Hi,

I had a 2 night stay at this property recently during the Christmas weekend.

Location:
Close to the Freedom/Liberty square (not sure which is the correct one), about 15-20 mins walk. It's on the main avenue running through the city, Rustaveli (Shorta). The airport bus (37) stops alongs the bus stops on this avenue. There is a metro station (Liberty square) next to the Galleria Tbilisi (a fairly new shopping mall), which is about a 15 min walk down towards Liberty square or Rustaveli Metro station (towards Hero square). [The Rooms hotel is a further 10 mins walk from the Rustaveli Metro station]. Basically if you have no problem walking, from the hotel, you can walk to most of the different major tourist attractions in Tbilisi. Close by to the hotel are the Parliment of Georgia, the University theater, the National Opera and Ballet (where you can get some cheap tickets for some of the performances). There is a small park close to the hotel. There are a couple of museums in the vicinity and an uphill climb of about 15 mins, you can reach the funicular up to the Mtatsminda park. There are lots of shops on the avenue.

Check-in:
I did an online check-in requesting for early check in (flight arrived at an ungodly hour of 4.30 am local time). Arrived at the hotel around 6.30 am and as expected no room was available (I guess it is not because of room availability, it is just that they did not want to give a room so early - occupancy rate was only like 40-50 guests as I found out later). Anyway, they were kind enough to let me wait in the Executive lounge and slightly over 0800 am, they informed that I could enter my room. I don't think I received an upgrade, but at this stage I did not care.
I was asked for my choice of Plat Arrival gift and I chose the F&B - which had some nice choices.

Room:
The hotel is still a traditional Marriott, so the interior is the old school Renaissance type of interior (not my cup of tea), but well, ok everything was still in good condition and functioned. Bed were comfortable and there was tea/coffee making facilities. Internet speed was ok, a bit on the slower side but was stable. there was a nice seating area in the corner of the room. The size of the room was on a smaller side, as there was not really much area to place your luggage, luckily I managed to use the wardrobe to keep the large luggage and the rests scattered around the room. The view from the room was towards the city including the river and some parts of the Mtatsminda mountain (especially the obvious telecommunication tower which you see all the way from the airport).
The bathroom had no walk-in shower, only a bath tub. Water pressure and temperature was good to have a nice shower. The size of the bathroom was good, with the usual toiletries provided.
TV channel selection was ok. There is a safe in the wardrobe, though since I had my luggage in there too, it did take some maneuvering to put and take things out in beween.

Breakfast:
As an elite member, you can have it either in the lounge or in the main breakfast room. There was quite a good variation with some local delicacy. Due to the low occupancy, the place was never crowded, the most crowded during my stay was on the Monday (a normal working day in Georgia). Breakfast room staff was ok and did come over to help if they see you looking lost. There was eggs to order available and some good Georgian dishes.

Executive lounge:
The lounge is on a smaller side, but this was not a problem during my stay as normally I would be the only person in the lounge. Only on a few occasions did I see one or two other people in the lounge. The morning selection was ok (limited compared to the main breakfast room) and the evening selection was very good, 3 hot dishes which you can make a meal out of and the best thing was that they had Georgian based dishes which was delicious even for hotel standard. The lounge attendants were very warm and friendly and very proud when asked about the different Georgian dishes and culture. Only complain about the lounge is the setup, basically it is very restaurant style like so it's not really a place that you will stay too long as it does not have that cozy atmosphere. There is only 1 sofa set, but again I don't see someone sitting there as the layout of the lounge is just not sufficient to have both tables and sofa/lounging area at the same time. There are some good alcoholic and non-alcoholic selection during the evening hours.

Staff:
In general, all the staff at the hotel were very warm and friendly and always willing to help. All staff spoke good English, so language will not be an issue. Only be careful about the enthusiastic housekeeping staff. They are a bit too effective as they tend to throw things away if it looks like rubbish to them. I brought with me some special empty boxes to put my wines in and left them on the table, without realizing actually, on my last day during packing, I only discovered that they were thrown away. So I had to go around asking for boxes in order for me to bring my wines back safely in my check-ins. (which was a difficult task too, as it seems they just like to get rid of things as soon as possible if they are not useful - had a hard time getting the boxes). This "fast cleaning" behavior seems to be part of everywhere, even at restaurants, they tend to take your plate away as soon as it's empty (which reminds me so much of when flying with Aeroflot - the same behavior). So if you have anything that you want to keep but can be seen as rubbish, do keep it safely in the wardrobe or luggage.

General:
A very good hotel especially the staff. The interior decoration might not be a cup of tea for everyone, but my stay was comfortable and it was made nicer with the nice staff (especially those in the lounge). However, I am still baffled why with such a low occupancy rate they still maintained quite a high rate. If they had much better promotions, they might have more guests as I've never felt so alone in a hotel before, during those few days I hardly ever bumped into any other guests. I would however still like to try out "The Rooms" hotel the next time or maybe the newly Moxy down by the river if I am back in the city. Tbilisi itself is a nice an upcoming city, hopefully it does not become over commercialized. (Currently in the main old town area, every corner you see a restaurant offering Georgian cuisine or a wine store with free wine tasting or some tour company offering tours).

Cheers!