in and check-out, I wanted to also mention that the valet team at the hotel entrance was also friendly and helpful; Travis gave us tips on getting into Seattle, including his personal views on whether it was worth it to take the 520 (which involves a toll) or to just take the I90, which adds about 5-10 minutes to the trip. Housekeeping was also excellent, intuitive, and proactive in making sure our room was fantastic every day.

I see that The Westin Bellevue has a handful of "terrible" and "poor" reviews, and I'm sorry to see that others have had bad experiences; I understand that this is subjective and can happen. But having stayed at hotels around the world, I would say that this property -- and most importantly, the team that runs it -- is, overall, fantastic. I would definitely stay here again and recommend it to others.

Other things to note:

This is an amazing hotel, whether you for business purposes or family trip.

It is connected by walkway to Lincoln Square North, Lincoln Square South, and Bellevue Square/Collection -- and literally dozens of dining options.

There is an amazing park a few hundred feet away, with one of those fabulous new playgrounds that your kids will love.

Safeway is one block over = awesome

In-room Starbucks coffee = awesome

Didn't get a chance to use the gym, but walked by it and it looks great.

Used the pool every day with the kids. Kids loved it, and it was quiet.

In-and-out parking privileges = seamless.

What else can I say? Not much, other than the fact that if you are going to Bellevue, put this hotel at the top...

My husband and I have stayed at this hotel numerous times. We actually stayed here for our wedding night three years ago. We love staying with their shopping package and availing ourselves of the Bellevue Collection that surrounds the hotel.

The staff is always polite and courteous, and promptly responds to any requests. Generally we stay in the rooms that face south, and the view is stunning. This particular stay we were in a north facing room and the view, while still pretty, was not as impressive.

I was a little disappointed with this stay as our room seemed to be falling apart. The wallpaper was literally peeling off of the walls, one of the window privacy shades was broken and couldn't be drawn down the entire way, our bathroom sink had problems draining and our linens were (very) dirty upon our arrival. The linens were remedied quickly and extremely professionally by the housekeeping manager and her staff after we called service express. The housekeeping manager was very gracious and extended us a voucher for breakfast at the Cypress Lounge the next morning.

This was the first time we chose to dine with the Cypress Lounge, and we were not very impressed. The breakfast is a buffet option only, and while the food is wonderful and the variety was impressive, the service was very confusing. We sat down and waited a few minutes, confused as to whether we were supposed to simply start out at the buffet ourselves or whether we were supposed to wait to be served coffee/beverages. I eventually went and found a server and asked them what we were supposed to do and they came with beverage service shortly after. After eating the same scenario of confusion occurred with settling out our tab. We didn't know whether we were supposed to just leave (as we had already presented our voucher with the beverage service), or whether we still needed to sign a bill. I was tired of hunting down servers so my husband took care of that. We were supposed to sign a bill, and so we did. I was surprised that we needed to take so much initiative to find direction on how to dine in their breakfast lounge when there were very few guests in the lounge and it seemed there were plenty of servers there. We probably would choose not to dine there again.

Generally this hotel is neat, clean and professional and I would give them 4 -5 stars, however this visit seemed to show a different hotel that would earn a three star report from me. The hotel appeared to be falling into disrepair and lackadaisical service, missing the Westin attention to detail that we have always enjoyed and embraced. Hopefully this was an off weekend for the hotel, and the plumbing and wall paper repairs are scheduled to start...