Jun 15

Jun 15 Seattle Marriott Bellevue - A Belle Stay

Overview

Despite the recent market slowdown, we all know that Technology (whatever that means) is where the money is. Think new grads being paid $150K straight out of school. And with all this money, such people have decided that they need great living spaces. And hence, Bellevue was born - its name actually stems from “Beautiful View” in French. Being home to large companies like T-Mobile, Meta, Microsoft, Bellevue naturally has demand for solid business hotels. And that’s were the Seattle Marriott Bellevue comes in. Marriott International’s Marriott Brand focuses on premium, but not necessarily extravagant stays - I can say that this hotel delivered on just that.

Booking and Location

Bellevue is a high cost of living area (though not to levels of New York), so naturally expect things to be a bit more expensive. Given the summer travel season, it is not uncommon for hotels like this one to exceed $500 a night!

The hotel is located near to corporate headquarters - indeed, one of my friends I visited mentioned that she was put up here when she interviewed for Microsoft! The hotel is a 10 minute walk to Downtown Bellevue, where there are shops and restaurants plenty. Just note that things tend to close a bit early in Bellevue, so don’t expect being easily able to grab food at midnight.

Check In

I had originally booked a Guest room, 1 King, Sofa bed; however, since a few friends decided to join me, I used a Suite Night Award to move up to a bigger room, the Executive, Guest room, 2 Queen. There have been reports of hotels playing games with Suite Night Award, but thankfully the Seattle Bellevue Marriott did not have that issue. The latter room was a tad bigger (300-350sqft, as opposed to 290-312 sqft), which I was grateful for. The hotel didn’t have anything bigger, likely due to its business oriented target market.

For those arriving by car, be aware that there is a $39 parking fee, as well as a $10 valet fee. If you can’t expense this outrageous amount, just park a block or two away on street parking.

The entrance to the hotel was a slow revolving door that fit 3-4 people in each opening.

The hotel’s lobby and design was tastefully modern, with light colors and dark woods - it reminded me of my stay at the Westin Wall Centre Vancouver Airport. The desk was staffed with 3 lovely team members, one of whom thanked me for my loyalty and gave me my 4 keycards.

Beside the desk was a convenience store, although we thankfully didn’t need it as all 4 guests got access to the M Club Lounge.

The overall lobby was quite spacious, and hosted the Amuse Restaurant - I would skip this given there are so many better options nearby.

This space was hardly occupied at night, which gave my friends a place to play video games late at night whilst I slept.

There was a separate lounging area which also provided more seating.

We were upgraded to a room on the 15th floor, and so used the elevator banks to arrive there.

Given its west coast nature, wood was frequently utilized in the construction / décor of the hotel - this worked, as the building felt quite calming. Even the carpet appeared to contain some type of tree motif.

The Room

We were assigned room 1520, a 2 queen bed room.

The room instantly reminded me of the Westin Wall Centre - funnily enough, I was actually on the 15th floor as well! I would say that this room’s use of gentle wood tones was a bit better than the Westin’s green carpets.

There were 2 queen beds as advertised, although I did feel that the bed was a bit on the smaller side. Concurrently, the bed was a bit harder than I expected, although nothing out of the ordinary.

The room also had a large closet / cubby, which made sense given the number of people this room was designed to fit.

Other amenities in the rooms included a safe deposit box, an iron and ironing board and a fridge that thankfully was empty.

There was an extendable working desk and TV (that we never used).

The was another mini desk that was more form than function, and was likely intended to be a place to store things on.

The bathroom was nothing special, except for the fact that the towels they provided were high quality! Seriously nice low cost way to differentiate your hotel.

The other notable feature was the sliding door, which unfortunately meant that if anyone was showering the noise carried quite easily to the rest of the room.

Amenities

Let’s start with the M Club Lounge, which I think is probably one of the better ones in North America. For starters, it provided a pretty good breakfast. Cold food include cereals, pastries and granola bars, with the muffins being particularly tasty.

What was even more impressive was the hot breakfast spread, which consisted of a traditional North American potatoes, sausages, bacon and eggs.

Of course my friends and I took this opportunity to brunch - thank you Seattle Marriott Bellevue!

That being said, there was that one weird friend that insisted on filling up on fruit…of which this hotel provided plenty of.

There was also food provided outside of breakfast hours, such as various cereals / granolas, snack bars and also soft drinks / water.

The actual lounge itself as quite spacious, and did not fill up on the weekend - that being said, with business travel picking up perhaps this might change.

To work off all of those calories, the Seattle Marriott Bellevue has kindly provided us a gym. While this wasn’t the largest, I put it in the top quartile of gyms I have seen, with bonus points for size and the variety of equipment.

Finally, as this hotel is a business hotel, there were many different conference rooms - indeed, I saw two guys arm wrestling over a bottle of whiskey in one of them. While I wasn’t table to directly take pictures of a room, I would presume they looked similar to the pictures below.

Final Thoughts

Bellevue is what people often hope America will be when they travel: wealthy, clean, new and plentiful. The Seattle Bellevue Marriott ticked off most of those boxes. Insanely expensive parking and hotel rooms? New hotel style and smell? Generous facilities and elite treatment? Check check check. This is definitely a great place for a stay in Bellevue, particularly given its closeness to major attractions. However, if you are visiting Seattle, there are certainly other areas to stay with - I would recommend actually staying in Seattle proper, then taking the bus to Bellevue for a day. Regardless, this is a pretty good business hotel!