We stayed at the Lowes this past weekend because my boyfriend had a medical conference there. The hotel itself is situated on Market, centrally located to Walnut street shopping, Chinatown, and Rittenhouse square. There are a lot of friendly staff members and bellmen around to assist you, and the lobby has some convenient amenities such as a free terminal for web check-in that prints out your boarding passes on your day of departure. Also, there is a nice table set up with complementary lemonade. The rooms are modern with Kreug coffee makers, and the bed was comfortable. Those are the good things. Now for the bad.
Without asking us, the reservation assistant put us in a smoking room that smelled very damp and smoky. We went back to the front desk and requested another room without incident. Our new room was a nice corner unit overlooking Market street. The shower fixture was leaking badly and sprayed water all over the floor when we used it. We didn't want to go back to complain so we just dealt with it but it required mopping up the floor after every shower.
The closet is very small, we couldn't put either of our carryon bags in there because the floorspace was too narrow (it's literally 1 foot deep). So, we had to put our bags near the front door and step around them. They do not put hair dryers in the rooms, you have to request one to be delivered to the room.
The elevators in the hotel are extremely slow. We waited 10 minutes for one to come on Saturday morning and several times I just took the stairs between floors instead of waiting. Everytime I used the elevator I could overhear people in it complaining about the long wait times.
I went to the business center to check my email and the credit card scanners were not working so I asked the woman working there if the system was down and she laughed at me and said the system was working fine. She didn't get up to assist me and seemed very disinterested in doing her job.
We wanted to go exploring after the seminars finished, so we exited the hotel. If you go to the right, you're immediately in a bad neighborhood. There were seedy looking people walking up and down the streets, and I did not feel safe. If you go to the left, you are headed to Rittenhouse and the museum area which is ok but honestly, the location of it is such that you're better off staying in Rittenhouse and just cabbing it back to Lowes if you have meetings there because it really isn't in a safe location. If you plan to dine out anywhere and are dressed up you will be cabbing it everywhere, as opposed to just being able to walk.
Overall, the stay was average, but if I had to do it again I would most definitely not pick this hotel. You are better off staying at any hotel in Rittenhouse square, where you can safely walk to Walnut and Liberty Mall shops.
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