rbw5t

Staying here next month, as Gold. Will update after the stay if I remember.

yodersr

I've stayed at this location 3 times in the last 6 months. Despite the rebranding, it still looks/feels like a Renaissance to me. Mostly due to the decor and beds (innerspring instead of memory foam mattress typically found in Marriott)

1st stay was mid-renovation and probably not a good basis for reviewing this property. It was clear that the renovation wasn't thoroughly thought out, as the rooms were missing a desk/chair. Front desk informed me that desks weren't originally in the plans, which is kind of shocking for a full service hotel being billed as a conference hotel and attracting business clientele.

2nd stay was towards the end of the renovation. Lobby renovation had been completed and new concierge lounge was open. Was treated to an upgraded/larger room. Room now had a small desk that looks like it came straight off the Ikea showroom floor. The lobby bar had about 8 draft beers with about half being local craft brews. The lounge had a decent breakfast with different hot entrees each morning. The evening happy hour offerings in the lounge could sometimes be enough to consider it a dinner. Honor bar drinks must be requested/poured by lounge staff.

This hotel has some housekeeping issues as I had dirty/used towels in my bathroom. The one hand/face towel looked as if the circus had been in town and a clown used it to take off their makeup. I discovered this disgusting towel after having used it on my face. Issue was escalated to the front desk manager and housekeeping manager to address; resolved by crediting my account with points.

3rd stay was post renovation and during the rebranding/grand reopening last week. Housekeeping issues still existed as half the towels in my room were stained or dirty. One of the towels was found to contain curly hair not belonging to me. I visited the front desk on the way out the door to catch the ball game and asked for new towels to be brought to my room. 3.5 hours after requesting new towels and taking in a baseball game, I returned to my room to find my request unfulfilled. At 10pm at night, it took 10 minutes to get someone to answer the phone and address the towel situation. Once again escalated issue to front desk manager; resolved with more points.

On Wednesday night they had a grand reopening celebration. This appeared to be a invitation only event due to pre-printed name tags and registration tables at the entrance of the hotel. Later found out the event was open to all guests when checking out. Needless to say, there was no awareness or communication of the event when checking into the hotel. The event seemed also seemed a bit disorganized as you'd think they'd be more welcoming/informing you of the event upon returning from work.

This hotel still has some gaps that need addressed and has me considering the Courtyard across the street due to the housekeeping issues with dirty towels.

SkiAdcock

The lack or or small desk seems to be the new Marriott thing in terms of designing rooms. Glad the exec lounge seems to be good. Sucks re: housekeeping.

Cheers.

yodersr

Another minor issue is no phone on the desk. Just one on the nightstand.

SkiAdcock

If you happen to be in St. Louis this Friday (Oct 2nd).

http://fox2now.com/2015/09/25/marrio...busch-stadium/

"If you head downtown for Friday's Cardinals game you may see something odd outside of Busch Stadium: an entire hotel room!

The Marriott St. Louis Grand's guest room is popping up at the corner of 8th & Clark Avenue Friday. The pop up hotel room's appearance is a stunt to welcome the new Marriott St. Louis Grand Hotel while providing locals and visitors alike the opportunity to rally in support of Children's Miracle Network.

According to Malkus, Marriott invites everyone to take a photo in the "room" and post it to social media using the hashtag, #HelloMarriottSTL. For every photo posted to Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram with the hashtag, the Marriott St. Louis Grand will donate $1 to the Children's Miracle Network. By posting, you'll also get a chance to win an exclusive Marriott Hotels bed and bedding set, a weekend stay at Marriott St. Louis Grand Hotel, or a $100 Zenia Bar & Grille gift card."

Rexkramer

[QUOTE=SkiAdcock;25489341]If you happen to be in St. Louis this Friday (Oct 2nd).

http://fox2now.com/2015/09/25/marrio...busch-stadium/

"If you head downtown for Friday's Cardinals game you may see something odd outside of Busch Stadium: an entire hotel room!

QUOTE]

You'll see something even odder inside Busch Stadium, since the Cardinals are playing in Atlanta that day.

SkiAdcock

[QUOTE=Rexkramer;25498574]Oops - I had the date wrong. The promo was last Friday.

Cheers.

suave410ec

Stayed there on points last weekend. Did not get upgraded (didn't ask). Got the breakfast vouchers (the fd did not give them to me at check-in but the restaurant staff quickly fixed it when they figured out I was Platinum). And although it specifically said "continental," I asked about this with the hostess and she said "the whole thing is included", and it was...my bill only included the tip for both days. YMMV.

The entire staff was super friendly. It was just me and my 4yo son, and they went OUT OF THEIR WAY to make him smile.
1) A lady, I'm guessing a manager, came up with this huge smile and gave him a coloring book and crayons as I was checking in.
2) one of the restaurant staff RAN to help him the first morning when he tugged my shorts and said "I want some more gravy" while I was getting something else and juggling his plate and mine.
3) our waiter the 2nd morning gave him and a little girl at the table next to us those little play packs with stickers and such.

It's been a while since I've experienced such little things like that...and most of that probably had nothing to do with my status (PP). And given it was a very busy weekend (Cards and Rams in town, Que in the Lou, and they had some convention and wedding also), I was blown away by the staff.

Now the room was small, and I've seen some comments about desks and furnishings...but it met our needs as we only slept there, showered and had breakfast both mornings. The AC had this rattling sound off and on the 2nd night...but I didn't feel strongly enough to complain about it. I can see if a functional work room was your top priority it could be an issue, the dimensions of the room would make it hard to have both a legit desk and a sofa. I didn't notice any housekeeping issues either.

I'd stay there again no question...my son would, too! ^

SkiAdcock

Thanks for the trip report! Much appreciated.

Cheers.

pinniped

Given that I don't see this comment often about Midwestern hotels, I gotta ask: how small is small? Are these Manhattan-sized rooms?

We're thinking about using our Cat 5 certs to go to over there for 4th of July weekend. Take the kids to the VP Fair, the Arch, maybe to see the 2nd best baseball team in Missouri, that kind of thing... We won't be in the room much, but will 2 kids and 2 adults be comfortable at all? Guessing no sofabeds: we'll have to request 2 doubles instead of our usual 1 King + sofabed that you can usually find in the Marriott system...somewhere.

Backup plan would be a Residence Inn a bit outside of downtown. (I refuse to stay at a Courtyard, except when it's absolutely necessary on a business trip.)

SkiAdcock

Pull up the rooms & check out the details to find out your answers such as room size/sofa beds would be my suggestion, or contact the property directly.

Cheers.

pinniped

Sofa beds aren't mentioned at all. That, plus the comment about the small rooms, leads me to believe they aren't there. The photos of the rooms show very modern furniture, and the couches you can see appear to be too low/thin to be sofabeds. I know you can't gauge room size from photos as the pics are almost always taken with lenses/settings and/or edits to make the room appear larger, but the sofas really don't look at all like they turn into beds.

I went ahead and booked a room with two doubles. Well, correct that...I booked a room and accidentally left it as a King, and then learned that the reservation was unchangeable online!! Fortunately, it was cancelable, so I canceled and rebooked with 2 doubles. Why it was unchangeable online - yet cancelable - I do not know.

SkiAdcock

Realize photos can only do so much, but often when I'm checking properties on line (usually for the exec lounge sticky or when someone posts a question about a specific property in this forum) when I click on room details it will tell me such things as square footage, if there's a sofa bed or not, etc, etc.

Ultimately though, given this is a domestic property & no int'l call involved, it just might be worth a phone call.

Having said that, since this is a remodel of a current property, it might have fallen into the dreaded "we've designed this for millennials" room design so not a lot of extra of anything.

Please do a trip report after your stay. Would be much appreciated.

Have fun over the holiday weekend!

Cheers.

pinniped

That thought went through my mind...from the photos, I'm asking myself "Is this a millenial design, or just more of a Renaissance design?" Large full-service downtown/convention hotel: I wouldn't *think* this one is targeting the millenial crowd... But then again, I've never understood this design concept to begin with. Once the millenials hit a certain age and are traveling for business, won't they too say "Dude, we need a desk"?

I will leave a trip report when I'm done. But I also have my eye on the currently-sold-out RI downtown. If that opens up, I'll probably switch to it.

pinniped

FWIW, I did indeed switch to the RI (the one listed as "downtown" that isn't exactly downtown), so I can't comment on the Grand.

However, if anyone else finds themselves in this position, I'll just say that unless you absolutely need the RI, I'd book the Grand sight unseen. To be nice, I'll just say it wasn't the greatest RI in the world. (More deets in its own thread.)