It’s ‘girl’s weekend’ at my house, (3 women + their 7 daughters under 5!) , so I got greenlit to get a hotel for the weekend and chill! I booked the Stamford Plaza Hotel on Summer St., a former Sheraton now under new management.

I didn’t want to go far or pay alot of money, I just wanted a decent place to stay close to home where I could work and relax. After scanning Expedia and almost booking the Stamford Marriott ($109/night), I decided for once I was going to roll the dice and try one of those ‘unpublished rates’ – you know, where they offer you a super-low rate IF you book without knowing what hotel it is first (like Priceline).

Frankly, I would normally *never* do this, unless, say, it was for an overnight stay on a road trip and they promised me a 3-star and the next option was twice as much. But I was intrigued, and convinced I could figure out which hotel it was before booking.

It was described as a 3.5 star hotel, and I used the other amenity clues they gave me to narrow down the list of their ‘published rate’ hotels to about 4. The giveaway was an amenity ‘tennis nearby’ – that had to be unique – it was – unique to The Stamford Plaza, which had good reviews. I was sure of it, so I booked it, and was rewarded with a $59/night rate – $50 less a night than the Stamford Marriott. Nice!

The first thing you notice walking into the Stamford Plaza is that it is big. The atrium reminded me of the Las Vegas Luxor – while it obviously was not that big, the size is impressive. It is also meticulously clean, and rather quiet. I suspect the hotel is largely supported by traveling staff and events for their next-door neighbors, GE Asset Management, which is how they could afford keeping their superdomish atrium air conditioned.

The Plaza is also very clean, without exception, and check-in was quick and staff helpful and polite.

The one issue I had was with parking – you have to check-in before you park, as you need your room key to get into the parking garage. No big deal, but the street to the parking garage has several gratuitously huge speed bumps which scratched the bottom of my car – and from the looks of the tops of them, many other cars as well. They are just too high and too many. I am glad I would not be going to and from the hotel frequently.

I did, however, get a spot right next to the elevator, as the massive parking garage was barely populated. Parking is $10/day for guests (The Stamford Marriott is $12).

Although it seemed the hotel was lightly booked, they assigned me a room as far from the elevator as possible, which was really annoying and puzzling – because, again, the hotel is pretty big.

While I knew from the atrium that I was going to be fine staying at the Stamford Plaza, I was still taken aback with how nice the room was. It was very standard-sized – the bathroom a little smaller than most, but very tastefully decorated. The couch and coffee table were a plus.

My only complaint was the 20-inch CRT TV – although most hotels have been very slow on the upgrade to flat screens, so this was no surprise.

Although I had a very strong wireless signal, the speed was disappointing, about .3 Mbps. I couldn’t get the wired ethernet connection to work, but didn’t care enough to call the desk for help either.

Regardless, overall, this place was a lot better than I expected and I can heartily recommend the Stamford Plaza as a super value hotel (even the published rate was only $89/night). I don’t know how to describe it, but it has that atmosphere of ‘chain buyout’ – there are giveaways, like the canvas sign on the front with the logo that looks kinda-like-but-not-really Sheraton’s – but that’s not a negative, the owner is towing the line well and in exchange you get a great room at a great price.