Let me first start by apologizing if I go into way too much detail but I think that this is better than having to give more details later.

We stayed at the Residence Inn (Keeneland) in Lexington, Kentucky from April 27 to May 2 of this year. We actually really liked the hotel and enjoyed our stay, until the last day. On the last morning, we went down for breakfast in the hotel at 9:00am. After breakfast, my wife and our kids went outside to play basketball on the hotel court. I went to get gas. Checkout was 11 or 12 so we hadn't even thought about checking out yet at this point. When my wife went upstairs to go back to our room, she met the housekeeper in the hallway who told her that she had our passports and her sunglasses and that she would bring them back to her. My wife thought this was really strange at the time but didn't think too much of it as the housekeeper did bring back our passports and her sunglasses. When my wife got back to the room, she noticed that all of the cash that we had on the bedside table as well as her own personal pillow was also gone. We later discovered that my 9 year old daughters envelope with her own American money was also missing. We phoned the front desk right away, who phoned housekeeping and $60 of our money was brought back, as well as our pillow. The housekeeper told us that she thought we had checked out so she "took our stuff". Unfortunately we do not know exactly how much cash was on that bedside table. It was our last day traveling to the United States so it was our leftover money. All we knew was that it was somewhere between $60 and $200 (which we had taken out the day before at the bank machine).

We immediately went to the front desk to complain. The front desk clerk told us that none of our stuff should have been taken and agreed that housekeeping should not have been in our room. The hotel's policy was that housekeeping would only come into your room if you actually requested it the night before. The housekeeper had absolutely no reason to be in our room. The room had not been tidied up. All of our personal items had been left alone, but all of our valuables had been taken. We told the front desk that we were filing a formal complaint with them and that we expected something to be done about it. We considered filing a police report but we had a 10 hour drive ahead of us with 2 young children so we didn't want to be held up any longer. The front desk clerk promised us that her manager would call us as soon as they got in. This is not over 2 weeks later and we still have not received that call. I have contacted Marriott through their website, through their Facebook page and have contacted the hotel GM numerous times through email. I did get a form letter back from the GM that says the following:

"Dear Mr Schmitt

Thank you for taking the time to let us know about your experience while staying with us. Providing the highest level of hospitality is our number one priority and I sincerely apologize for failing to meet your expectations. I have shared your feedback with the team to ensure the necessary guidelines are in place and reviewed to prevent this issue from occurring in the future.

I hope you choose to stay with us again when your travels bring you back to the area.

Sincerely,

General Manager
Residence Inn by Marriott Keeneland Airport Lexington

This was sent to me after I completed the Marriott rewards survey for the stay. In the emails that I have sent to her as well as to Marriott I have stressed that we really liked the hotel but that this incident and this employee put a black eye on our trip. We travel to Lexington every spring and we will never return to this hotel. I have a 9 year old daughter who has anxiety issues and now she is terrified to stay in a hotel as she is afraid that someone will come into our room without our permission.

When I started this entire complaint process, I made it clear to Marriott that it wasn't about the money, although we would really like to get it back. It was about the fact that one of their employees came into our room and robbed us. They can't use the excuse that they were cleaning our room as room cleaning wasn't even an option at this hotel. I didn't know what to expect back from the hotel or from Marriott but I certainly NEVER expected to be completely ignored. To this day, except for the email shown above, I have not received a single email or phone call from the GM of the hotel. I just want Marriott to make this right for me and my family. Whenever I contact Residence Inn by Marriott through their Facebook page, I do get replies quite quickly but every single time it directs me to only talk to the hotel directly. The hotel 100% completely ignores me.

I'm hoping that someone on here might read my story and know what I can do to get some sort of action. Even if it is just an apology. I'm actually more upset about being ignored than I am about being robbed.

Thanks
Matt Schmitt