Sheraton Hotel, Warsaw, Poland – review written 15 June 2017

I’m not sure whether I’d call the Sheraton Hotel in Warsaw, Poland, a corporate hotel. I mean, Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz fame was staying there while I was in town and I can’t imagine him buying into corporatism.

Yes it’s a large hotel with bars and a restaurant, not forgetting a spa and conference facilities – quite good conference facilities – but perhaps to denigrate the place by calling it corporate would be unfair.

The check-in, I thought, was quite efficient. It wasn’t long before I was making my way towards the elevators and room 201, a conveniently located ‘end of terrace’ room ‘mentioned in despatches’ by the hotel signage. I’ll admit to getting a little lost and almost walking out of the hotel’s side entrance before realising that I’d missed the elevator area, but I found it and was soon ensconced in the room, checking things out.

First, the Sheraton in Warsaw trusts its guests, I was glad to note: it had proper coathangers in the wardrobe and a fully-stocked minibar, so top marks there. A light came on whenever I opened the wardrobe doors and, I noticed, there was a safe in which I could have placed my passport, but chose not to. Then there was the flatscreen television, which I never, ever switched on, but can only assume that it worked perfectly. There was a desk and, in addition to free wifi, a lead connecting my laptop directly to the Internet.

The bed was comfortable – I managed to get a decent night’s sleep over my three-day visit – and the bathroom was perfect too. I always judge a decent bathroom by whether the shower works properly and it did.

So far, so good and, to be honest, I’ll say now that I loved the Sheraton Hotel, but I was annoyed about what happened when I discovered, late on Thursday night, that my keycard didn’t work. It enabled me to get in the lift and travel to the second floor, but it wouldn’t open my door and I was in dire need of the bathroom. So I went to the front desk, told them my predicament and they asked for ID. I didn’t have any bar a passport that was in my room, so the receptionist called a member of the hotel’s security team to escort me to my room where I showed my passport and was left to visit the bathroom.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been annoyed about this. What if somebody in the middle of the night asked for access to my room while I was sleeping and they gave him or her a new keycard? It doesn’t bear thinking about so I think I’ll say that I’m glad they were so security-conscious rather than berate them for making me jump up and down in public in a desperate attempt not to humiliate myself.

On the hotel’s location, it was around 20 minutes to the old town of Warsaw and only around five to 10 minutes from some excellent restaurants (Buddha, Carpaccio and Kaiser spring to mind).

So, to sum up, the Warsaw Sheraton is good and well worth a visit and, who knows, you might meet a rock star!