This was published 7 years ago
Hotel suites: What's the difference from a guest room?
By Lee Tulloch
Living the suite life in luxury hotels.Credit: Getty Images
It's a very sweet life on the road when I find myself upgraded to a suite.
I'm fortunate enough for this to be more the rule than the exception. Hotels want their best rooms to be reviewed and I often find myself in a penthouse or an apartment with so many rooms I need a search party to help me find the bathroom.
This extravagance is wasted on one person but, appreciative of the privilege, I try to live it up as best I can.
Suites are wonderful for many reasons and not only the ones you might imagine. There's not only the added space, but extra comforts such as sitting rooms, additional bathrooms, upgraded amenities, and often a butler service.
When you're travelling as a couple and one of you is wide awake at 3am jet lagging, and the other is sound asleep, it's a huge blessing. Even if you are travelling solo, a suite means you can invite guests to your room and close off the mess. Sometimes higher-end suites offer complimentary limo transfers to the airport, free bars, butlers and spa treatments.
But what exactly is a "suite", as opposed to a regular guest room? I used to think it meant there were at least two interconnecting rooms that could be closed off. But I've seen many variations lately. Not all suites have two rooms. There are "junior" suites and "executive" suites that sometimes make booking this category confusing.
Technically, a junior suite is larger than a standard guestroom with the added comfort of a sitting area, such as a sofa and chairs, but not a separate room. I've been in junior suites that are larger than many full-sized suites. Conversely, a junior suite can offer little more comfort than a sofa on which to dump your suitcases – sometimes not worth the upgrade in expense.
Executive suites suggest a larger room. Some have additional facilities for businesspeople, such as increased space to work, and the trend these days is for 'club' floors, with meeting and dining options, such as an all-day bar and restaurant, and concierge services included in the price. These can be good value, especially in an expensive city, even if you're not planning to do any business. But sometimes 'executive' doesn't mean 'luxury.'
Overall, what I expect when I hear the word "suite" is a sense of spaciousness, a higher level of comfort, quality amenities, personalised details and amped-up service. 'Luxury' suite takes it a notch higher.
The butler and champagne is expected from the really high-end suites, but it is the personalised service that's at a premium. I've stayed in quite a few hotels where the butler was less than attentive. And I've slept in some very large and opulent suites that were cold and unwelcoming. How successful a hotel is at the 'soft' luxuries like service is difficult to judge from photos on a website.
Recently, I checked into La Reserve, a sumptuous Belle Époque residence in Paris. Waiting for me in my suite was a box of saline eye drops. I had been suffering from stinging eyes because of an allergy to the plane trees of Paris – the bush telegraph had somehow communicated to the hotel that my eyes were on fire. It was the most impressive example of thoughtful, soft luxury I'd experienced.
No, guests don't pay a couple of thousand dollars a night just for these things. But hotels are making memories and if you're splurging on a suite, you need to come home with more than a good memory of a comfortable bed.
My favourite suite experience this year was staying in the Greenwich Suite in New York's Greenwich Hotel, a sun-filled 186 square metre, two-bedroom, three-bathroom duplex with nine-metre-high atelier windows, sitting room with fireplace, open-plan kitchen, loft office and a great dining room with a long table.
Too big for little me, really. But the fabulous residential design meant it was perfect for having friends drop by. For three nights I could pretend it was my own, very chic home. Room service would bring food and the kind housekeepers would clean up afterwards. If a suite was to fulfil a fantasy for me, this experience was it.
That's the problem with beautiful suites – you never want to leave them. Somehow the hotel managed to prise me out of this one and send me home.
Lee Tulloch stayed as a guest of the above hotels.
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