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If you have a stay in Boston planned, then I would definitely consider the Intercontinental Boston. I had an excellent stay.
It’s a high quality hotel in a prime downtown location. The hotel is modern and right on the waterfront. It’s an excellent base, if you are visiting Boston. This review has tons of photos, and they all pop out into a slideshow.
The below video covers some of the best things to do in Boston.
I booked 2 nights using the intercontinental ambassador free night certificate, and a further 2 nights using 140,000 IHG points. Intercontinental Ambassador is the membership scheme for Intercontinental Hotels. It costs $200 per year, and comes with the following benefits:
The main benefit for most people is the Weekend Night Certificate. You pay for 1 weekend night and get a 2nd night free.
I paid for 1 night in a room with club Intercontinental Benefits using my certificate for $548 and got a 2nd night for free. The Club Intercontinental rate provides access to the executive lounge, where breakfast and evening drinks/canapes are complimentary. As I was traveling with my wife and daughter, this represents pretty good value.
The hotel is located in a prime downtown waterfront location. 15 minutes taxi from the airport and right in the centre of the business district. Boston is pretty small, so the hotel is a good base for exploring all of Boston.
The hotel is 2 minutes away from Boston Children’s museum, which is very good fun for under 10’s. My daughter had an amazing time there!
We travelled around mainly using the subway, which is efficient and well priced. The downside is that they transport system is certainly dated, and due an upgrade! I spent one day In Harvard, and it took about 20 minutes to travel there via Subway.
The Hotel is a 5* business hotel rather than a destination hotel. It is designed to be a luxury base for people to visit Boston, either for Business or as a tourist. When you return to the hotel, you can expect to find high quality accommodation, food and amenities. However, you would not want to spend an extended amount of time here, as there is not much to do.
The lobby was grand and impressive, as you can see in the above slideshow.
The hotel contained a spa on the 2nd floor. There was also a small pool – much appreciated, since many luxury hotels in this part of the world don’t have pools.
As an IHG Platinum Ambassador, I was upgraded to a room overlooking Boston Harbour. I am a sucker for a good view, so I really appreciated this. However, Boston Harbour is not the most pretty, as you can see in the slideshow above. The room had the following features:
Overall, my impressions of the room were positive. It was large with a nice view, and the bathroom was spacious and impressive too. I took a few images, and you can check them out in the slideshow above.
The Club Intercontinental room allowed me to have breakfast in the Club lounge. The executive lounge was on the smallish side, but this was not a problem as it was never busy when I was there.
I had breakfast with the club lounge for 2 days and enjoyed it. There were a range of options
I really enjoyed the breakfast. The fruit, nuts and yoghurt in particular we're very fresh and very high quality.
I had the drip coffee and thought it was absolutely terrific - some of the nicest coffee I have had in a hotel. They also provided takeaway cups, which I though was a nice touch, and not very common in an executive lounge.
I had the pancakes and found them to be very good. I also had the oatmeal on one day, which was thick and tasty
Evening Canapes are served in the lounge from 5pm to 7pm, and consisted of:
The food selection was very disappointing. Sometimes you can get something approaching your dinner in an executive lounge - but not here. Simply spring rolls and cheese sticks, i.e. readymade oven food. I can only assume that they serve bad food, as they want people to buy food at their restaurants. In reality, I think that the effect of this is that people wont view club rooms as good value for money. The extra cost of a club room was about $150.
The alcohol selection was pretty good. The spirits were premium, and included belvedere vodka and Johnny Walker Black Label. Both items retail for around $40.