Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Review: Aloft Arundel Mills

Aloft Arundel Mills
http://www.aloftarundelmills.com/
7520 Teague Road
Hanover, MD 21076
(443) 577-0077

Blech.

 I didn't think to check Yelp before booking an allegedly upscale hotel.  I won't be making that mistake again.

This hotel was designed by people who never stay there.  I get the movement to smaller (European-style) rooms, but that doesn't mean you can just rip the door off the bathroom and call it Euro-style.   Seriously! There was no door between the room and the sinks.  There was a sliding door between the sinks and the toilet and shower, but it was completely inadequate at blocking odors and sounds.  Add to that the light leaking into the bedroom from the sink area and you've got the holy triumvirate of bathroom occurrences right in the main room.

There were other design problems.  Between the concrete floors and the metal doors on the one hand and the colors which were clearly picked by a recent Parsons grad it was unclear what this hotel was trying to be.  I will say that in some of the rooms the window looks directly into the window of the elevator lobby and vice versa.  If you find yourself in this establishment and value your privacy at all don't take a room ending in 26.

Cleanliness was an issue.  There were unidentified stains on the sliding door to the toilet area, on the main door, next to one side of the bed and perhaps other areas that I didn't want to look for.  Linens and towels were clean, though, so there is that.

I can't really evaluate the bar area because we were there on Christmas Eve and that's an unfair day to test someplace like that.

The staff was helpful and cheery.  The nice lady at the front desk couldn't have been nicer about a) changing my room from the aforementioned 26 series and b) informing me that no, unlike every other hotel on the planet, there were not ice machines on the floors but if I wanted to come downstairs I could get some there.

Saving this review from "run away!" are the shower, which is adequately large, had sufficient water heat and pressure and one of those rain-style shower heads and the bed, which was king-sized and reasonably comfortable.

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