Hotel Nia, Autograph Collection - Menlo Park, CA [Master Thread]
 

Opening March 2018. Cat 8.

Hotel website: (not much info on website yet)

https://www.marriott.co.uk/hotel-sea...tes.new-hotel/

"Located off Highway 101 in Menlo Park, Hotel Nia is close to San Francisco International Airport and major transit hubs."

This is next to one of the new Facebook buildings on the corner of Marsh and 101. See it regularly but had not realised what it was.

Hotel Nia: quick review
 

Stayed here for a night - it's likely to become my go to place for the area since my office is very close. Had been staying at the Sheraton and Westin Palo Alto, and on occasion, the Stanford Park, Four Seasons and Rosewood.

tl;dr: it's definitely a great option for *w members post merger, maybe the best option now for the area for loyalty.

The short summary is that this hotel reminds me of the W -- it's definitely design driven, not a generic hotel room like the Westin and Sheraton tend to be. The rooms are smaller, and it feels more upscale than the Westin. 4S and Rosewood (which is really lovely) are still more lux places to stay, and the Stanford Park has character despite being dated. The Nia is cool right now, but like the W, will likely feel dated soon. But there are plugs near the bed, USB ports too; small closet that is really is like an armoire - it's also lit like an ambient light and has a clear door, so it adds a little color to the room. You might find it annoying, I liked it.

Bath amenties not as a nice as Westin (they give you mouthwash). No tub in the regular room, Plat recognition was minimal - points for no lounge offering, got the offer of points as amenity.

Restaurant offering was acceptable - colleague liked the burger. They offer GF pasta, but it takes 20m longer to cook.

Room service menu - it's a full menu, but when I called to inquire, it was described as a light menu. So it feels like they're still getting their act together?

Bed was comfortable, pillows not as much.

I stayed here for 3 nights a bit before the merger. Was in the area to visit Facebook MPK for work. As a PM Gold Elite I was given an upgrade to a room with a relatively large curved window. The bathroom was spacious as well. I appreciated the bathing area having both the tub and shower behind a glass wall, but with the tub and shower still being separate entities. I've stayed at several hotels in the bay area and this is probably the best hard product I've experienced just due to how bad most of the hotels in the area are. It is in the middle of nowhere though, so don't stay here if you're planning to do things in Cupertino or San Jose unless you're okay with the drive.

As a PM Gold I was given breakfast due to the lounge being missing. This was provided via a $12 voucher which would cover the cost of the continental breakfast. I inquired as to whether I could pay the extra $3 to get the breakfast entree with bacon, sausage, etc and they said that was totally fine. They ended up totally comping my breakfast one day due to a rather long wait.

Generally I'm in agreement with tripmaster's post above on the hotel design, etc. It definitely does remind me of a W. I would stay again if I was in the Palo Alto / Menlo Park / Stanford area and I was looking for a Marriott hotel.

Thanks for all the updates. Much appreciated.

Cheers.

++
Enjoyed the stay - Plat. recognition good

Totally agree, area hotels feel like they benefit from high demand, so they don't need to compete as hard (though Sheraton Palo Alto renos was pretty good). I've never gotten a room with a tub, gonna ask next time!

Not great experience -- had 2 nights booked individually, asked them to combine when I checked in (had a chance of only staying one of the nights for a while)- after long day, came back and housekeeping took all my personal stuff. Took 30+ mins for them to find it in a bag. They threw travel toothbrush away, called down to front desk to deliver, never sent it up until called again (this has happened a couple times, one time I called for floss, they said they'd call housekeeping but apparently they dont have that and never responded).

Staff was very apologetic, gave me points, so props for handling it well.

Still working out kinks.

Beware - Nia has cancelled confirmed reservations on arrival.

What does this mean? Could you be more specific?

Cheers.

My coworkers have checked in, and been told they're oversold, even with Amex corp card confirmed reservations. They've been rebooked in Palo Alto (I was there and saw this) or even Sunnyvale (this is secondhand).

Hotels (not specific to this one & across all chains) occasionally run into oversell situations. In those instances, some people get relocated to another hotel. Your colleagues drew the short straw. Oversells can be due to a variety of reasons - a guest already in-house extended their stay or MARSHA (overall reservation system) continued to sell rooms even though the property was sold out or a room was taken out of service, leaving them short a room (or more).

If your colleagues are MR members, have status & their MR # was in their reservation, they're entitled to the ultimate reservation guarantee.

Cheers.

I understand - it's happened quite often here as opposed to the sheraton or westin Palo Alto...

Obviously not everyone would agree, but in the Bay Area I would love to be put in a different hotel and given $200 and 90k points in compensation.

Yeah, I dont know if they were offered that -- at least one wasn't.

Just in case anyone avails of the cabanas during their stay, they're first-come-first-served on the weekdays. On the weekends, it's $150 to book one, but waived once you spend $150+ poolside F&B.

Any public parking or street parking available here? $37+ tax/night is steep.

The surrounding area is dead on the weekends; there’s usually plenty of street parking at that time.

That said, I wasn’t charged for onsite parking in my last stays in 2020 / 2021, but YMMV.

Lots of nearby street parking. Most of the curbs are painted red, unambiguously disallowed. Several others within a few blocks are not red though have nearby signs that ban stopping. I've never been ticketed for parking on those curbs. (Even more parking if you're a Facebook employee, given how many employee lots are nearby.)

A few more quick notes about Nia having stayed there a bunch:

• The hot tub is perpetually broken. On one visit late last year it was simply closed. On a recent visit it looked open but it wasn't any warmer than the pool. And if you call, they always claim it's open and working. Disappointing compared to pre-2020 when it was reliably open and awesome. The hot tub was a major reason I and others booked this hotel. Won't make that mistake anymore.
• The bar program here is simply amazing with a solid set of cocktails, reasonable collection of liquor, and beautiful ice. And it's never busy. The bartenders may not know how to make every drink from memory and are usually consulting instructions in a manual, but the drinks always come out great. It's probably to draw the local business crowd. My only beef is it closes pretty early at 10, but that's probably more a complaint about the Bay Area than Nia. Also I wish the outdoor bar out back was occasionally open, but understandable it's not given the downturn.
• They've gone to shared soap in-room dispensers.
• I don't love the sliding doors to the bathroom, especially at night when you're trying to navigate there in the dark. And if you hit the wrong light switch, you blast light, ruining your night vision or waking up others in-rooms. Beautiful but not practical.
• Nice robes.