Sheraton Raleigh Hotel, Raleigh

There's really not much in Raleigh. The Sheraton is probably one of the nicer hotels in the Raleigh-Durham area outside the uber-luxurious Umstead Hotel in Cary. It's a nice place. The rates were decent, if a little high for the area. You're not too far from the center of town (which is literally a square a couple blocks on each side). If there was anything else in the city of Raleigh, I'm sure this hotel would be conveniently located for it. Alas, most things aren't even open on weekends and short of business travel there's not much to draw people here. So, I repeat: if you have to go to Raleigh, this is the place to stay.

$12/day to park added to bill but not advised of when making reservation, one bellman for entire hotel and no do-it-yourself carts, sheets don't fit bed, $2.50/bottle if you drink water already in room, vending machines only take credit cards and no price available before purchase. We had stayed at this hotel before and found it exceptional. But that has all changed. General feeling of hotel is that it has certainly gone down hill in all aspects except service in the restaurant at breakfast (which was outstanding). At checkout spoke to someone (no name tag and no introduction by the gentleman) whose response was absolutely no response except to ask if we'd stayed at this hotel before and advise that the parking was provided at a "discount" In general, the experience was unpleasant and we checked out after 1 night.

I can't even get the reservation desk on the phone to make reservations. Need I say more?

I stayed at the Sheraton Raleigh for not only the convenience but also the architecture. The hotel has a charm about it that welcomes you to the downtown Raleigh area. They have recently redone all of their guest rooms and put in a great business center by the Starbucks so that I can get work done before going to work in the morning. The staff was very friendly and anytime I wanted to go out to eat they had a restaurant to suggest. My experience at the Sheraton was the best in Raleigh and now with the new renovations it's even better. Who needs to stay anywhere else when the service here is the best!

If you are looking for luxury like the Atlanta Sheraton Hotel- forget it! Our tub had a broken safety bar with lots of rust- we told the front office and a repair man came up- said he needed a part and would come back tomorrow- he never did. The bathroom door had a hole where the door knob is suppose to be- the coffee pot was not a pot but a cup container for one cup of hot beverage and paper cups. I will never stay at this place again after they charged us $125 a night not the $89 that is advertised now.

I stayed there back in May 2008 for a business meeting. No free wi-fi, no free breakfast, no free parking, bad part of town, lots of construction in the area and on the hotel. I should have done my homework before I went and should have known something was amiss when they accepted government rates. Definitely cannot recommend. If you need to stay downtown, the Clarion is somewhat better. I stayed at the Stockholm Sheraton in August. Wow, what a difference. Huge rooms, gracious staff, and they even comped us breakfast since they were about 30 minutes late in getting our room ready. And the price was only about 15% higher than the Raleigh Sheraton business rate. The management in Raleigh needs to take a road trip to Stockholm to see how its done.

Wowza...time for Sheraton to get a wake up call. I wouldn't give the hotel more than two stars, once you get past the lobby. The parking lot is not secure and is shared with the public. It is across the street and was full when I arrived...which meant carrying bags and equipment an annoying distance to my room. The room was small and dated. It did not appear to be very clean either. You can literally hear every noise in the hallway including the vending machines, ice machines, and guests going in and out of their rooms. The TV service does not include HBO and the menu on the TV system did not work during my stay. The fitness center is a joke. The free-weights consist of a partial set of dumbells that go up to a wopping 25 pounds and the chlorine fumes from the pool are overwhelming. The Nautilus machine that is advertised does not exist. You can work out at Captital Fitness for $10, which is their normal guest fee. I had dinner in the bar where the service was awful. There were no patrons there and I still had to wait a half hours to get served a greasy $10 hamburger. The clincher is the $10 wifi fee (everything seems to have a $10 fee attached to it here) that is added on to the ridiculous room rate of $169 per night. I stayed at the Clairion last time I was in town. It was $65 per night and physically comparable to the Sheraton, except for the outside curb appeal. The rooms at the Clarion seem a bit larger. I doubt I'll stay at the Sheraton again unless they offer a much lower or special rate. Not a good value and service was poor.

For a major city, there's really nothing here. The hotel is nice enough. Nothing really to "Write home about." On the down side, everything costs extra. Internet is $10 per day. It seem like the more the hotel costs, the more expensive the internet access and extras... I called to see if there was a Thai place that delivered food. ONLY Pizza and one chinese place delivers. Scary for a downtown hotel to have only three places. It seems like you'd be better off staying outside of town and driving in for whatever you need to do.

We were expecting something to do at night...and it was dead around there. When I asked about restaurants I was told we needed to drive. Construction and trains wake you early if the neighbors in the next room don't. Cleaning left a lot to be desired. While all clean items were left for us, all the dirty ones were left too (glasses, coffee cups, towels, bath mat, etc)! The shower did not drain, so you ended up in ankle high water in the shower. The shower curtain was so high it didn't meet the top of the tub, so water definitely ended up in the floor that needed to be mopped up. Ventilation in the bathroom is poor. And yes, everything is extra - including parking.

The hotel lobby, bar, and breakfast areas were all nice...I wish they would have put that much thought into the rooms. The carpets were in terrible condition, the halls reaked of cigerrette smoke, the view overlooked construction and was unsightly. Wi-Fi internet costs $10 a day. Full access to the gym/pool area was $10 a day. Bottled water in the rooms was $3 each, and none was stored in the vending machines. We were advised to move our cars from the free (on the weekends) parking directly across the street to the parking lot around the corner for~~yes, $10 a day. This did not make sense. There is no mini fridge in the room. There is no microwave in the room. There were stains on the curtains I do not even want to know about. The bathroom was kind of scary and looked pretty outdated. It is centrally located to everything downtown. The problem is that nothing is open on the weekends downtown. We were really surprised at the lack of people and open businesses throughout the weekend. This left us with nothing to do. One good thing about them is that they allow pets up to a certain weight without an additional fee (maybe they did nto realize they could charge for this). In a nutshell, I have been to worse....but this was not a great value....and after they nickle-dimed me to death, it is even less of a bargain!