I attended a regional conference at the Sheraton Premiere in January of 2008. Having read prior reviews of the hotel before traveling it appeared that business travelers gave the hotel fairly good reviews while people that had attended conferences in the hotel had entirely different opinions.
I learned first hand about being a conference attendee.
The room assigned to myself and my fellow roommate was in a side section of the building on the first floor. The first thing I noted was the odor of the hallway which was stale and unpleasant.......not noted on other floors. Fortunately the room did not have a bad odor. The room was directly beside hallway firedoors that banged loudly each time someone passed through and they closed. At this point I would have asked for another room but my room mate had already checked in and unpacked.
The mattresses in this room were not the nice new soft mattresses mentioned in some of the other reviews. I found myself changing position many times during the night because of aching shoulders and hips.
The hotel was to provide us with three meals - dinner the first day, breakfast and lunch the second. Dinner was good. The steak was tender and well cooked, although the mashed potatoes had quite a few potatoe pieces not fully cooked nor mashed. It was the breakfast and lunch that failed miserably.
Breakfast was to be Continental and available between 7:30 and 8:30 am. We arrived in the lobby at 8:00 am to find a long line of people waiting for "breakfast". The line was not moving. The reason was that at all four of the stations that were set up - they had run out of food. We waited 15 minutes for the line to start moving only to arrive at the "breakfast table" to find our only choices were orange juice, two types of muffins, and apples.
Cranberry juice bottles were empty and never refilled; no danish or toast or english muffins (I believe even Days Inn offers more choices). When I went to another area to get tea there was no hot water and all of the regular tea boxes were empty - you could only get herbal tea and I'm not sure what you were supposed to use for water. When "breakfast time" ended at 8:30 am the situation was still the same.
Lunch - First there was a salad and then for an entree we were served an iceberg lettuce salad with pieces of grilled chicken. No dressing was ever provided. We had water and ice tea and no refills were ever received for anything. What more can I say?
At break times for our conference the hotel did not provide any set up for coffee, tea, sodas, or water. If you wanted something to drink you could go to the gift shop for an overpriced bottle of water or a Coke. There was a carton of Diet Coke laying on the floor in the gift shop but it was not cold and there were no glasses or ice available. Two of the people at our lunch table were vegetarian and the hotel had been advized prior to our arrival that vegetarian meals would be required. They asked our wait person 3 times for their vegetarian meals and they never appeared. Finally they grabbed the arm of another passing waiter and he saw that they finally received their food - An iceberg lettuce salad with the grilled chicken removed - no dressing!
If you are looking for a place to hold a conference in the Vienna area - this is not the place.









