Originally Posted by jtwiz (Post 23768612)

Yup, me neither! But even worse is that I have a morning Diet Coke, which of course, you cannot find in Marriotts of any kind (except for a few FS gift shops...) I always stock up the night before.

Originally Posted by DenverBrian (Post 23767177)

You have to go back to the 70s to understand all of Courtyard's DNA. There was none of this branding variegation that we see today; Marriott had perhaps 30 hotels in the portfolio nationwide.

The prototype Marriott was huge - lots of F&B, meeting rooms, and so on. Bill Sr. and Jr. were looking for a way to get a compact Marriott footprint into close-in parcels of land in all the major metropolitan areas. By eliminating most of the F&B, conference and catering, they could produce a compact hotel that focused on room revenue (80% house profit) instead of the ancillaries (20% or less house profit). They also thought there was a niche for a business-oriented small hotel chain at the time, since compact hotels of the day were dominated by Holiday Inn, Ramada, Best Western and the like - with a market skewed more towards leisure travelers.

First Courtyard prototype was Windy Hill, GA, 1983. "Designed by business travelers for business travelers." Features included a working desk, a speakerphone, and two ways out of every room (a legacy of the MGM fire in Las Vegas). Very restricted F&B, with a small restaurant serving three or even two meals (some Courtyards didn't serve lunch).

The concept of "free" breakfast hardly existed in the 80s, and Marriott has always been loathe to offer it. Fairfield Inn didn't even offer it as a brand - it was shoehorned into that prototype sometime around 1996 IIRC. Meanwhile, many Courtyards even eliminated dinner service in the 90s and provided only a (paid) breakfast.

So, for decades the Courtyard DNA has included an aversion to food service of any kind, and a HUGE aversion to giving breakfast away for free. But because it was the first branch of the multi-brand explosions of the 90s and 2000s (Marriott has something like 18 hotel brands today; Hilton, Hyatt, IHG and Starwood all followed Marriott down the path), Courtyard got the best locations, closest to city cores and metro centers - the most convenient of the limited service hotel locations.

So now you have hundreds of Courtyards out there in the US, many of them built from 1983-1998, all of them extremely consistent in build, with a bigger swath of inertia and brand loyalty from business travelers than any of the other, later brands. They've remodeled and renovated over the years, but the F&B footprint remains small and Marriott keeps trying ways to make some semblance of profit out of that portion of the business.

Originally Posted by C17PSGR (Post 23768791)

But ... they always highlight I can get a "free drip Starbucks" for being a Plat. How about just a Starbucks!

Originally Posted by NJUPINTHEAIR (Post 23769661)

Thanks for the history lesson, I very much appreciated it and enjoyed it! ^

Originally Posted by s0ssos (Post 23769933)

Wow, I didn't realize so many people lived Courtyard. I hate it. I stayed there week on and off for a few months.

The breakfast varies so much depending on where you are (at Fairfield, Residence, etc). I think it is hard to generalize about that. The Courtyard bistro obviously has better food that isn't free.

Oh yeah, nobody else hates the color scheme of Courtyard? I think it is just tacky.

Originally Posted by NJUPINTHEAIR (Post 23769968)

Well, I do like the new color scheme and other accoutrements.

See the photos section.

http://www.marriott.com/hotels/trave...eyland-resort/

Originally Posted by outwrdbound (Post 23769925)

I sometimes wonder if I am the only one on this board who actually likes the Bistro concept (at least for breakfast that is) and likes CY in general. I tend to prefer them when a FS Marriott is nowhere near where I need to be in the morning. Most of my travel is to small towns and rural areas, so this is often the case. IMO, they are more relaxing then FI and SHS as they tend to have fewer families and no pets...

Originally Posted by flyerfmaz (Post 23763261)

I'd really like to thank everyone for the great responses. To be fair about it, here are some things that I like about Courtyards:

- I can often get a free upgrade to a suite (especially in the newer Courtyards) that feels a bit more like home. The CY in Glassboro, NJ last week gave me a suite with a conference table big enough to sit 8 people.

Originally Posted by SCEflyer (Post 23771436)

The CY suites are nice in terms of space, but the furnishings often look like they were purchased from a wholesaler slightly above IKEA on the furniture food chain.

Originally Posted by NJUPINTHEAIR (Post 23771400)

DenverBrian or anyone else -- Someone posted that the reason that one finds Pepsi products in Marriott family properties is that Pepsi pulled their chestnuts out of the fire some time ago with an investment that saved the company or some such thing.

I never heard that Marriott was ever in trouble.

Could someone elucidate?

Originally Posted by DenverBrian (Post 23767177)

You have to go back to the 70s to understand all of Courtyard's DNA. There was none of this branding variegation that we see today; Marriott had perhaps 30 hotels in the portfolio nationwide.

<snipped for brevity>

Originally Posted by SCEflyer (Post 23771436)

The CY suites are nice in terms of space, but the furnishings often look like they were purchased from a wholesaler slightly above IKEA on the furniture food chain.