Lake Gaston

No warmth at all while checking in, the bedroom toilet is great though

This was a little hit and miss. The room was pretty nice on the surface, though if you looked a little closer you would see the dirty floors and the shower door that didn't close properly and the taps that move all over the place and so on. It was surprisingly noisy as well, even when the pool music wasn't rattling the windows. I found that I was able to turn the HVAC fan on constant which provided some white noise, so that was helpful. Our room did have a nice view and was really close to the elevators. As for the rest of the place, the pools suck. Sorry but they're terrible. Both pools are ridiculously shallow and often overcrowded, and you can't even lounge next to them without paying (seriously, yeah the cabanas you've always expected to pay for, and they're overpriced of course, but even the chairs have to be rented). You can use the chairs in the area between the pools for free, so I guess that's something, but isn't sunbathing by the pool sort of a normal expectation? They don't let you bring food in either so you have to buy from their stupidly overpriced bar if you don't want to head out for snacks. Speaking of stupidly overpriced, that's probably my biggest beef about this place. The greed is over the top. I don't think we were able to eat a single meal for much less than $100 there, and $1 beers at the Stage Door are $10 on the Miracle Mile. You expect to pay a little more for the convenience but not THAT much more.

Clean, quiet, great neighborhood. Easy access to subway