I have now stayed at the Lima Marriott twice. My experience was mixed. The hotel is great, the rooms are modern and fresh, and the Executive Lounge is superb. The front desk staff was a bit frustrating, however.

The hofel is located in the upscale suburb of Miraflores, overlooking the ocean. Other chain hotels in Lima include the Sheraton, in downtown - a marginal location - and the Doubletree, also in Miraflores. It is my impression that the Marriott is the most luxurious of the 3.

If you arrange transport thru the hotel, it costs $30 from the airport. If you charge it to the room, it gets a 29% markup. Thus, we paid the driver directly. There is no licensing of taxis in Lima, and it is safer to use the hotel service. The hotel is about a 30 minute drive from the airport.

If you use taxis during your stay, you have to go to the street to flag them down. (There are plenty passing by.) You need to negotiate a rate, as taxis do not run meters.

Check in is on the second floor. Doormen and bellmen are very attentive, and your luggage is taken from you on arrival. I am platinum, and was given executive lounge access on both stays. On the first stay, the room was the smallest on the floor. Avoid -01 rooms. It barely had room for a chair by the bed, and was an awkwardly sized room. On the second visit, we had an -07 room. We had 2 easy chairs in addition to the king sized bed. The bathroom had a shower enclosure as well as a bathtub. On the first visit, our amenity was going to take over an hour to arrive. Since it was 1am and we wanted to go to bed, we eventually canceled it. On the second visit, we got a nice tray of assorted cheeses as well as soft drinks.

The executive lounge was well appointed. Breakfast has both hot and cold items, and is quite extensive. "Tea" is served from 1-5. It actually includes cheeses, crackers, nuts, and olives in addition to cookies or other sweets. "Dinner" is served from 6-10. It is a generous range of hot and cold appetizers, salad, and dessert.

I attempted to use premium pounds on my stay, and was denied. The interchange was frustrating, although in the end, they were in their rights to say no.

• I presented my premium pound on arrival. They were not familiar with it, and said I had to call reservations to apply it.
• I called reservations, who said my rate qualified, and that I should have the front desk call them if they did not know how to give me the credit.
• The front desk took the premium pound and said they would investigate.
• Several hours later, the front desk said I could use the premium pound but they would only credit it as $100. They only deal in dollars, and had no way to do a currency exchange.
• I challenged this. Then, the front desk manager called Marriott finance office in the States. At this point, they determined that I had a corporate rate and so could not use the premium pound.

The different messages I got regarding the voucher and the amount of time I had to spend left me with a negative impression of the front desk staff.

The final negative was that we were charged $50 for local calls, at a rate of $.40/minute. (We were attempting to change an airline ticket, and had about 90 minutes on the phone with the airline involved.) We had seen no information in the room regarding charges for local calls, so this was quite a shock.