| | 3677 Elvis Presley Blvd, Memphis, 38116, USA
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Overall Community Rating: |   8.5 (based on 1 user reviews) |
 Heartbreak Hotel: A GOOD CHOICE by Alison Poole |
| Posted 23 September 2005 about a visit in August 2005 | Overall rating: 8.5 |
I stayed in this hotel for a week with my mum who is a huge Elvis fan. I was a bit concerned about her choice of hotel before we arrived but I was pleasantly surprised.
After a 15 hour journey I was pleased that the hotel offers a free shuttle service from the airport, which runs regularly, we only had to wait 5 minutes. All of the staff we encountered at the hotel were extremely polite & friendly. The rooms are of a very good standard, clean & surprisingly big, ours was more like a suite. There was a separate living area with sofa & TV, a small kitchen area with fridge, sink, coffee maker & microwave, an average size bedroom with lots of drawers & an adequate wardrobe & then a small but fully functional bathroom. There is also air conditioning in the rooms. The only fault with our room was that it was a smoking room & even though neither of us smoke, it still smelt pretty strong at the end of the week. Specify when you book if you want a non-smoking room. We didn't ask to be changed as we had a larger than average room we put up with the smoke in return for the extra space.
As the name suggests, this hotel is centred around Elvis. There are pictures in all rooms, they play Elvis radio in the lobby and bar area and there is also a channel that shows back-to-back Elvis movies. However, you get a good selection of other cable channels plus nintendo & pay-per-view movies if you should get a little bored with Elvis. I have to say that for the 7 days we were there the constant Elvis didn't bother me as I previously expected it to.
The bar serves food from about 3pm until about 11pm. The menu is not extensive (mainly burgers & fries) although the food is good & the prices are very reasonable. The hotel also serves a buffet breakfast between 7 - 10am, there is a fairly large selection which includes cereal, bread, muffins, bagels, fruit, yoghurt, doughnuts & pastries. There are two warnings I can give about breakfast 1) If you arrive too late (between 9.30 - 9.45) your choice is limited & 2) When you use the toaster, you will be tempted to put the bread through twice - only do this if you like it very well done, it doesn't look very toasted after one cycle but after it second it is almost burnt!
The pool, which is heart shaped, is not very big & I wasn't impressed when I first saw it. However, throughout our stay we had 90 degree heat & yet the pool very rarely seemed crowded. The pool area is kept clean & well maintained.
The location of this hotel is great for Graceland & the surrounding Elvis souvenir shops, the walk to Graceland only takes 5 minutes . However, if you do not have a car with you (which we didn't) you can feel a little isolated. There is a bus stop just outside that goes into downtown Memphis but unfortunately we only discovered the bus stop on our last day so I can't give any further details. The hotel runs a shuttle into downtown Memphis (Beale Street) every evening on the hour from 6 until 10pm. This is a good service which we used a few times, it returns on the half hour until 10.30 (11.30 on Friday & Saturday night). The shuttles will only take 25 passengers so make sure that you book a place going with reception. During the day it is not as easy to get around. Sun Studios runs a shuttle on the hour from 9am to 6pm every day, this runs from the Hotel & then Graceland to Sun Studios & then from Sun Studios to Beale Street & back again. This service is advertised well & is very reliable.
I would recommend the Graceland tour, there are various combinations you can buy (we chose the VIP tour at $55) but it is definitely worth it & exceeded all my expectations. All of the staff at Graceland are also very friendly. The Sun Studios tour is very well done & a bargain at $9.50 and it only takes about 45 minutes. Another thing that we enjoyed was a tour of Tupelo, Mississippi - Elvis' birthplace. I would not recommend the tour that the hotel recommend ( they gave us a flyer when we checked in) as they charge $130 per person. We managed to get a tour with a different tour guide for $75 (plus the $7 admission charge to the house & museum) per person. There was a poster in the window of one of the souvenir shops at Graceland Crossing that advertised Custom tours with Mike Freeman, we rang the number & Mike gave the 2 of us an excellent tour the very next day. I cannot praise him highly enough, the tour company that the hotel recommend had a much larger group than us on the same day and I doubt got the same level of service as we did.
The other issue that I had with the location is the lack of shops that sell everyday items. Considering that you have your own kitchenette, there is not really anywhere you can buy groceries unless you have a car. There are a few burger bars & a KFC nearby but you are a little stuck for basics. I would recommend using the shuttle into downtown where you have a much better choice of restaurants & get to experience Beale Street but you can only do this from 6pm onwards - so lunch was not very exciting.
The hotel only has a safe facility at the main desk, which is free of charge but can be a pain if there is a queue of people checking in or out. Also, there is no internet access which is not a huge issue but would have been nice in the reception or bar area.
All in all I had a very good holiday & don't have any real complaints about this hotel but if I returned I think I would definitely hire a car.
This review is the opinion of a diytravel.co.uk user and not of diytravel.co.uk. |
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