In an office park near the university, zoo, Civil Rights museum and botanical gardens, this hotel is south of downtown. This place is difficult to access and not really worth the trouble. The eight-story taupe structure has the standard Embassy design with a large tropical atrium at its core.
The two-story tinted-glass entrance opens to a lobby appointed with coral marble, potted palms and worn clustered seating showing harlequin-print fabrics. Past the lobby and gift shop is a skylighted atrium where complimentary cooked-to-order breakfasts and evening hors d'oeuvres are served beside waterfalls, fish-filled streams and lush foliage. Lunch, dinner and drinks are in Ruth's Chris Steak House, which is pricey and provides a limited room-service menu.
Just off the lobby are the recreational facilities—an indoor pool that needs an overhaul, a skylighted whirlpool that needs cleaning, a sauna and steam rooms. Sun worshippers sprawl across the small lawn, and type As take advantage of the free passes to a nearby health club.
Executive conference suites handle small meetings, and six meeting rooms can handle up to 320. Parking and shuttle services are free to the airport and within a 5-mile radius, which covers rides to the museum, zoo and botanical gardens.
Battered glass elevators rise from the lobby to thin-walled guest rooms that fit the Embassy mold, with bedrooms by French doors from sitting rooms. Glass-topped breakfast tables, wet bars, refrigerators, microwave ovens, coffeemakers, comfortable easy chairs, phones, wireless Internet access (for a fee) and TVs feature in all. Sofa beds provide space for kids to sleep (those younger than 18 stay free). Bedrooms have cheap blond-wood furnishings, second dual-line phones with voice mail and data ports, and armoires with large TVs. Larger premium suites have a brighter palette, as well as conference tables seating six. The large, angled baths are desperately in need of upgrading, with broken tiles and stained grout complementing the toilets that lie directly in the arc of the bath doors. Irons and hair dryers are provided, and all rooms have sliding-glass doors opening to step-out balconies. Housekeeping does its best, but the wear and tear is really showing here. Room service is from 11 am to 11 pm.
A friendly staff and amenities such as the free shuttles, complimentary newspapers, guest laundry, a business center and express checkout help some, but unless the rates are rock-bottom or you need to be in this area, the Hilton is a better choice.
