Despite their first-class housing, many of the 470 freshmen temporarily housed at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge and Cambridge Radisson have mixed reactions to their off-campus accommodations.
While some on-campus residents may be under the impression the displaced freshmen are being showered with room service, luxury furnishings and state-of-the-art workout facilities, the students said little differed from other BU dorms.
Jissette Lopez, a College of Arts and Sciences freshman, said she originally wanted to live in Warren Towers because of the social aspect and central location to campus. When she discovered she had been assigned to the Radisson, she opted to keep an open mind despite her disappointment.
“The rooms are bigger and I like the fact I don’t have to share a bathroom with my entire floor,” Lopez said. “I’m trying to work with what I have.”
Lopez also said while the shuttle service was only occasionally on time, the bigger problem is its limited hours of operation.
“The buses stop running at midnight,” she said. “After that, you have to call the escort service to get back from campus.”
College of Engineering freshman Billy Riter agreed the shuttle service was the biggest problem with living in Cambridge.
“Either you walk 20 minutes to class, or you take your chances catching the bus,” Riter said. “It could come right away or in half an hour.”
On the other hand, Riter said he didn’t mind the free Radisson housekeeping services that provide clean sheets, deliver fresh towels and empty trash cans from his room twice a week.
According to Riter, the Radisson is not as social as some of the other freshmen dorms on campus, but he said one positive aspect is the access he and other displaced students will have to junior and senior-level housing next semester.
“There’s a lot of closed doors here,” Riter said. “It’s definitely not like Warren.”
However, with a lack of security guards and swipe-card stations, such as those found in BU’s larger dorms, Riter said guest policy regulations were minimal and for the most part, hassle-free.
“Technically, we’re supposed to register visitors with our RA, but people don’t always do it,” Riter said.
COM freshman Laura Embree-Lowry said she enjoyed having free cable television at the Radisson, a luxury unavailable to on-campus residents.
Embree-Lowry said putting college students in hotels did not always provide the most beneficial atmosphere for freshmen.
“At first, we had to leave our doors closed because of building regulations. And we’re also not allowed to have more than four people in our room at a time,” Embree-Lowry said. “The RAs had to really push the hotel to let us leave our doors open, and now it’s a lot more social.”
And while many on-campus students have their own ideas of hotel life, Embree-Lowry said most of these impressions, especially in regards to perks and amenities, are false.
“The pool is like a green pond. Nobody wants to get in it,” she said. “The exercise room is a couple of treadmills and some weights. The people at the Hyatt have it a lot better.”
CAS freshman Kim Belmonte said she was pleased with her room at the Hyatt, which includes the standard two dressers, desks and extra-long twin beds.
“Our room is twice the size of anything I’ve seen on campus, and we have an amazing view,” she said.
Unlike the Radisson, where entire floors are made up of BU students, Belmonte said her floor at the Hyatt was a mixture of students and regular paying guests. Because of this, residents are required to keep their doors closed and no more than four people are allowed in a room at one time.
“It’s made it so much harder to meet people in my building,” Belmonte said. “And we’ve had a few small incidents where the RA said we were making too much noise and bothering other guests.”
Another downfall to living across the Charles River is the lack of dining and laundry facilities, both of which require trips to campus, Belmonte said.
“You can get laundry service from the hotel, but it’s a lot more expensive,” she said. “So to eat or do a wash, you basically have to rely on the shuttle. I actually haven’t done my laundry yet because I don’t want to lug a big bag of dirty clothes on the bus.”
Additionally, students at both hotels are not provided with phone service, leaving them to rely on cell phones or nothing at all, said CAS freshman and Hyatt resident Kelly LeBlanc.
“The University sent us letters over the summer saying that it was too expensive to put phones in the rooms and recommended we each invest in a cell phone,” she said.
LeBlanc also said she felt the shuttle service was unreliable and made simple on-campus tasks difficult.
“If you want something to eat, it’s like a two-hour ordeal,” she said. “It has really forced me to walk a lot. There’ll be no ‘freshman 15’ for me.”
On the other hand, LeBlanc said she enjoys the pool and workout rooms at the Hyatt, but said they don’t outweigh the hotel’s disadvantages.
“I wanted to live in West or Warren, but it’s cool living here for now,” she said. “I’d much rather be on campus.”
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