Seeing Stars
Get hotel ratings from people who have actually stayed there.
If you feel overwhelmed by conflicting star ratings when booking
a hotel online, take heart. The following sites offer honest hotel
reviews from real travelers like you.
TripAdvisor.com: Pick a destination, and this site
ranks the hotels there based on star ratings provided by its
members. With more than 1 million travel reviews on over 140,000
hotels and resorts, over 90,000 restaurants and nearly 60,000
attractions, TripAdvisor.com is by far the most popular travel
review site. Another perk: To round out its hotel reviews, it
provides links to online guidebook content and recent articles
about each hotel.
Hotelchatter.com: This campy site groups hotels into
"Hotel Heaven" or "Hotel Hell," reveals where
celebrities have bedded down in "Celebrity Scoop," and
offers a daily newsletter and blog with a lot of attitude--and a
lot of good information. Much of the information on the site comes
from members who send in their news, tips and reviews.
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HotelShark.com: The editors at HotelShark.com parse
incoming reviews, advising hopeful contributors that
"excessive giddiness, or gratuitous profanity, meets with our
suspicion. We take seriously opinions that are thoughtful, specific
and sincere." You'll find many detailed reviews for
popular, well-traveled destinations like New York City and San
Francisco, but the number of reviews thins out for second-tier
cities like Atlanta and Dallas.
Travel.yahoo.com: If you want to read consumer
reviews, look in the "Travel Guides" section of this
site. Yahoo!'s hotel reviews are similar to what you'll
find at TripAdvisor, but they tend to be shorter and lean toward
the positive. You'll also find links to other online guidebook
reviews and articles about each hotel. Yahoo! provides helpful maps
that display restaurants and attractions in each hotel's
neighborhood.
CitySearch.com: Choose the city, then click on the
"Hotels" tab for reviews. CitySearch posts editorial
reviews (claiming they're written independently of advertising
on the site), plus user commentary and reviews.
Chris McGinnis is author of The Unofficial Business
Travelers' Pocket Guide.