New Residence Inn - Champaign, IL
Oct 19, 2013, 10:59 pm
#1
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New Residence Inn - Champaign, IL
Anyone been here yet? I'm here now. Great facility, beautiful building, good location. But I am about to write a HORRIBLE review of my stay, but first wanted to see if anyone had any experiences of their own. It is in central Illinois, and only open about 3 weeks, so not likely, but I thought I'd see first. Anyone?
Oct 22, 2013, 10:57 am
#2
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OK, I guess I'm the first one here, so here goes...
STAY AWAY.
There. The quick review. However, a bit of detail;
The Facilities
Nice building. New, nice amenities. Appearances however can be deceiving. The business center (a couple of computers and a printer) didn't work well. You have to sign in (get the password from the desk), the printer is already low on toner, so printing was weak, the fax part of the printer didn't work, and none of the staff knew how to deal with it. The front door of the hotel is actually kind of hard to pick out. No driveway under a canopy or anything. The "market" is smaller than expected, with fewer items. I asked at the front desk for a sewing kit (lost a button) ad they said they didn't have them.
Rooms
Here's where they really dropped the ball. Nice design, but the studios are smaller than expected, and NONE of the 1 bedroom units have the nice new BIG shower stalls I found in CA. It was one huge improvement that Marriott was making that this hotel fails at. Personally I need a shower stall because of my limited movement due to multiple back surgeries, and called to make sure this hotel had them. They said they did, but didn't tell me they were only in the studios, so I had to take a downgrade. Even in the studios, the showers only have the half-glass wall, meaning no door, just a half wall of glass and then nothing. They call it a "gravity shower", but it really means the showers are so low flow (and they REALLY are!) that the water can't make it to the back half of the shower stall, it is that weak. In the one bedroom units, the crappy little tubs and shower curtains.
They also installed infrared sensors in the rooms to turn off the a/c units when you go. According to maintenance, these have been a huge headache for them. In my room, I had to constantly throw the circuit breaker on and off to get the unit to run, even at night. The maintenance request to fix it was never responded to, just one such failure of management.
In addition, do NOT try to open the windows, even if your a/c unit doesn't work. The GM will go ballistic, and the staff all tell you it is against the state fire code. THAT IS A LIE, as I contacted the state office in Springfield (on a dare from the GM!) and they said the GM was nuts, there is no such law preventing windows from opening. Doesn't matter, even caught in a lie he still said it was his hotel and HE was the law.
Which leads us to...
Staff / Management
The maintenance and housekeeping staff are terrific. They respond to any request you make to THEM, and do a great job. However, the front desk and management are another story entirely. They have, in a day, turned me off to this hotel and possibly Marriott's for some time. They are nasty, robotic, and basically lie to make themselves "win" any discussion. Call in a maintenance request? Don't expect a response, or expect them to argue with you that there really ISN'T a problem. In a nutshell, this hotel needs to learn from many of the others I've encountered. This is one Marriott Platinum who is going elsewhere.
Bottom line: See the big type, 2-word response above.
STAY AWAY.
There. The quick review. However, a bit of detail;
The Facilities
Nice building. New, nice amenities. Appearances however can be deceiving. The business center (a couple of computers and a printer) didn't work well. You have to sign in (get the password from the desk), the printer is already low on toner, so printing was weak, the fax part of the printer didn't work, and none of the staff knew how to deal with it. The front door of the hotel is actually kind of hard to pick out. No driveway under a canopy or anything. The "market" is smaller than expected, with fewer items. I asked at the front desk for a sewing kit (lost a button) ad they said they didn't have them.
Rooms
Here's where they really dropped the ball. Nice design, but the studios are smaller than expected, and NONE of the 1 bedroom units have the nice new BIG shower stalls I found in CA. It was one huge improvement that Marriott was making that this hotel fails at. Personally I need a shower stall because of my limited movement due to multiple back surgeries, and called to make sure this hotel had them. They said they did, but didn't tell me they were only in the studios, so I had to take a downgrade. Even in the studios, the showers only have the half-glass wall, meaning no door, just a half wall of glass and then nothing. They call it a "gravity shower", but it really means the showers are so low flow (and they REALLY are!) that the water can't make it to the back half of the shower stall, it is that weak. In the one bedroom units, the crappy little tubs and shower curtains.
They also installed infrared sensors in the rooms to turn off the a/c units when you go. According to maintenance, these have been a huge headache for them. In my room, I had to constantly throw the circuit breaker on and off to get the unit to run, even at night. The maintenance request to fix it was never responded to, just one such failure of management.
In addition, do NOT try to open the windows, even if your a/c unit doesn't work. The GM will go ballistic, and the staff all tell you it is against the state fire code. THAT IS A LIE, as I contacted the state office in Springfield (on a dare from the GM!) and they said the GM was nuts, there is no such law preventing windows from opening. Doesn't matter, even caught in a lie he still said it was his hotel and HE was the law.
Which leads us to...
Staff / Management
The maintenance and housekeeping staff are terrific. They respond to any request you make to THEM, and do a great job. However, the front desk and management are another story entirely. They have, in a day, turned me off to this hotel and possibly Marriott's for some time. They are nasty, robotic, and basically lie to make themselves "win" any discussion. Call in a maintenance request? Don't expect a response, or expect them to argue with you that there really ISN'T a problem. In a nutshell, this hotel needs to learn from many of the others I've encountered. This is one Marriott Platinum who is going elsewhere.
Bottom line: See the big type, 2-word response above.
Sep 17, 2015, 9:43 am
#3
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There's also a new Townplace Suites (Cat 3).
"Located in Champaign, IL directly on the University of Illinois Campus and conveniently located near Kraft Foods, Rockwell Automation, DuPont, FedEx, General Electric, Yahoo, Research Park, The 95-room hotel near the northwest corner of Sixth and Green streets. That 170,000-square-foot Campus Center building, which occupies the former Parking Lot J site, will house not only the hotel, but also 88 student apartments and several retail stores and restaurants, including Caffe Bene, Latea Bubble Tea Lounge and FedEx Office. The hotel will have rooms on the second through sixth floors, and the adjacent parking garage is expected to open to the public July 13. Overman said the address of the hotel is 524 E. Green St., C, but guests will enter from the Sixth Street side."
"Located in Champaign, IL directly on the University of Illinois Campus and conveniently located near Kraft Foods, Rockwell Automation, DuPont, FedEx, General Electric, Yahoo, Research Park, The 95-room hotel near the northwest corner of Sixth and Green streets. That 170,000-square-foot Campus Center building, which occupies the former Parking Lot J site, will house not only the hotel, but also 88 student apartments and several retail stores and restaurants, including Caffe Bene, Latea Bubble Tea Lounge and FedEx Office. The hotel will have rooms on the second through sixth floors, and the adjacent parking garage is expected to open to the public July 13. Overman said the address of the hotel is 524 E. Green St., C, but guests will enter from the Sixth Street side."
Sep 18, 2015, 9:49 am
#4
Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 263
There's also a new Townplace Suites (Cat 3).
"Located in Champaign, IL directly on the University of Illinois Campus and conveniently located near Kraft Foods, Rockwell Automation, DuPont, FedEx, General Electric, Yahoo, Research Park, The 95-room hotel near the northwest corner of Sixth and Green streets. That 170,000-square-foot Campus Center building, which occupies the former Parking Lot J site, will house not only the hotel, but also 88 student apartments and several retail stores and restaurants, including Caffe Bene, Latea Bubble Tea Lounge and FedEx Office. The hotel will have rooms on the second through sixth floors, and the adjacent parking garage is expected to open to the public July 13. Overman said the address of the hotel is 524 E. Green St., C, but guests will enter from the Sixth Street side."
"Located in Champaign, IL directly on the University of Illinois Campus and conveniently located near Kraft Foods, Rockwell Automation, DuPont, FedEx, General Electric, Yahoo, Research Park, The 95-room hotel near the northwest corner of Sixth and Green streets. That 170,000-square-foot Campus Center building, which occupies the former Parking Lot J site, will house not only the hotel, but also 88 student apartments and several retail stores and restaurants, including Caffe Bene, Latea Bubble Tea Lounge and FedEx Office. The hotel will have rooms on the second through sixth floors, and the adjacent parking garage is expected to open to the public July 13. Overman said the address of the hotel is 524 E. Green St., C, but guests will enter from the Sixth Street side."
Parking is charged at $7/day and the parking garage is behind the hotel. It is a bit tricky to find and it is a gated unattended entrance. It turns out you can push an intercom button at the entrance gate, give the hotel your name (assuming you have a reservation) and they open the gate for you. After you check in, your room key allows you to enter/exit the garage.
Breakfast is provided. Nothing special - though they brought in boxes of Dunkin Donuts as the "pastry".
All in all, a nice hotel and would go back there. Staff was very friendly and accommodating. Rooms are nice and clean and everything is brand new. It is in a busy area, but is well located for the U of I. If you have business away from campus however, one of the other Marriotts may be better.
I have also stayed at the Residence Inn referenced in this thread, and thought it was a pretty normal RI. No major issues, other than a terrible breakfast, but I was kind of expecting that, so expectations met. LOL