The Westin Minneapolis

The room price was reasonable, which is why The Westin Minneapolis gets four stars from me. If it had cost much more, I’d have rated it lower. We enjoyed the stay overall, and the workers were kind and listened to our stories from long ago. The bathroom was huge, though it had a small vanity and just one towel bar plus a hook behind the door, so we weren't sure where both of us should hang towels. A larger vanity would have fit and given us room for toiletries. We were upgraded to a bigger room facing 6th Street, as requested, and got a thoughtful celebration bottle of bubbly. But there was loud boiler-like banging in the wall by the bed. I tried to tolerate it for the location, then called the front desk at 1:00 a.m. and moved to a quiet room on the 10th floor. We slept well for the next few hours. In the morning, the room was 63 degrees, and even after setting the thermostat, it never got warmer. Luckily, we didn't plan to spend much time in the room that day.

The valet kid working all day on Feb 1 was fabulous, and the Steakhouse was great. The rest of our Friday and Saturday night stay was rough. My bed had a big sunken hole, I never got hot water for showers, and the bathroom plug didn't work. When I went down Sunday morning around 6:15, there was a smell of marijuana, and the guy behind the desk had his head down and appeared to be sleeping. Every person who worked at that desk seemed so high on marijuana. The hotel needs to test employees while they're working and replace the beds in the rooms.

The view from our window was a building wall, even though I'd booked an Executive 2 guest room with two doubles and a city view. I also hadn't realized the double bed room meant two full beds rather than queens, which seems odd for a luxury hotel. The pool was great for the kids, at 3 1/2”-5” deep. The hot tub was nice, but the chlorine must have been high because the jets made our eyes start burning. Stock and Bond was delicious, with a great, relaxing atmosphere. Parking was manageable, though the ramps are tight if you're in a truck.

The location is great, but the stay felt mediocre, not like a high-end hotel. I hadn't been here since before the Covid pandemic, so it had been a while. The room was adequate, but breakfast was awful. We arrived when service opened and waited 15 minutes, then got cold coffee, which they apologized was left over from the day before, and undercooked pancakes with batter oozing out. We had to cross the street to eat somewhere else. There’s no Bonvoy lounge.