SkiAdcock

Opening September 2018. No category yet.

Hotel website:

https://www.marriott.co.uk/hotels/tr...ph-collection/

"Elliot Park is one of the oldest neighborhoods filled with historic brownstones that overlook the city's growing skyline. In close proximity to downtown's many attractions, Elliot Park Hotel is walkable, approachable and part of the very fiber of the city"

SkiAdcock

Cat 6.

joelfreak

I just spent 2 nights at this property, and its REALLY nice. Its my new goto in MSP. First of all, I don't drink, but there is a free beer tap in the lobby, for those that do partake. There is a brewery next door, and they have a tap right next to the front desk. Next, the staff is new, but VERY friendly. Upon checkin, I asked for an upgrade (I am PP Elite) and they upgraded me from a King Room to a suite (Room 312), and it was LOVELY. I didn't take many pictures as I arrived late and then had work all the next day, however upon entering the room (which is a corner room) you enter into a large room with a couch, wine/bar fridge and coffee machine, and then as you walk into the room further (towards the end of the building) you arrive at a kitchen table for 4. This entire room is faced with windows, which are manually shaded. After the table, if you walk left, you enter the bedroom, which is large and well furnished. The bed is soft but not a pillow, and the bed faces a HUGE TV that has a Google Chromecast already installed!!! I spent nights on this bed watching random YouTube videos, doing work, and it really did feel like home. There is another of the same TV with Chromecast in the main room, and it came up on my devices without any configuration. The bathroom was very nice, with 2 sinks, a full HUGE walk in shower, and a toilet in the corner. I really did love this property. As per the rules for an Autograph property, I got 2x$10 in dining credits for the restaurant on site, which I ended up using for a lunch. Food was ok, not great, but better than fast food. Each day 2 full sized spring waters were in the room.

If I needed to have a few notes, they would be as follows:

1) There is only 1 thermostat for the room, which is in the common room, near the front door. This means if you sleep in the bedroom and close the door, it can get stuffy. Make sure to make it extra cold/hot so that the system stays on. I am sure I would have gotten used it with more nights, but I did get up in the middle of the second night to turn the air on.
2) The lights in the bathroom are sensing lights, and the sensors don't point at the toilet. This means if you are on the toilet for more than 3 minutes or so, you are in the dark, and need to get up to turn the lights back on.
3) The bar soap for the shower has FULL peppercorns in it. Its like washing with paving gravel. It's definitely different. :-)
I mentioned all of these to a manager at checkout, and he was VERY attentive, as they just opened and wanted to know how they can make the property better. I would bet you these issues get solved shortly.

Valet was about $40/night for overnight, but they were fast, friendly, and had the heat and heated steering wheel on when I got into the car, so it was a nice touch.

All in all, this is a great property, and I will be there for my quarterly meetings.

RobOnLI

Thanks for the review. I just booked this hotel for a couple of nights next week as I'll be in town for some meetings. Will update this post after I've stayed there.

It's encouraging to hear they upgraded a PP to a suite upon check-in. Of course, we used to be upgraded well before check-in based on availability. I'll inquire when I get there and see what's available.

Thanks,
-RM

Kacee

If you check TA, you'll see this place gets lots of criticism for (i) low quality sheets, and (ii) very noisy HVAC.

I've had a very difficult time finding a hotel I like in the cities.

MSPeconomist

Kacee

I've done the Ivy. Awful experience. LM many years ago, it was okay. Understand upgrades are next to impossible at Westin Edina.

My theory is the market won't support the rates that are required for properties to invest in really good service.

RobOnLI

Here's a shocker...no upgrade yet again. Why do I bother? Front desk said, "Oh, we did a lot of upgrades today..." and then just said nothing after that. Clearly I'm not one of them. I also think he was making up any excuse possible because he had no authority to upgrade me (which isn't true). Plus the website is still selling plenty of suites for my stay here. Then he tried to tell me that since I was booked into a room with two beds that they need to keep me in a room with two beds. Huh? If my reservation was for more than one person that may make sense.

Yet another property that welcomed me as "Platinum" and not Platinum Premier. At the end of the day I don't care about the greeting but I do care about the benefits that should allow me to jump the queue and be near the top for any upgrade.

And this property has no lounge so I was offered a $16 credit for breakfast or points. Just mentioning this for others who are considering staying here.

-RM

SkiAdcock

Let's break this down.

1. Stupid comment by FDC if s/he wasn't going to upgrade you.

2. Are you on a 1-night or longer stay? If 1-night then they should have upgraded you. If longer than 1-night & the suite wasn't available on subsequent nights, then they were correct in not upgrading you. Note to everyone - if you want to see if a suite is truly available, plug in the dates of your entire stay & see if it shows up. Just plugging in your arrival date means squat.

3. The 2-beds thing could be due to the guaranteed bed type. They have to honor what's booked or they could get hit with a penalty. If you told them point blank you were willing to give up the guarantee that would be different. Also, in fairness, it's not the hotel's fault you booked a 2-bed & then didn't care about bed type (unless that was the only thing available & then they honored what you booked).

4.. While I'm Lifetime Plat Premier (soon to be Lifetime Titanium), for myself I literally can't get worked up about whether the FDC calls me Plat or Plat Premier. Seriously. In the entire scheme of things, is it that important? I get it's nice, but the world won't fall apart (unless one is called a Gold when Plat Premier ) I know the MAR system/software knows the dif & will post the appropriate bonus points (which to me is more important!).

Also, in fairness to the hotel you have no idea how many PP checked in before you & got 'your' upgrade. It could because they stay more often, they got there before you, their stays were 1-nighters when yours was longer - fill in the blank. I have friends who are FDC at MAR properties & they've told me, especially in metropolitan cities, they get a lot of elites, including a lot of PPs. You're not necessarily as special as you think you are

5. Thanks for the update on breakfast. I'll update the exec lounge sticky.
Cheers.

Adam1222

Any thoughts comparing this to the Emery?

bj27

Anyone with recent updates to this hotel? I'm booked both here and at the Hotel Ivy for a weekend in May. Would love to hear specifically about:
- Breakfast treatment (assuming this is just the standard $10 / stay F&B credit)
- If the soundproofing is decent (had a stay recently at the Westin St. Francis in SF and lol... walls were paper thin)
- Any upgrade experiences

Looks like a neat property all in all, though.

MSPeconomist

My upgrade experience at Elliott Park was that initially I was not given an upgrade, I asked, and the first response was that they hadn't known that I wanted an upgrade. Next the offer was same room type on higher floor. I said that I had just checked and the hotel was selling higher categories. Then offer for a larger room. I responded that standard suites were available for my two night stay. At that point, I was finally given the upgrade to which I was entitled, but it felt like pulling teeth. This was as LTT/AMB.

There's a brewery attached to the hotel with a large outdoor seating area, so I would expect this to cause noise problems for about half of the hotel's rooms in nice weather. The hotel's bar seems to also attract a loud and rowdy crowd of locals drunks late at night.

bj27

Haha - funny to hear about the brewery next door. The Standard in LA is similar. Thanks for the notes.

MSPeconomist

You should also realize that it's located in a slightly interesting, perhaps up and coming mostly residential neighborhood on the edge of downtown. It shares the block with a new mid-rise apartment building of maybe a hundred fifty or so units catering to millenials, but there are some interesting historical buildings nearby. It claims to be the closest Starriott to the Metrodome (Vikings football stadium), but I suspect that the aloft might be closer. It's also very close to the Armory building which is sometimes used for large (rock, etc.) concerts. Expect to find lots of guests staying for such special events, especially around weekends.

It's *not* on the city's skyway system nor is it at all close to a light rail station. There's expensive valet parking at the main door (IIRC on Fifth Avenue, just before the brewery and after the restaurant entrance on the corner IIRC at 10th Street, and there's a little spot to pull the car over in a cutout to the sidewalk) and you might get lucky and find free street parking on weekends when there are no special events, but I have *never* seen the public underground self parking garage for the apartment building (IIRC entrance on 9th street, take a right at the intersection after the hotel's main entrance and brewery, then try to turn right in the middle of the block into the driveway for the underground garage) have any space for the public and the apartment building doesn't seem to be fully occupied.

There's a beer tap in the hotel lobby and a selection of local beers on tap in the bar.

mwk190

Stayed here for 2 nights this week as a titanium. Low occupancy this time of year in MSP. Tried for an upgrade since I would be working in the room a lot. Checked the app for both nights and at least 5 suites were available for the duration of my stay. Front desk told me nothing was available, and then when I told them 5 suites were available to book they told me the if I were seeing suites on the app they doubted I could actually book them. So a lot of BS deflection but after persisting they upgraded me. So in general sounds like nothing has changed and this property just does not want to upgrade regardless of occupancy.