The Westin Dallas Fort Worth Airport

I have been coming here consistently for work for 5 years. Gabriel was my server tonight. It was the best service I’ve had in five years! I like to sit in the bar/lounge area. Normally bartenders don’t like to go beyond the bar. Gabriel was the exception. He was so attentive. He checked on me several times and gave me outstanding service! Wow! I have not had the service in the bar lounge area here in five years! What a refreshing change from the past bar/lounge service in the past.

I work for the government and came here on a business trip. I arrived and upon being told my room wasnt ready, I waited a few more hours and attempted to "check back in". I was assigned a room and upon walking into the assigned room it was uncleaned. Trash was everywhere, the bed was unmade, dirty towels all over the room and it had a smell. I then went back to the front desk to be reassigned a new room after waiting 2 1/2 hours after I checked in initially. The worker at the front desk named Angel was very, very rude and unhelpful. She was very unfriendly and very dismissive to what I was telling her. She blatantly showed she was discriminating against me and did not want to help resolve the issue at all. She continuously dismissed my concerns and at that point I asked to speak to the manager. I can say she was discriminating against me because once I asked to speak to the manager; I saw how she navigated with other customers who looked different than myself in a totally different manner. As I was speaking with the manager, she asked Angel if she called housekeeping to clean the room and she could not even answer because she did not take any measures to assist with the issue. The manager was able to find me another room and provided me with a $10 off credit for a beverage or food item at the hotels bar/restaurant. She also gave me one breakfast voucher for the hotel . Once I walked to the new room I was just reassigned to, I discovered a huge roach in the middle of the floor. I still remained in the same room. This experience gave the Westin a bad reputation for me. I have shared my experience with my family and friends and I wanted to make others aware of too.

Some reviews talk about the age of the hotel and rooms but my experience was fine. This is an older hotel but my room was quite nice. Did not notice some of the issues that other reviewers found. The lobby was lovely and the restaurant was decent. Not much else around this hotel but there is a Dennys across the street. Staff was pleasant and helpful. My room was facing the airport and freeway which I could hear at night. AC is noisy so I had to turn it down to sleep. Bed was good but the pillows were a bit hard. Coffee machine is basic with Starbucks coffee. Overall, a good experience.

This is one of seven Westins in the Dallas area. For perspective, this is actually the second Westin in Irving. There’s a much newer and corporate-managed Westin just 5 minutes away. Maybe 7 minutes with traffic. This Westin is franchised and while marketed as being at the airport, it’s not really at the airport. In reality, the hotel is about 15 minutes from the DFW car rental and Terminal E. And that’s without traffic. Besides six other Westins, there are plenty of other hotels nearby. You have a Sheraton, Marriott, etc. There are some low-end questionable hotels right next door too. The kind of places where shady people go and lurk about. More on that later. Despite the plethora of choices this Westin treats its customers like there are no other choices. They charge a​ $20 nightly parking fee for self-parking in an open and unsecured parking lot. This is a junk fee. If you’re to charge for parking at least offer valet parking or some sort of secured parking garage. To avoid the fee, look at some of the nightly package rates that include parking. They can be a decent value. I booked a room that included parking and a $50 food credit. It ended up being cheaper. So, pay attention to packages. Then there’s housekeeping. If you’re staying at the hotel more than one night, they don’t provide any daily housekeeping. This is supposedly a Westin -- an upscale, full-service brand. Even a Holiday Inn Express still offers daily service. Not providing daily housekeeping is unacceptable. I also believe it's against Marriott’s brand standards for Westin. These things aside: 1) No pre-arrival email. 2) No doorman or bellman to assist with luggage at arrival. 3) The front desk clerk was polite, professional and very hospitable. I was addressed by name and thanked for my elite status. I was given a welcome letter (albeit one that wasn’t personally addressed or personally signed) that outlined the hotel, its amenities etc. I received the Bonvoy elite welcome choice, although it took a little prodding to get the option of a restaurant breakfast over the buffet in the club lounge. While the buffet is shared with the restaurant, the restaurant has an ala carte menu that in theory is better. More on this later. 4) Before arrival the property confirmed me into a suite on its top floor, the 15th floor. I specified my arrival time. I arrived at 3 pm and was assigned a suite on the 13th floor. When I pushed back I was told the suite on the 15th floor wasn’t ready. I was told to wait in the club lounge and they could come get me when the suite was ready. More than an hour later at 4:15 pm, a different front desk clerk came and gave me keys to the room. 5) In the suite there was no welcome amenity. The special request that I noted on the reservation and have set as a specific preference with my Bonvoy ambassador account was not fulfilled. Likewise, the room was missing several things that you expect in a room at a Westin, let alone what was (I believe) their most expensive suite. No mouthwash, no dental kit, no shaving kit, no slippers (there were robes, however), and no corkscrew. There was only one bar of soap. In my experience, a full-service hotel like a Westin will have a bar of soap on the counter at the sink and a second bar of soap in the combination bathtub-shower. The usual toiletries (shampoo, conditioner, body wash) were wall-mounted dispensers. 6) While the lobby and some public spaces have clearly been renovated, the hallway leading to the room was very dated with carpet that looked 6-7 years old. Walls and doors were scuffed, scratched and showing considerable wear-and-tear. The suite had new TVs but was otherwise very dated. The case goods (furnishings) were showing significant damage. Scuffs, scratches, etc. While the furniture in the hallway by the elevator was consistent with the Westin furniture that you see at new or newly renovated properties, the in-room (or, rather, in-suite) furniture looked like a Westin from about 2007. Outlets, both electrical and USB, were few and far between. The bathroom was particularly dated. Mold or mildew was visible by the fixtures in the tub-shower. ​Fixtures had visible rust. The ceilings in the room were popcorn ceilings – something I haven’t seen at an upscale hotel in a very long time. In areas the ceiling was showing damage. The suite, while spacious and comfortable, was dated and certainly not worth booking with cash. I was happy to have the complimentary upgrade but would never pay for the suite. It’s not worth the money. It’s that dated. There also wasn’t anything in the room that was elevated from standard rooms. It was just more spacious. Sometimes a suite at a Westin or another brand will have better toiletries or extra amenities. ​7) Cleanliness was iffy. The toilet had two pieces of hair on the toilet seat. Walls had stains. Carpeting had stains. ​8) The bed has the newish Westin bedding that is downright awful. The bedding is cheaper and more polyester-based than the bedding at a Holiday Inn Express. Despite specifying only feather pillows I received four polyester pillows that felt like giant cotton balls stuffed in a pillowcase. A duty manager told me the hotel threw away its feather pillows. This should be communicated on the hotel website. If the hotel can’t fulfill a request for feather pillows then it should either inform the guest and give them the option to cancel or go to Walmart and buy cheap feather pillows. This is unacceptable, not least for an Ambassador. ​9) I requested slippers, a dental kit, and mouthwash around 5 pm before going to dinner. When it didn’t come, I gave up and went to dinner. I put a do-not-disturb sign on my door. If they came to deliver the items, I expected them to put it in a bag and hang it on the door. Instead, the employee OPENED a door with a clearly visible DND sign and placed the items in my room. I discovered this upon returning after dinner. This was a huge invasion of my privacy. I complained to the duty manager. She was gracious and admitted that shouldn’t have happened. She offered points for the issue and also the issue relating to the pillows. I accepted the points as compensation. ​10) I had dinner in the lobby bar and restaurant. I also had breakfast there. The menu is okay with something for everything. The wine list is pretty awful, at least the still white wines. Think chardonnay from Kendall Jackson and Robert Mondavi. Cheap, grocery store wine. I didn’t expect a $200 bottle of grand cru chardonnay from Burgundy, but I would have at least expected something drinkable beyond mass-produced crap wine. They could have at least had some Texas wine options. The waiter was friendly and well-intended but the level of service didn’t match the price of the food. The food is mostly priced at Capital Grille level prices. But the service is more like an Applebee’s. Drop the prices or train the staff properly to elevate the service. If you’re charging $40-$50 for an entrée/main course, you expect service that’s better than Applebee’s. I ordered a salmon main course and asked for it to come without the glaze and without the sides. I ordered different sides from the menu. The salmon came out with the sides that I specifically said I didn’t want. The waiter apologized but told him the chef insisted on that preparation. This issue repeated itself at breakfast. I ordered an egg white omelet that asked for it to be prepared without the mushrooms and without the goat cheese. The omelet was supposed to be accompanied by a side salad of arugula (rocket) and tomatoes. It came out prepared with exactly what I didn’t want. It also came with breakfast potatoes, which weren’t listed on the menu. I also never received water, juice or a refill of coffee at breakfast. The restaurant needs a kitchen that listens to orders and cooks up and serves what was ordered. Likewise, it needs wait staff that are properly trained. I could have gone to Denny’s and gotten a better breakfast for less money and with better service. 1​1) There’s a club lounge that is accessible to guests who either book a room with club access or elite status with Marriott. While the lounge is open for breakfast on the weekends ​with all-day soft drinks, there’s no evening service. The hotel shouldn’t sell club lounge access if it isn’t going to open the club lounge with a full service every day. 1​2) Like the lack of daily housekeeping, other amenities or services are missing. There doesn’t appear to be real room service. There are no newspapers anywhere in the hotel. Not even a Visit Irving or Visit Dallas magazine. 1​3) The outdoor pool is worn-down and looks shabby. In the gym, which overlooks the pool, the equipment comes with a TV. But the TVs don’t work. The treadmills are a little dated. They’re at least one or two generations old. I later learned that some rooms have an in-room treadmill. 1​4) Some of the hotels next to the Westin are questionable. Like the kind of places hookers or drug dealers frequent. Yet, the hotel has no card reader at the elevators to protect guest safety. And the waiter at dinner and the waitress at breakfast in the restaurant asked my room number in front of other guests who were within earshot of me. Hotel employees are never supposed to ask a guest their room number. All things considered, management provided a significant number of points (30,000) as compensation for the issues that I experienced. But I should have never experienced the issues in the first place. I should have looked at the reviews because some of the issues seem to be longstanding. As I said earlier, there are SEVEN Westins in Dallas. There are two in Irving alone. Given the fact that it is not physically located at the airport, there is no reason to choose the Westin over say the Hyatt Regency or the Grand Hyatt, let alone one of the better Marriott options. Even the other Westin in Irving, which is managed by Marriott, offers newer and better rooms/suites, full daily housekeeping, a better gym, and a resort-style pool. They also have valet parking.

This was an abysmal stay at a crappy hotel. I expected more from the Westin. They promised us a crib for our infant at check in. An hour later, we had to ask for the crib and we were informed that they were out, but we were assured they would find a solution. At 11pm at night, we were presented with their solution, a blanket and two pillows. Westin had options. They could have borrowed one from one of the five Marriott properties less than a mile away, or they could have gone to Walmart for a Pack ‘n Play, since they clearly need more than they have. Instead, they thought two pillows and a blanket are what a baby needs. I was up all night caring for a baby that couldn’t sleep. In addition, the bathroom was in disrepair with a broken shower valve and some much needed help with paint issues. I also can’t figure out why the toilet was installed at an angle. First time I have seen that. Overall, if you have the choice, stay anywhere else.