How is this for location?

Hi there, first time posting on this forum so apologies for asking so much in my first post!

Background: Me, my partner and his friend will be coming to stay in Atlanta in January 2010 for 4 nights for a WWE event at the Philips Arena.

Currently we are considering staying at the Atlanta Sheraton hotel........but none of us know anything about the area, is it good/bad/so-so? What is the hotel like? It seems to get a fair mix of reviews.

If we do stay at this hotel, what is in the immediate area for cheap eats (no fancy restaurants just cheap nice food) and finally which attractions are considered a must for a first timer?

Many many thanks in advance x

How is this for location?

The area%26#39;s fine -- it has all the pros and cons of being in the downtown area, but it%26#39;s not unsafe or run-down. It%26#39;s a little farther from Philips Arena than some of the other downtown hotels, but still within walking distance for most folks (roughly 4/5 of a mile).

For cheap food, there%26#39;s a food court in the CNN Center building adjoining Philips Arena, a food court in the Peachtree Center complex (between the Sheraton and Philips Arena) more food-court type stuff at Underground Atlanta (several blocks south of the hotel), and a variety of other storefront lunch-type places along Broad Street, a few blocks east of Philips Arena/south of Peachtree Center. There are several other casual and relatively inexpensive restaurants in the downtown area, but most of us would I think recommend venturing farther out for better quality and value. MARTA will take you to Midtown, Buckhead, or the Perimeter Center area, each of which has many more options, and if you have a car you can readily get to Virginia-Highland, Little Five Points, Decatur, and other areas with more variety. There are literally dozens of restaurants that might fit your ideas of ';cheap nice food';, so it%26#39;s hard to be too much more specific than that. If you can offer some examples of types of food you%26#39;re interested in or of chain restaurants you like we might be able to offer suggestions.

How is this for location?

Hey thanks for your reply!! We are not fussy we will eat anywhere as long as its cheap and cheerful (and doesn%26#39;t kill us!)

We were also considering doing the aquarium, coca cola world and maybe the zoo....is there anything else touristy to do....we don%26#39;t really like museums but anything else - is there any us tours in the area?

Sorry for all the questions (also we will not be driving and will not want to travel too far from the hotel) xx

Even though the zoo%26#39;s not far from your hotel, it%26#39;s a pain to get to without a car, and you wouldn%26#39;t want to walk it for several reasons. The Aquarium, World of Coca-Cola, and CNN Center tour are the main tourist destinations downtown. You can get reasonably close to the Botanical Garden on MARTA, but in January I%26#39;m not sure how much there%26#39;d be of interest going on there, and the weather might not be that conducive. Not a lot else that%26#39;s readily accessible without a car from downtown (at least not much that doesn%26#39;t fall into the ';museum'; category).

Forgot about the bus tour question. Tourist bus tour operations seem to come and go in Atlanta, with less long-term consistency than in other cities. There%26#39;ve been other threads on the subject recently, and apparently there are a handful of operators out there now, but at least some of them operate seasonally (i.e, not during the winter ';off-peak'; months), so since your trip is a long way off and in the wintertime, I%26#39;d wait until much closer to your trip date before investigating too much or especially booking and paying for anything. Having lived here for a quarter-century now I%26#39;ve never taken one.