The Westin Irving Convention Center at Las Colinas — Hotel in Irving

I stayed at The Westin when in Irving for work.||||Upon arrival in my rental car the valet never offered assistance with luggage. No doorman or bellman.||||No dedicated Bonvoy elite line.||||Front desk never offered assistance with luggage or showed me to the elevator.||||No newspapers in the lobby. Not even for sale in the makeshift pantry market off the side of the front desk. The pantry market consists of basically assorted items on what looks like a shelf against a side wall. It looks like it was randomly added without much thought or consideration given to the space or offering.||||At check-in, the front desk only offered me a choice of points or breakfast. Certain tiers of Bonvoy elites are supposed to get a third choice: an amenity. I could have asked for $100 compensation but I didn't. I chose breakfast. I was given vouchers for a daily restaurant breakfast, although the vouchers stated that tip and tax wasn't included. That's certainly not in keeping with other hotels. Elite breakfasts are supposed to be all-inclusive. And I don't know or understand how the hotel charges tax on a free breakfast. There should be zero cost for a free breakfast. Speaking of breakfast, some days the restaurant was open for breakfast with an ala carte menu and some days there was only a buffet with no option for a menu, not even eggs made to order. I skipped the buffet and went to Starbucks about 1 mile away for a breakfast sandwich that was probably better than anything on the buffet. During check-in I asked for a fine dining restaurant recommendation. I was told about a couple chains in the area. Bar Louie was one of the recommendations. Bar Louie is not a fine dining restaurant. I was given neither a welcome letter nor a little card in the key packet with restaurant/bar, pool, and club lounge hours.||||In terms of Bonvoy elite status recognition, I was upgraded to a suite well before my arrival. I didn't ask for the suite, though an upgrade is always appreciated. I noticed the upgrade in the Marriott app and asked Ambassador Services to let the hotel know that I didn't want the suite because it was a handicap suite. I was fine with a standard room. The hotel still gave me the handicap suite, which I ended up rejecting. Additionally, there were some amenities in my room, like beef jerky and peanut butter/chocolate that I don't eat. One of the features of Ambassador elite status with Marriott is a customer profile that includes food/drink/dietary preferences and restrictions. My profile specifically says I don't eat junk food. It also says I have a nut allergy. And yet, I got a welcome amenity that included beef jerky and chocolate. I did get some cans of Diet Pepsi, but they were room temperature and, frankly, I could have grabbed them from the club lounge. I don't care about welcome amenities but if you're going to do one at least make an effort. Especially if you have a customer's preferences. Other than beef jerky connoisseurs, does anyone actually want to receive beef jerky?||||Before arrival, I confirmed a couple things with the hotel using the chat feature on the Marriott application. I asked for a robe, slippers, lotion, a bar of soap, and only 100% percent feather pillows. The hotel confirmed that these would be in the room. The suite had 4 polyester pillows and 3 feather pillows. 1 of the 4 polyester pillows did not have a pillow protector or pillowcase liner. The 3 feather pillows were twin or queen in size, not king-sized. The hotel also has the new Westin bedding, which in my opinion is rather low-end and not as good as earlier iterations of the Westin bedding -- the bedding that really made Westin what it was. The new bedding is mostly polyester or some sort of manmade fabric. And it shows wrinkles. It reminds me of the cheap polyester bedding at Fairfield or Residence Inn. Westin always used to have such great bedding. Not anymore.||||I called down and asked for the manager on duty. I think her name was Sarah. She was young, polite and well-intended. She moved me to a non-suite room on a floor lower than the suite. But she didn't inspect the room before she moved me. The mattress was 6 years old and had a huge lump in it. When she came to deliver the Diet Pepsi amenity from the suite and bring the feather pillows I showed her the lump. I told her I would leave and let her sort a new mattress or a new room while I went to dinner. About an hour later I received keys to a new room, my third room, on the top floor. I think this was a standard room. I don't know why I didn't receive it in the first place as I would have been happy with it. It was clean, comfortable and had the right pillows. No complaints. There was also a nice view looking out at the Toyota Music Factory and part of Lake Carolyn.||||It seems that housekeeping shuts off air conditioning when they flip rooms between guests. In the three rooms I had, the air conditioning was off and the in-room temperature was 77 to 80 degrees. I get the desire to save money and be energy efficient but they could keep the air conditioner running at a modest temperature between check-outs and check-ins. It takes a while to cool a room down.||||Speaking of housekeeping, it was hit or miss. The first room, the suite, was mostly clean but had hairs in the bathtub and on the sofa. The second room had nail clippings on the carpet by the bed. The third room didn't have any obvious lack of cleanliness. Daily housekeeping service was provided but not consistent. Two days I received no face cloths. One day I received lotion but no mouthwash. Another day I received mouthwash and no lotion. One day I had 3 or 4 paper coffee cups. Another day just 2 paper cups. It made no sense at all. Everything felt random with little consistency.||||Besides inconsistent housekeeping, the Mexican-themed service in the restaurant and bar was pretty poor. I had dinner, breakfast and drinks in the bar and restaurant.||||For dinner my first night, I sat for 15 minutes before a waiter or waitress came over. And that was only after I flagged someone down and asked if I could get service.||I ordered the salmon main course without the rice. It was very good to excellent. Seriously. No complaints. But the service was really bad and didn't come close to matching the prices that are being charged. No bread. Never asked how my meal was. Water never refilled. Never offered dessert.||||The wine list is mediocre. Mostly grocery store wine or big brands. Not a single Texas wine. Not even a New Mexico wine, like Gruet sparkling wine. Just mass-market brands from California with a couple of imported wines. At a Mexican-themed restaurant, some wines from Mexico would seem appropriate. Casa Madero for example. Hugo's a couple blocks away on Water Street has Mexican wine. So, I know a distributor has it.||||Another night I went to the lobby bar for a drink. One bartender for what seemed like 20 to 30 customers. Needless to say, service was slow. Especially with many people ordering handcrafted cocktails. I pointed this out to the manager, who comped me a drink and then pitched in to help the one bartender. There were some other staff but they didn't seem cross-trained to relieve the pressure on the bar. At least have them pour wine or prepare non-alcoholic drinks. Something.||||At breakfast the same sort of problems repeat themselves in the restaurant. Alvaro, the waiter, was awful. Took my order and then as soon as my food came plopped down a check. Never came back to ask how my food was or whether I needed anything else. Didn't even see if I needed a refill of coffee.||||The bar/restaurant just seems lost and without strong management. Service is worse than a Chili's but prices are higher. Price wise, my salmon (which was very good to excellent) with two glasses of wine was $66 before tip and tax. That's probably $12-$15 more than it should be, given the service. If you're paying for a glass of wine you might as well go to the club lounge, where you can get an okay glass of wine in a much better setting. And the service in the club lounge is better.||||Speaking of the club lounge ... the breakfast offering is very basic. Eggs, sausage, bacon. That's it. Sugary cereals in a box. No fresh oatmeal. Just instant oatmeal. I didn't see yogurt or any kind of parfaits. I think there was sliced melon. No berries of any kind. At night, the selection and quality of the canapes is a little better than average. Hardly comparable to a club lounge at a Westin or comparable hotel outside the USA. But for a domestic club lounge, it's passable. Unfortunately, the food doesn't get replenished. So, by 6:30 pm the food is picked over and mostly gone even though food and desserts are supposed to be available until 8 pm.||The worst part of my experience came on my final night. I had to leave the hotel and spend the night at another hotel because a private event on the front lawn was too loud. I could hear everything. Music, the master of ceremonies, and even voices talking. Just think of how loud the voices must have been to carry up to a room on the 14th floor. I tried closing the curtains and the noises were still too loud. The lights were even coming into my room and projecting on the ceiling. They had all sorts of laser-type light projections. Obviously, that's beyond unacceptable. I complained to the duty manager (Sarah) and she didn't do anything. She wouldn't even tell them to lower the volume of the music. She said the event was going until 10 pm. I then made the difficult decision to leave. While I kept my stuff at the hotel to collect the following morning, I found the closest hotel with a room and jumped in an Uber.||Notwithstanding, here are some good things:||||1) Great location. Near the airport and the hip Las Colinas area of Irving and the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs.||||2) Excellent hard product in the hotel. The hard product felt more like a Westin from before the Marriott acquisition of Starwood. Westin was, on average, a much||better brand back then. Things like robe, slippers, wine glasses and even a corkscrew were stocked in the room. Many Westins built or opened after||Marriott's acquisition of Starwood don't feature these items, not even by request. Some Westins won't even give you slippers or a bar of soap.||||3) There's a club lounge on weekdays. That's something you don't see much anymore. Unfortunately, the club lounge isn't open on weekends. But having the access weekdays is nice, even if just to get a Diet Pepsi or Diet Dr. Pepper.||||4) The hotel has a resort-style outdoor pool and hot tub.||||All things considered, the hard product at the Westin is excellent. Despite being a few years old, everything is maintained very well. The only downside is inconsistent housekeeping and poor service in the bar and restaurant. Management seems inattentive or inexperienced. I know the private event that ruined my final night was a big moneymaker for the hotel. But they should have forced the group to buy out the hotel. At the very minimum, the manager on duty should have required the event to turn the volume down. The idea that you would allow that kind of event to occur directly below guest rooms until 10 pm is absurd. If I returned for a second stay, I would not eat and drink outside the hotel. The restaurant and bar needs serious...

This was such a terrible experience. Issues started right away. We had water damage in our home so we needed to stay at the hotel for three weeks originally. The hotel was sold out on July 16th so I had to book two separate reservations (one from 7/9 - 7/15 and another from 7/17 - 7/30). I asked every morning if there were any openings and the consistently said no. My husband is Lifetime Platinum and told me that that part of the benefits of his status is that they would be able to find him a room for that one night where there was an overlap.

I went to the front desk and mentioned that and then "suddenly" they were able merge our reservations. My question is, why did they not check our status when we checked in and brought up the fact that we did not have a reservation for 7/16? Also, why did they never think to look up our status when we repeated asked every morning?

When we checked in they told us that we could do the eco friendly service and have our room cleaned once every third/fourth day. They told us that we could change that at any point. Within the first week we asked to change it to daily cleaning. There were countless days (I lost track) that they did not clean our room. They could never fix this in your system so I finally began calling every morning so that someone could come clean our room.

One of the evenings that they forgot to clean our room, once again, I noticed it after getting back to the hotel from work. My husband and I left to go to dinner and we reminded them that no one cleaned our room and we asked them to please bring up new towels (this was the 2nd day in a row that they didn't clean our room). We told them that we would like the towels by the time we get back from dinner. Four hours later, we get back to our room and there were no towels. We had to call once again to request.

Also, when we checked in they asked us how many cars we would be bringing tot he hotel. I told them we had a total of three but we would only have two at the hotel at all times. The hotel staff began charging us for three parking spots instead of two. I had to come downstairs to get that fixed. Once they "fixed" the parking charges, they suddenly removed all of our license plates and we were unable to get in and out of the garage. This same issue continued to occur throughout our stay every time that we would extend our stay.

The service was horrible! This is the worst hotel experience that I've ever had....

I normally quite like the Westin brand. Pretty disappointed with this location though.

To start, the hotel doesn’t seem very well operated. In a week and a half, I think my room has been tidied twice? I also sent some laundry for cleaning, and it took four days (and multiple reminders) to finally get it back. On the day it was finally returned to me, I ended up being late to a meeting because I was waiting around for the laundry.

The rooms themselves are new and nice enough, but are surprisingly noisy. If there’s anybody in the hallway, you will hear them very clearly inside the room. Also, noise from traffic outside is very noticeable as well. I’ve been woken up multiple times during my stay from people and cars both.

Parking at the hotel is quite expensive at $18 a day. When I complained about this, they tried to avoid blame, saying it’s because they don’t own the parking garage (it’s owned by the convention center). But that’s nonsense logic. They chose the location and the parking arrangement after all. They did at least offer a reduced parking rate, but it’s still quite expensive. Many hotels in the area include parking for free, including their own Marriott location down the street.

Availability of parking is at least fine. Though one evening when there was an event at the convention center, there was a very long queue to get into the garage, and then it was difficult to find a space after that. If you drive to this hotel when there is a large event at the convention center, you might consider whether parking will be difficult.

The in-room Wi-Fi works well enough at least, though you’ll have to sign up for Marriott’s Bonvoy program if you don’t want to get charged a fortune for it. If I wasn’t already a member I would probably be quite annoyed by it.

All in all, I definitely wouldn’t stay here again. There seems to be better hotels in the area. The noise and quality of management here is just too much disappointing, especially...