Obviously what I should have done was differentiate between between the more minor as opposed to the more major reasons for our discontent.

No one's mentioned it, but I will - that check-in experience (the being ignored part, more than the FD person's mistakes) got the weekend off on the wrong foot and the series of subsequent, disparate events, serious and not-so-serious over two days resulted, to put it mildly, in the dissatisfaction on our part that I expressed. And, which at least in my opinion, is justified.

But, any way you slice it, it's the aggregate experience that made for the opinion.

Perhaps Marriott has spoiled us over 20+ years, set the bar too high with a standard for service that's expected as the norm.

To illustrate here's a contrasting opinion, the result of a different type of experience.

The following is a link to the thread which contains my review (final post in the thread) of our weekend stay at the Renaissance Del Monte Hotel and Spa:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=420664