Shhh, It’s a Secret! WestinFitness Guest Rooms

I stayed at the Westin Dublin this past weekend and had a beautiful room overlooking the Temple Bar area. Before hitting the pubs, I took advantage of the Westin’s workout room to get in a calorie deficit before BG (Before Guinness). Their workout room was small in area, but very full in equipment. Free weights, weight machines, treadmill, bike, elliptical and more. And I had the room all to myself when I used it. Very nice!

Then I saw a sign in the elevator for WestinFitness rooms (also known as WestinWorkout rooms) – guestrooms with their own fitness equipment. What a great idea! I asked for a tour and the hotel’s staff was glad to take me to one of these rooms.

When I saw the room, my first thought was “I could really get used to this!”

Roll out of bed and jump on the treadmill. No worry about bedhead, no safety worries if you prefer working out at night. Use your own equipment whenever you want in the comfort of your own room. Plenty of floor space for yoga, for using the provided free weights, stability ball and resistance bands and to watch the exercise DVD’s on the big flat screen tv. This is the ‘no excuse’ room … if you can’t find time to get in at least a few minutes of workout in this room, you’ll never do it!

If you want the expanded fitness room, you’ve got that too, which is great if you’re staying with someone who has a different workout or sleep schedule than you.

I see one major downside to the WestinFitness rooms – it’s virtually impossible to know which properties have these great rooms. It’s the great Westin secret.

I used the Advanced Search on www.westin.com and found that searching for a WestinFitness room is not an option. I then called Westin and was told that if I could give them the exact property I was interested in, they’d tell me if there were fitness guest rooms. So I gave them the Dublin property, since that’s where I just saw the room with the treadmill. Their reservation system said that the Westin Dublin had no WestinFitness rooms. When I told the reservation agent that “Yes, they do,” she told me that “No, they don’t show that they do.” Maybe I just imagined taking this video! Since I travel to so many large cities where several Westins are located, I’d never want to spend the time on the phone with Westin reservationists going through property by property looking for a WestinFitness room.

I also wanted to know what the average difference in rate was between a regular room and a WestinFitness room, but I wasn’t able to get that information due to their reservation system inadequacies.

So Westin – you’ve got a great thing going here … Don’t let it be a secret!

p.s. If someone does discover the WestinFitness room secret, I wonder if they book it just to hang their clothes over the treadmill like they do at home?