Sheraton Wilmington, DE

The Sheraton in Wilmington, DE pissed me off so much, I decided to share it with you. Everything I am about to say is demonstrably true. I will not exaggerate, conflate or lie. Your mileage may vary, but my recommendation is: stay anywhere else. Your car would be a better choice.

First, I would like to say that the people who work at the hotel are fantastic. The employees of the Sheraton in Wilmington, DE could not be nicer, more professional or more helpful. I asked for more complimentary coffee and I got it, lots of it. I asked for more towels, and I was immediately sent a whole stack of towels. The last day, I was trying to get 18 people a last minute reservation at a restaurant, and the gentleman behind the counter called for me and got me a reservation right away. The employees of the hotel are not the problem.

What was the problem? The room I reserved included 2 beds and one pullout couch. If you're poor like me, that sleeps a minimum of 6 adults. (Depending upon how friendly you are.) So, we intending to sleep 5 adults and one preteen. The preteen and I were going to sleep on the pullout couch. The mattress of the pullout was essentially a sheet wrapped around coiled wires. There was no sleeping on that thing. The preteen got friendly with 2 other people, I slept on the floor- which was more comfortable than the pullout. Look, I don't expect tempurpedic* for $150 a night, but I do expect more comfortable than the floor.

Wifi. I use a friend's old first gen iphone for internet access when I'm not at work. (Which is why you only see weekend posts if I remember to set them up in advance.) I get wifi at home, at Dunkin Donuts, at the hospital, at McDonalds, but the Sheraton in Wilmington, DE wanted to charge me $10/day for wifi access. For wifi they're already providing and a room I already paid $150/night for. Seriously, fuck off. McDonalds gives me free wifi if I buy a $1 burger, but Sheraton can't give me free wifi for $300 worth of room?

Free internet. In the lobby, you can access the internet for free in a nice little cybercafe area- in the main lobby. Surf while the entire world shouts as it passes by! Yay! Not only that, you have to log in with your room number and the last name of the person the room is registered under, and you only get 45 minutes. Per day. Per room. There were 6 people in that room (the 11-year-old is a veteran surfer), we were considering a deathmatch for internet time by the first afternoon.

Parking. $12 a day. In their parking garage. I paid $300 for that fucking room, you are now going to charge me for parking- in the garage attached to the hotel?!

The elevator. Now, I had to use my tax return to pay for this, so I don't spend a lot of time in hotels. The elevator may be entirely standard these days, but it was obnoxious. You had to use your room key card to go anywhere in the elevator (or to use the stairs, or to use the bathroom in the lobby) and the card reader was slow and touchy. Every guest I saw was cursing the thing. It was especially annoying because as soon as the door closed it would start going up or down, so if you only needed to go up or down one floor, you were going to the top (or bottom) and hitting your floor on the next go round. Which was especially annoying because of . . .

The ice machines. On floors 8, 11 and 15 only. Which I missed. Several times. It took me 15 minutes to get ice. I gave up after that. Which may have been the point.

So, my advice would be any hotel but the Sheraton in Wilmington, DE. Wilmington itself was very pleasant.

*I don't own one, but having slept on a tempurpedic, I wish I did.