Review: The Nines hotel in Portland Oregon

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TL;DR – The hotel is like a hot girl who knows she’s hot – she’s just not going to put in a lot of effort.

Introduction

Yesterday, I wrote about our Amtrak trip to Portland.  I decided to stay at The Nines (an SPG Luxury Collection hotel) because it was centrally located and probably the “nicest” points hotel in Portland.  I know the Kimpton hotels are also very popular in Portland.  Let me forewarn you – this review won’t be all roses.  My expectations are a lot higher in fancy hotels like this.

 

Booking the hotel

Apparently there is a low and a high season for this hotel.  Since I was going in June, this was the high season and therefore, would have been 16K points a night (12K points a night in low season.)  However, there were no standard awards available and so I called in to SPG.  When I called in, the rep told me I could get an upgraded king room for 17450 points a night.  I felt that was reasonable over the 16K standard award, and so booked 3 night.  The rooms were going for over $400 a night after fees, so I felt this was also a good redemption of SPG points.  For the record, I booked it mainly because I wanted to splurge on the getaway with the wife and not due to the value of the hotel.  If it was $200 a night, I still would have used the points.… I think.

 

Location

The location of the hotel is excellent.  As a shopaholic, I love it when a hotel is attached to a shopping mall (or across the street to one in this case.)  There are also metro and bus stops near the hotel as well.  The only downside is that you do see quite a number of homeless people near the hotel, especially at night.

Inside the hotel, the lobby is on the 8th floor.  Departures, the rooftop bar, is on the 15th floor.  Our room was on the 8th floor, which was pretty convenient.

 

Understaffed front desk

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I had 2 instances with the front desk on my trip.  When I was checking in, I had to wait behind 2 parties while 3 other people were being helped.  Usually, when I check into hotels, I usually only have to wait a minute or two before another employee pops up out of nowhere to help me.  However, in this instance, it was just those 3 people and the customers were taking a long time.  Maybe my threshold for hotel check in/outs is extremely low, but I feel waiting more than 5 minutes isn’t acceptable, especially for a hotel of this caliber.  In my defense, I have a higher wait time threshold for the concierge since I understand they have to explain directions to tourists.

The second time I had to deal with the front desk was when I had asked for a late 2pm checkout, which they let me do.  Then when I returned at 1:30PM, my keycard didn’t work and had to go to the front desk.  Once again, I had to wait behind 2 people and only 2 people were working.  What really made me upset this time was the nicely suited gentlemen (who I assumed was the manager,) after helping the person in front of him, just walked away to the back room while I stood there waiting for him. Luckily he came back in a minute or 2 and helped me, but walking away from a customer is a big no-no in my book.

 

Gold member – 250 SPG points or 2 drinks?

I love when the front desk asks this question.  I’ll take 2 free [alcoholic] drinks over 250 SPG points ANY DAY.

 

Free Wifi without logging in

The front desk had told me to use the usual last name and room number to log into the Wifi, but I was able to connect and be on my way (without authenticating.)  Maybe my phone defaulted to the lobby WiFi since we were on the same floor as the lobby, but whatever, I’m not complaining.  Speeds were okay.

 

The room

When I first entered the room, my first comment to my wife was, “It looks like we’re in a Tiffany’s box.”  Some other random thoughts:

  • There weren’t any toiletries like Q-tips in the bathroom, which I thought was odd
  • I did like the 1 bottle of water in my room.  I also liked how housekeeping dropped off 2 bottles every night with turn-down service.
  • I loved the [Heavenly?] bed and sheets
  • Our room was at the end of the hall, which was great, but you could still hear the doors closing in the mornings
  • The blackout shades for the room were just ‘okay’ – I would have preferred more blackout

Conclusion

A couple more random thoughts – the four elevators are also the slowest elevators I’ve ever witnessed in a hotel.  Maybe it’s due to the popularity of the rooftop bar, Departures, but I just remember waiting a really long time on different occasions.

The hotel emailed me my bill after I checked out, and I noticed a $5 charge on it.  I tried to reply back to the email address and it was an invalid email address.  That also pissed me off.  Eventually I called the hotel to ask what that charge was, and they told me it was for a granola bar at the minibar that I did NOT eat.  They refunded the charge.

Don’t get me wrong – I still really liked the hotel.  I just feel like they’re not really trying hard since they know they are one of, if not THE, best hotel in Portland.

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17 comments on “Review: The Nines hotel in Portland Oregon

  1. I will be in Portland in sept for long weekend. Confused on where to stay. That’s the problem when I travel to a city with no Hyatt. Do they have free breakfast? There’s a crown plaza too close by, so need to decide between these 2.

  2. We stayed there last year. The room was great and the staff was very friendly and helpful. I was booked at the Marriott, but when we got there we found out it was really just a Days Inn, rebranded as a Marriott, so we were only there about 5 minutes. Anyway, we liked the Nines.

  3. I hated the weak, environmentally conscious showers. I also booked the Club room for an extra 2K pts, and it wasn’t worth it. But on the plus side, parking in the city overnight saved $30/nt (instead of the hotel’s valet), and it was interesting that this was 1 of 2 hotels that NBA teams stayed at, and I think the Chicago Bulls were in town.

    I liked the Westin b/c of the block of food pods in front of the hotel, and b/c you can find overnight street parking.

    1. I think next time I’ll stay at the Westin too. Agreed on the outrageous valet parking charge.

  4. Haha, this hotel is definitely not the best in Portland. I’ve stayed there (and liked it), but the Kimpton hotels are much better. I once got a 2-story suite (yes, story) at the Kimpton Vintage, which was my most ridiculous room ever. But even when I wasn’t elite, I’ve had much better rooms and service. Here’s to hoping IHG lets us use their points in the future with Kimpton.

    1. I haven’t tried the Kimptons yet, but from what I’ve read, they do sound nicer than The Nines. I too am hoping we can use IHG on them, but I’m not holding my breath.

      1. Touche… Yes, yes she is.

        We’ll have a few nights at the Hyatt Churchill in London next week and we have Platinum status with Hyatt, so basically nothing. I expect it will be similar, but who knows. The May Fair was wonderful and we had only mid-tier with Carlson and they gave us an upgraded corner room.

          1. It’s going to be leaps and bounds better for you, you’ll get breakfast and probably a better room. In London we usually swing by a Sainsbury’s and grab some breakfast snacks so we can eat before leaving for the day. No big deal.

  5. The rooms look really nice but what is with the weird mannequins all over the lobby? Were the drinks at the rooftop bar pretty pricey?

    1. Probably for decor, making you think you were in a high fashion boutique or something. The drinks were pricey (maybe $12-$15) and the wait is bad due to it being overcrowded almost all the time.

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