The Strange Geographical Sense of the Aloft Hotel

Aloft Hotels are a “vision of W hotels,” owned by Starwood. I’d never been to one and didn’t even know there was one in my area until last night when I went to meet a friend at one. There were some interesting geographic challenges.

First off, the signage was almost non-existent. The signs were small and frankly, made the hotel complex, hidden in the woods appear to be some small time office park. I missed the entrance during daylight hours.

Second, while I waited in the lobby I overheard Chinese visitors querying the reception staff about their dinner options. There’s just a bar in the hotel, so they’d have to go out. But the busses stopped running, said the staffer. (I’m not sure that was completely true). And, the hotel shuttle ended its runs at 8 pm. And it was a three mile walk into town and the hotel had no maps. All the other stuff was possible, I guess but no maps? You have folks “in the middle of no where” - who can’t find the way in and now you have no maps to guide them out for dinner?

Third, and this should have tipped me off the strangeness of this establishment: the entrance had two sets of automated sliding doors, one after the other. After you went through one, you did not walk straight through and have the same side open for the remainder of the trip. No, the second door open at other end so you had to walk diagonally in the breezeway to get inside. I saw several bewildered people with luggage try to negotiate this unexpected set of obstacles. I tried to imagine someone in a wheelchair doing so.

This hotel chain describes itself as hip. I guess it’s hip to be lost and run an obstacle course to get inside.