I hate weekends @ Marriott...
 

The wedding parties are killing me.

Saturday night we were (as a gold....??) stuck on the 4th floor. The 4th is where the ballrooms are, and thus have the wedding parties on there as well.

After a long night, checking in at 12:30 am, we just wanted some sleep at the Mt. Laurel, NJ FS Marriott (normally a nice place). We had spent 4 nights there last month and it was great.

Well......it was such a mess the hallway smelled like cigarette smoke and alcohol. There were so many drunk 23 year olds running up and down the halls and slamming the (trademark loud Marriott) doors. The next door wife was drunk off her you-know-what and loudly accusing her husband of cheating on her.

After a 2 am trip to the front desk to complain - the desk clerk told security to go up to the 4th floor "again". I was not afforded the opportunity to move rooms, even after asking how it was, as a gold, I was stuck on the lowly 4th floor in the first place.

After next door finally calmed down after 2 visits from security and a threat to be removed from the property, I almost drifted off to sleep at 4 am....Only to be awaken by the screaming 20-something drunk chicks in the hall.

First, I don't know how I ended up stuck on the wedding party floor. Second, why was I allowed to move rooms? Third, why the hell does Marriott let its wedding party guests behave this way????

Oh - the final straw was when I checked out, I was told that I didn't get the $50 Bonus Buck coupon, even though I had reserved that promotion. 2 calls to various departments didn't get it resolved either. On 3 hours sleep, I finally trudged out and decided to hammer it out with corporate.

If it weren't for the additional points gained by FS Marriotts, I'd avoid them like the plague on weekends. The Courtyards seem quieter since they're not having wedding parties and such.

My wife and I will be sending a very detailed e-mail to Marriott. I expect higher than this given the amount of business I send their way. I expect to make Platinum this year FWIW....

You have my sympathies. Out of curiousity, did you actually request to be moved?

Did you get breakfast certs? :D:D:D

We had a similar experience in Manchester England in July. Doors slamming all night on our floor. When we went to check out the next morning, many of the wedding party were still hanging out in the courtyard.

I complained mildly at the desk, but didn't go any farther as I had a plane to catch.

Sheila

Yes - we were told that if we had room preferences, that we should note it upon reserving the room or checking in.

Personally I don't think the guy felt like moving us at 3 am.

Heck no. They have a gooooood buffet there too.

Of course I had to load up on the coffee in the lobby just to stay awake. :mad:

Funny, I checked my profile and there was no option for "Don't put me on the same floor as drunk wedding guests." :)

Mike

More disrespect from Marriott?
I do hope you plan on writing a letter to HQ telling them why you are moving your buisness to another chain.

That's the thing - I already have enough nights in, coupled with my existing reservations, to hit Plat. this year. I don't really feel like moving, as 99% of the time my experience is pretty good. I don't want to start from scratch with another vendor....unless somebody will status match me perhaps.

Because of those trade mark Marriott slamming doors, I find the need to sleep and Marriott FS hotels an oxymoron. Even Mr. Marriott himself will not sleep at his own hotels because he cannot get a good night's sleep.

I've been in your situations many times, due to weddings and traveling with youth sports teams.

Take people to whom staying one night at a hotel is a major event/treat and a weekend staff streched too thin and pissed off because they work weekends, and you have a dangerous mix.

The sales staff are only glad to book weddings and group events but the operations staff are clueless or uncaring how to treat them. And the hotel will insist on squeezing every penny like its a corporate event.

Ten year olds are going to run, roam and play floor hockey in the halls to kill time yet very few hotels will open up an unused meeting room or small ballroom to allow the group to gather and entertain themselves. One hotel insisted we buy another room (at $150+) and buy their pizza at $20 a pie to feed a 30 kids on New Years Eve. A big deal to parents scraping by.

I suspect you were on the 4th floor because that's where the other guest are, for the convience of housekeeping, not your peace, quiet and comfort. There were probably floors of empty rooms.

Next time you are in a Marriott hotel that is obviously empty (dead time of the year, parking lot empty, Sunday night, etc), get up early and look at the newspapers by the doors. I guarentee you are clustered together unnecessarily.

Just my opinion from many years of observations both business and weekend travel.

What proof do you have of this? I have actually stayed in the same FS marriott as the man himself was staying at.

When you are hired you sign up to either work the 9-5 or work weekends....its no surprise nor would it piss them off.

I used to work for Marriott...and we would make a point NOT to do this, and for this exact reason. Now that i travel it is my experience that this is the exception, not the rule.

No homerism in these quotes :rolleyes:

We're an urban couple who'll steal away a few times every summer for a getaway weekend and have experienced all of the above (and more) at suburban hotels (and it hasn't been limited to FS Marriotts).

About three years ago someone in sales at the Marriott Farmington actually reserved the outdoor pool area for weddings on two of three weekend afternoons and had the audacity to distribute a letter to guests asking them to "join in celebrating the union of two wonderful couples" and telling them that they still had alternative ways to entertain themselves (like pay per view movies, at the game room, and taking advantage of the walking trail.

This on a weekend when they were also hosting multiple sub-teen soccer teams.

You can imagine the resultant havoc at the single remaining remaining recreational facility, the indoor pool (which of course, was, in the traditiion of modern hospitality administration, unsupervised).

Oh yeah, when the kids became bored of the over-populated swimming pool they amused themselves by practicing soccer in interior public areas.

Security?

The security staff consisted on one (1) bellman.

This summer, at a Hyatt in New Jersey we were treated to older adolescent males soccer players disrupting the pool via their "cannon-balling" into it (along with other horseplay in defiance of the posted rules). Parents had to remove their young children from the pool and adjacent areas.

In the evening we experienced thundering hordes running through the hallways (and discovered in the morning that all doors had been stripped of their "do not disturb signs").

Staff reaction?

A shrug.

This past Labor Day weekend in the Trumbull Ct. Marriott it was a mixed bag -

We and a couple with two young children were the only ones situated in one section of the CL level, well away from two wedding parties' accomodations. (Of course, in adjacent rooms.)

While there weren't many children in the hotel and not a lot of horseplay on the part of most of them, we did see a manager stand by and not react when one brat was shooting arrows (foam rubber, but annoying nonetheless) around the pool (and into seating areas and into adjacent outdoor bar's patio (as his indulgent father observed).

But, that was nothing -- two kids were yelling and running wild around the pool, hymping ftom one unoccupied chaise to another, annoying those seated in lounges, while the parents were entertaining. The parents seemed to be the center of attention for two fawning Marriott Associates (their badges and suits) were a dead giveaway.

We found out, after they'd left (from a thoroughly disgusted bartender after they'd left) that the party's host that the kids' father who was also the hotel's GM -- he'd removed his name tag, (and the two associates notorious brown-nosers).

I can't say that we've had any bad experiences due to the behavior of the wedding guests, but I've run out of patence with hotel managements whose attitude seems to be one of indifference with regards to the behavior of some and the effect it has on other guests' experience.

In the future when I complain to management about extreme behavior and lack of civility I will tell them they have a choice - address it themselves, or I will -- via a call to 911 report drunk, disorderly, dangerous behavior to the local authorities- whatever best describes what's going on.

Let them explain that to their head office superiors.

Don't worry, i seldom get my requested room as a platnium either.

What extra points do you get by staying at the FS Marriott. I think i stayed at the Fairfield or townplace in Mt Laurel when we had an office in Lumberton.

The only extra points is the higher per night room rate.

One could get a 500 pt arrival bonus if a Plat. Incidentals charged to the room at FS properties receive pts just like the rate does (and if you charge quite a bit to the room like activities, food, laundry, etc, this can add up.) Also, some lower end brands (RI and TP) only accrue 5 pts/$ spent, not 10.