The Inn at Virginia Mason

The room was excellent. The mattress, once I laid down, I didn't toss and turn. I felt like I was in my own home. It would have been nice if there was a chair in the closet area as well to put your shoes on or whatever, since there is that much room.

The hotel parking is a block away down a steep, steep hill. No wonder they are next to a hospital. By the time you reach the top of the grade, you go into cardiac arrhythmia. The breakfast kitchen was closed, so you had to go out for breakfast. The roof top garden leaves a lot to be desired.

The personnel at the reception and hotel location.

The cleaning personnel was not too friendly, but not unfriendly either. Also, we found a couple beer based alcopop cans under one of the bed and some old socks. But my intuition says that this is a case of "when you pay bananas, you get monkeys". Also, as customary as it might be in Seattle/Washington, an 18 dollar parking feels a bit much. We stayed in a 50-dollar-a-night-hotel in Portland (walking distance from the city center just as Inn at Virginia Mason) the night before arriving at Seattle, which included a simple, but free continental breakfast and free parking. Also, in Europe/Asia/N-America I've easily managed to find hotels with free parking.

The food was very good and reasonably priced for Seattle and the staff were friendly and helpful. The public areas are pleasantly decorated but the whole place is old. The Hotel is obviously used by friends and relatives to visit with patients in the adjacent Virginia Mason Hospital and some of those patients come into the Hotel to dine etc. It is possible to walk to the downtown areas but it is quite a walk and the streets have steep gradients (rather like San Fransisco).

The Hotel is obviously allied to the adjacent major hospital. There are passageways between the Hotel and the hospital. The reception is shared with an adjacent Hotel / Apartment complex across the street. The street is closed and the whole site is a construction zone. There is no easy parking unless you can find valet parking in a nearby Hotel or can find local on street parking in a non meter area. The bathrooms are rather like hospital bathrooms. The building is old and the air conditioning works in some rooms and not others - there is no individual room control. The air conditioning system on the roof of an adjacent hospital building is very noisy and goes 24/7 - there are notices on the windows warning of construction site noise.