Westin - Hilton Head Island

We recently spent four great days at the Westin on Hilton Head Island, SC. We lucked out with weather in the low 60's each day, amazing since this was in mid-January.

It's a good hotel which is probably five years overdue for a renovation. The edges were a bit frayed, but the place is still high quality. The staff were all very polite and helpful, even when we ran into them off-site and off-duty.

Many of the area attractions were closed for the season, but it's our fault for choosing this time of year (hard to argue with half price). One thing that was a bit irksome was that the in-hotel coffee shoppe seemed to open and close at whim. No days/hours were posted for the shop.

Since we were staying four days, I brought along our Wii, a few games, a DVD player and a few movies. Sure we could watch pay-per-view, but we might not be in the mood to do so. It was also possible to play GameCube games through the hotel network, but again this involved a fee.

I wasn't planning on spending a lot of times using the Wii or DVD player, but it would be nice to have options. I was bummed to discover that while the TV in our room had the ports needed to connect our DVD player and Wii, there was no way to get the TV to display a channel to use them.

The 'Room Features' list include a listing for 'Entertainment Center', by which they mean the TV, which admittedly can do tv, movies, music, basic card games and GameCube games.

I also brought an extra set of PC speakers and an iPod dock, which allowed us to listen to our own music. We used this setup every night we were there, and I was glad I brought it.

I have a very routine lifestyle in my daily life, and I tend to create a new routine wherever I end up. For our four days in Hilton Head, I would get up at 6:30, head down to the workout room for a 45 minute workout followed by a long hot soak/book reading session in our room's tub (delicious, endless boiling water). Next I would make coffee (free with the room) and sit on the balcony, looking out at the ocean and reading. Then I would wake Cindy up and do some web surfing on our little netbook (wi-fi was free/included with the room) while she was showering.

I'd definitely recommend the Westin at Hilton Head - it would be nice to go back during the season when everything is open. It would be cool to rent a boat that we could use to circle the whole island.