A Tale of Two Courtyards
 

Earlier this week, I was staying at the Courtyard Philadelphia Downtown. Unlike most CY's they have a full breakfast buffet including an omelette station rather than The Bistro. You could also get items off the buffet ala carte at a reasonable (for hotel convenience) prices. Good quality food, a bottomless cup of coffee, and if desired a bottomless cup of juice although I didn't partake all included with the buffet. CY Seattle Bellevue also has a full breakfast buffet rather than The Bistro.

This weekend, I am staying at the CY Westbury while visiting family for The Thanksgiving Holiday. It is approx. 1 year old and generally a very nice property with friendly staff. It has the current standard Bistro format restaurant. We ate their this morning for convenience (didn't want to fight traffic from Black Friday Shoppers). While the Bistro staff tried very hard (there were three staff members working during the morning), they had a hard time keeping up and the food quality was poor. Oatmeal was very dry, oranges had no taste, the only banana available was very overripe, and the hot water for tea was cold. Pricing was on par with ala carte pricing at the traditional CY buffets though for much more highly processed food of lower quality.

While I know Marriott Corporate won't care, I am in the minority, the Classic CY Buffet experience is orders of magnitude better than The Bistro experience. I wish more CY's were holdouts and still had the traditional buffet format or would convert back to it from the Bistro format. Not getting free breakfast at CY's as a platinum member is still a pet peeve of mine, but not enough to make me swear off CY's in general. If the breakfast was better, I would be more likely to choose CY's more frequently over the other brands. Conversely if it is going to continue to be mainly highly processed food with only a couple of healthy options, than the breakfast should be complimentary like at Fairfield's and Springhill Suites.

--Jon

Tried the Bistro breakfast at a CY in CA last year - I'm not impressed at all. I ordered a dish with avocado in it and after I got it I found no avocado in it, after I complained they said they ran out of avocado - why don't they just say it upfront? The food was ok, nothing special - put it this way I'll never buy if if I have to pay for it.

Marriott is trying to make up the "free" breakfast by giving is Plat a free market place item.

What makes you think you are in the minority? Based on other comments previously posted in FT, most people don't like the Bistro, with its microwaved to order prepackaged food, nor it's crusterfluck stand in line slowness.

FWIW, the Center City Philly CY is an exceptionally good property, as is the Bellevue CY. CY is rumored to be Marriott's most profitable brand with its highest occupancy rate, so it doesn't seem to need to do anything differently. CY just isn't that into us Plats, which we just have to accept.

The presence of the Bistro format shouldn't change quality of bananas or oranges; how staff prepares instant oatmeal, nor the temperature of water for tea.

But having to wait in line to pay for the banana or for the staff to pour the water over the oatmeal does. And don't get me started about the "oatmeal" that has all the artificial flavor, you pour hot water over and it is ready in a minute. I do not eat that stuff.

Agreed it shouldn't change it; however, based on my experience it does. Specifically slow turnover on fruit (and yogurt) leads to old and/or expired items fairly often. I don't know why, maybe they use a different oatmeal but it is almost never prepared well at CY. Finally, my wife is a big hot tea drinker (virtually all that she drinks). She likes very hot water (preferably boiling) and doesn't want any residual coffee taste. At the CY Westbury (and other CY locales we have stayed at), the tea water is dispensed from a carafe that has previously been used for coffee and has a lingering coffee taste and is almost always just lukewarm. Many of these problems could be fixed with better procedures/execution; however, my experience indicates the CY Westbury is typical in their execution. Many CY's throughout Ohio were similar. There just seems to be a "microwave" mentality and prep. level at The Bistro. End of rant....


--Jon

P.S. For family trips, Residence Inn is usually the first choice followed by Fairfield Inn or Springhill Suites. Sometimes a CY is just in the best location, has the best room format (two queens for us), or best price point so we wind up staying at them anyway. For business trips, I put up with the CY Bistro when in a hurry or otherwise just eat off property when I have time.

The problem with the Bistro concept for breakfast is that it is slow and expensive for what they offer. Business travelers may be able to expense their meals, but how many want to wait 30 minutes for breakfast?

If you just want a cup of coffee and a pastry or bagel, you are better off staying at a Hyatt Place where it is included in the room rate. It won’t take 30 minutes.

I remember when the Bistro concept for breakfast was just being rolled out. I called Marriott Rewards to talk about an unrelated issue, and I told the customer service rep that I preferred the old breakfast buffet. She agreed that the buffet was better than the Bistro concept for breakfast.

I can’t make myself stay at a Courtyard now if I know it has a Bistro breakfast. HGI beats CY mainly because of breakfast.

Probably because, to the best of my knowledge, Marriott manages almost none of the Courtyard properties, at least domestically. It licenses the name and sits back and does nothing but collect pure profit. Many of the Courtyard properties where I travel have paid rates comparable to the full-service hotels.

I don't mind Courtyard as I actually find it more consistent than Marriott or Renaissance properties. My only complaint is there are a lot of very old, tired Courtyard properties. I feel like Marriott has done a much better job with forcing owners of full-service properties to renovate in the last two to three years, unlike owners of Courtyard properties. I'd wager the majority of Courtyard domestic properties still have 2000-2007 decor.

The Courtyard at the Flint airport has real oatmeal, not instant. The Courtyard in Rosslyn, Arlington, Virginia (about 5 minutes from the Key Bridge Marriott) also had reak oatmeal the last time I stayed there in 2016.

I don't mind the bistro for a glass of wine, but I do have concerns about the healthiness of the food. For example, the menu lists the calorie counts. The Caesar salad has 675 calories (http://www.courtyardcherrycreek.com/...enu.pdf?d4b5c2), which is a lot. The dressing must have at least 400 calories because lettuce has almost no calories, a chicken breast has about 90 calories, and the grated parmesan cheese doesn't have a lot of calories because you get so little of it.

Most have the newer lobbies with the large TV screens showing weather, etc., and the Bistro seating area, but is feels more like lipstick-on-a-pig renovation than structural changes. It might be renovated, but you can see the old underpinnings.

The lobby decor started around 2010, right? The rooms are still old in many of the properties. Thankfully, many of the Michigan properties are slowly being renovated with the new rooms. Bay City Courtyard and East Lansing Courtyard are good examples.

true--several years ago I was plat elite marriot and actually switched because the bistro concept pissed me off so bad--lol. I am crabby about very little, but when I spend 130 plus on a hotel room, my favorite thing is to grab a cup of brewed lobby coffee and read the paper--Im up very early and its a ritual for me--i stayed at a courtyard that had taken away the lobby coffee and I was supposed to wait on line and pay for a starbucks. not for me. I did wait on line and it it was busy, a long wait and I realized this was not for me-everyone has their deal breakers and for me that was it:)

And then some of them don't open until 7 a.m. For what it's worth, I actually think the Courtyard in-room coffee is better than the Marriott in-room coffee, except at Marriott properties with an espresso machine.

Or when they cannot find someone to make the coffee... Have had that happen, too. I avoid CYs when possible.