Sheraton Hartford South Hotel

The one thing going for this hotel is its location near I-91. For almost $200 a night, though, I expected a lot better. The parking lot layout is poor, and hours after it snowed, the lot and sidewalks still hadn’t been properly cleared or salted. Inside, my sheets had a blood stain, the carpets were filthy and black, and the desk chair was covered in hair. Housekeeping seemed to have left the previous guests’ dirty sheets on the bed. The room looked ugly and dated, guests were noisy day and night, and the front desk staff were rude. It felt more like a one-star motel than a three-star hotel. I won’t be back.

We booked at the last minute for a wedding, so the room was about what we paid for, though it definitely wasn’t high quality. The bathroom had a strong urine smell when we arrived. There was no mattress cover, just sheets, and they seemed to have a few small, old blood stains. I also saw thick black hairs in the shower. They might have been left by cleaning staff, but I’m not sure. At least there’s a cute coffee shop about five minutes down the road. That was nice.

The breakfast was a letdown for $17, with a pretty small selection. The servers were nice, though, and the tables were clean. The room had a strong smell of cleaning products, which wasn’t pleasant. The TV remote barely worked unless I stood about two inches from the screen. Cable volume control was fine, but when I found a video on YouTube, the volume stopped responding. Muting and unmuting didn’t help, and restarting the TV made no difference, so I gave up on using it. Then the power button stopped working and the TV sat on a black ad screen for about ten minutes. Sheraton is supposed to be a higher-end Marriott brand, but this place didn’t feel that way.

The hotel feels very dated, and I’ve had no hot water during the 24 hours I’ve been here, even though it’s 6 degrees outside. The front desk said last night they’d fix it, but nothing changed. They don’t answer the phone, either. There were dirty, used rags still hanging in the shower, and the handset on the room phone doesn’t work. Wouldn’t recommend it.