Aloft Boston Seaport District

EN / FR

March 2022

I stayed at the Aloft Boston Seaport District a business trip that lasted several days. This hotel is located out of the city commercial activities, but across the street from the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

The property

This hotel is directly by the Boston convention center, in a neighborhood where many other hotels are located. You can easily walk there. This is the main reason why I picked this hotel for this stay. However, there are very few commercial activities or restaurant nearby. You will have to go toward the coast or downtown to find a good choice of restaurants, which can be done within minutes of walking distance.

A pool table is available in the hall. Many seats, tables and chairs are also arranged around.

The room

My room is small with a Queen Size bed. A carpet, in good shape, is covering the ground. All is clean. There is a coffee maker with bags, a small fridge in the bathroom, an iron with its small ironing table, and a safe. The closet is open. There is storage space by the mean of shelves and drawers in the bathroom space. It is possible to connect an HDMI or a USB cable behind the television. But the TV doesn’t offer any wireless connection service or direct access to a streaming service, such as Netflix. A small work desk is available with its chair with casters. Some power sockets are accessible on the desk. A large lowered shelf is provided to place a suitcase. 

The room has a connecting door with the next room which greatly reduces soundproofing. Voices and TV sound, from the next room, can clearly be eared.

The bed is comfortable. A nightstand is installed on each side of the bed. And power and USB sockets are accessible on each of them. I noticed that the window blinds are very efficient and provide an almost complete obscurity, even in the day time.

My window provides a nice view on downtown Boston.

I didn’t have to use the air conditioning system during my stay, so I cannot comment on its noise level.

The bathroom

The bathroom is small and very clean. The toilet and shower are located in a separate room from the sink, which is an open space next to the room entrance door. There is no door to give privacy around the sink. There is no bath. Access to the shower and toilet area is by the mean of a sliding door. Space in this area is to a minimum.

Services

The staff is friendly and sometimes overwhelmed. The reception counter is setup as a central island in the hall. The registration process can be long, mainly when an event is starting at the congress center next door.

A Brazilian cuisine restaurant is attached to the hotel .I found their price on the menu quite high, and they don’t serve breakfast. The hotel has a small counter that offers several food products, specially a choice of cold and hot products to go for breakfast, and snacks all day. There is also a self-serve microwave oven available. The breakfast cost is not included with the room fare. Purchasing these items is done at the reception desk. In the morning, when clients are checking out, it may take a while to be able to pay for purchases. A bar is located in the hotel hall and is open at the end of the day. During my stay, its opening hours where irregular since it stayed closed some days. Coffee is complementary all day in the hall.

There is no parking directly at the hotel, but there is a paid parking a street corner away.

Internet access is free (Wi-Fi) and excellent.

The system controlling the elevators is different and can cause confusion at first. The floor selection must be made outside the elevator on a console, before the doors open. Once inside the elevator, there is no way to select the floor you wish to reach. If you haven’t selected a floor before getting in the elevator, you must get out to select the floor you which to reach.

On the hall second floor, there are meeting rooms, a gym and some seats and tables that can provide a more quite meeting place than the hall.

Design

My room is very functional and its decor is modern. Across the properties of this chain design features are common to give the brand a distinct identity. The design, based on patterns of colored squares, is interesting and is used throughout the chain, as I also noted during my visit at the Aloft Montreal Airport. Using the wall behind the bedhead to feature a large picture is also an interesting idea, used across the hotels of this chain. This feature is also used by the Courtyard hotel chain, as I noted during my stays at the Courtyard Quebec and at the Courtyard Brossard Montreal, but with a better result, in my opinion.  The corridors at the upper floors are very dark to the point of being a little dismal. However, the contrast provided by the backlighted colored square patterns, on the ceilings, is very interesting.  

My two cents

This establishment is interesting because the room are well equipped and the hotel provides all the basic services. Its location is ideal for visitors to the convention center. However, this is not the ideal location to visit the city. Boston has many hotels with a better location for visitors. Although the room is clean and the bed comfortable, the room is small and not interesting for a long stay or for vacations. This type of room can be interesting for travellers in transit or for business visitors who won’t stay for long.

The devil is in the details:

• Overwhelmed staff in the mornings.

Pros

• Modern and functional room.
• Good location, for an access to the convention center.

Cons

• Small room and bathroom.
• Bad location, to visit downtown.
• Soundproofing (connecting door to the next room)