Westin usually has a standard for clean, luxurious sleeping quarters and quiet as a church, but this location unfortunately did not fulfill these ideals. My first room had considerable street/construction noise (1410) and I was moved to a higher floor by very helpful staff. Unfortunately, this room (2108) had a periodic loud banging in the walls (maybe pipes?) that went on all night and all day and kept me up til 2:30 in the morning. The next day I tried to move and inspected 4 other rooms on same floor and other high floors and they all had this banging noise. I did the “testing” myself (went with key to new rooms to listen before I decided whether to move or not) to avoid being too much of a hassle to the hotel staff.

Later that night when I could not take the banging anymore (is like water torture), the very sympathetic and helpful housekeeping manager came to my room to hear the noise for herself, heard what I was talking about, went to find a quiet place for me herself, and later that night moved me to the 17th floor (1715) where the room did not have the banging noises (still construction noise unfortunately, they jackhammer at nite there). hooray! But i woke up covered with bugbites! I had 8 one one arm. And they itch like mad. I spoke to the housekeeping manager about it, who was horrified and apologetic and she sent someone to take pictures of the bites. That night I stripped the top duvet and sheets off the bed and slept under the terry cloth bathrobes. But it didn’t help. The next day I had even more (32 on just left forearm!). See photo.

I had been patient so far but this was too much so I went to speak to the manager at the front desk about having the pictures done again and getting a refund or rate reduction for the entire stay. He was not so helpful as the housekeeping manager was. He gave rate adjustment for the nite of the banging pipes only. Although he apologized for the inconvenience he didn’t seem willing to do any more than take the pictures and contact insurance. He said that they had to turn it in to insurance and someone would contact me. But seemed to me that insurance would reimburse the hotel for losses, not me. I spoke to another manager later who said the same thing but who had no idea how the insurance would work. (does someone send me a check, does hotel) She said that the orkin had to come in and inspect to find bugs first which seemed odd to me as I was obviously covered with bugbites whether they found the bugs or not. They seemed to not believe the bites came from their hotel.

But I only showed up in bites on the 3rd nite of my stay and my 1st nite in this room (1715) and on the second day in that room there were MANY more bites, so they were clearly not bites I brought with me. The pictures that they took prove it! In speaking to other colleagues staying here some of them were likewise bitten. The bites have continued to swell and they are red and now cover about 50% of my left forearm, I also have bites on my neck and torso and face. Like the other reviews I agree that the staff was terrific and did best they could under the circumstances, but the noise and the bugs... i would not come here again or recommend it to anyone. It is not up to normal Starwood standards. I took precautions when I got home as I was terrified in case any of them hitched a ride home with me. I don’t want to sleep in my own bed til I’m sure I didn’t.

Let’s see what they do about this. The manager said it would only be couple days to do the inspection and someone would contact me. We’ll see.

Update 10-12-09 Westin Director of rooms contacted me and claims that the Orkin inspection could not find any bugs. But all the evidence shows that I got many, many bites AFTER staying in room 1715. I find it disturbing that regardless of this evidence, because a single inspection by Orkin did not find any insects, they are going to pretend nothing happened. Where did my bites come from? They appear in the morning. The increase in number the more days i was in that room. They did not occur in the previous rooms I was in. Clearly there is a problem in that room. They fail to supply their reasoning for how they think I got these bites. They choose instead to put all faith in the Orkin report, the next guest could be put in that room and be bitten up as well. How many guests need to be bitten before they do something about it? They clearly do not count the report of guests as much as finding insects through Orkin, and from what I have read about bedbugs they can be quite hard to find unless you have a massive infestation. Given this sort of attitude I will never stay at a Westin again. The next bitten up guest could be you.