March 10, 2008 – I had the opportunity to spend one night at the Courtyard hotel in South Boston. Every aspect of my stay met or exceeded my expectations.

The hotel is only about 5 ½ miles South of Boston Logan Airport. However, picking up my rental car at about 5:00 PM, it took about a half hour to get to my hotel due rush hour traffic and my not being familiar with the area. A landmark to look out for when heading to the hotel is the large square storage building that tries to look like a fortress. The hotel is very close by.

The entrance of the hotel is dramatic, especially by Courtyard standards. There is plenty of free parking all around the hotel. Check-in was “Marriott fast,” taking less than a minute. I had reserved a King room which was guaranteed and requested a high floor. My room, #429 met both requirements. I was able to get an AAA rate of $139 per night which I thought was very good.

My room was beautiful. The décor is contemporary and comfortable. The king bed was very comfortable and had a selection of both feather and poly-fill pillows. There were night stands and wall mounted lights on each side of the bed. I appreciated the fact that there was an outlet on the lamp into which I could plug my cell phone.

Across from the bed was a large unit which contained the clothes closet, held the TV, and was also the work desk. The TV had a large number of cable channels, but I was surprised that there was no Pay Per View programming. The desk had a very comfortable office-style chair. The hotel offers complimentary high speed internet service via a Cat 5 cable. I was able to connect to our company VPN easily. Running the Speakeasy Internet Speed Test showed a download speed of just over 1MBPS and an upload speed of about 700KBPS, reasonable fast.

Opposite the desk were a queen-size sofa bed, coffee table, and floor lamp. The couch was comfortable, but I did not try the sofa bed. Lighting in the room was very good. From the window I could see the back side of a mall and downtown Boston in the far distance.

The hotel restaurant is only open for breakfast, but the hotel has an arrangement with a local restaurant for room service. I did not try the room service, but did have breakfast at the hotel the next morning. The breakfast buffet was $10.95 and included cooked-to-order eggs and omelets. There was also a good selection of breakfast buffet items.

The hotel is located in primarily a residential neighborhood. The homes are fairly old, but it seemed like a nice neighborhood to me. If it had not been below freezing, I would have walked around.

All aspects of service at the Courtyard were excellent. I asked for directions to get back on the freeway and instead of handing me a map, the front desk associate took me outside and pointed out the way to go which I thought was an example of great service.

I was very pleased with my stay at the Courtyard in South Boston. I would go back and recommend the hotel highly.