A millennial Take on the Nagoya Marriott Associa Hotel

This is a huge hotel and one of the most convenient of locations among any hotel I ever stayed so far in life. The hotel is literally attached to the JR Nagoya station and all major subways including the one heading to the airport. It is surrounded by the best shopping department stores in addition to multiple floors of restaurants. Hotel service is standard. Free breakfast for Platinum members as well as lounge access on the 34/35 floor (can't recall) although the standard is subpar compared to other hotels I have stayed in Tokyo, Yokohama and Osaka.

I come from over a decade of butt-in-bed stays on the SPG side of the merger. Most of my stays are in East Asia like Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea and a little bit of southern China. I'll be looking at a Marriott hotel under the lenses and perspective of a SPG lifetimer.

I do have a high-level elite status and have an ambassador during this stay. This is my very first stay at this hotel so first impressions will be the foundation on how I judge this hotel.

I did ask my ambassador to gently inform the hotel staff it is my first visit in a Marriott in Japan and anything wonderful they can pull-off would be appreciated. I also authorized my ambassador to use my upgrade Ace Cards (aka Suite Night Awards) if that would help the upgrade.

I was staying 4 nights, 3 of them fully paid stay and 1 is a free-night cert redemption. TWO suite night awards were deducted from my account prior to arrival (although I was staying for 4 nights). The stay collides with Chinese New Year holidays and Japan's Family Day long weekend. Stressful and busy times is the best to measure what the hotel, management and staff is made off. Are they going to cut corners and muddle through? or will they rise to the occasion?

I also emailed the hotel concierge to request recommendations to the most represented restaurants that Nagoya has to offer and a place for haircut.

I got to say. This is by far the strongest competitive advantage over all other hotels.

The Nagoya Marriott Associa Hotel is located right on JR Nagoya station and it is on top of multiple subway lines including the one that goes to the airport. The hotel is literally attached to a train station.

I believe this is the most convenient hotel to public transit that I have ever stayed in my life. It is even more convenient than Sheraton Hong Kong or W Hong Kong where a train station is 5-minute walk. This hotel is like 2-3 minutes away from not just the JR train but also subway and airport express train.

I never been to Nagoya (only passing through), so I was completely at awe when I took the train from Nagoya airport and when I surface from the train station and the hotel is just in front of me.

In addition to being convenient, the hotel is surrounded by the best of shopping needs. Takashimaya department store is also in Nagoya train station, so it was 3-minutes walk from hotel and you're at the doorstep of the department store. Surrounding the train station are all the luxury goods stores as well as other department stores. Electronic store Bic Camera is in front of the train station. I think this was record time for myself when it came to buying souvenirs for friends and co-workers because everything is near. I am assuming you're buying "nice" stuff back.

If you're looking for the cheapo stuff from Don Quijote (very popular discounted supermarket level department store frequented by Chinese from China and some Hong Kong people), it is a few subway stations away (or 30-minutes’ walk).

Two weeks before check in, I emailed the Nagoya Marriott Associa Hotel concierge. I asked them for recommendations to restaurants that can most represent Nagoya. I also asked them to recommend a place for a haircut.

A side note on trying to contact the hotel, unlike SPG’s email confirmation, the reservation confirmation email doesn’t show the hotel’s email address. Marriott website doesn’t contain this information neither. This is an unwelcomed development on the Marriott front. I ended up asking my ambassador for the hotel concierge’s email address. You can also google it.

I got a reply a week before my arrival. The concierge recommended 7 restaurants (5 Japanese restaurants and 2 French restaurants). Like all Japanese hotel concierge, they provided 1 or 2 western food restaurants in case you reject all the recommended Japanese ones. I notice they strategically put their best restaurant on their first item on their list – a proper way. Turns out Nagoya is famous for charcoal fire grilled eel. So far so good.

So I asked the hotel to make a reservation for the recommended eel restaurant. A day later, they replied during my stay at long weekend, that restaurant doesn’t take reservations. I chose a secondary restaurant on their list – a Japanese steakhouse. Another day later, I got a reply saying that restaurant is under renovations for the month. I then while boarding my plane, emailed back to just book for hair cut.

You can say from this interaction, the hotel concierge has room to improve. I never run into the problem of “restaurant can’t take reservation” while staying in the Westin or Sheraton or the Prince Gallery in Tokyo. The highest level of hotels screen their recommendations to ensure they take reservations during the period of my stay – especially after I indicated which day I would like to have my reservation.

Understandably, sometimes restaurants could be full and guests normally is forgiving to the hotel concierge efforts. What is important is their recovery of what to do when the guests original request was a failure. A higher level hotel like the St Regis Osaka did give me a list but after initial faiilure and to prevent me from a 2nd disappointment, did call the remaining restaurants on their recommended list to ensure they take reservations before replying me the second time of availability. A high-quality concierge don’t recommend a restaurant that is not-in-business due to month long renovations. This error could have easily avoided if they did a quick check on the restaurant website or given them a call. The concierge at Nagoya Marriott Associa hotel fail to go the extra mile like their competitors at Osaka and Tokyo does. It’s not bad service just there is room to improve.

Overall, the two tasks (restaurant recommendations/reservations & haircut) I asked the hotel concierge to help and one was completed successfully. It is an average concierge compared to the best Japan has and could improve with more effort.

I arrived in Nagoya jetlagged delayed. I found out by email my Suite Night Award was a failure. Perhaps the hotel is totally full and my ambassador can't pull any magic or maybe I would get an upgrade without using those Suite Night Awards.

I roll myself to the front desk on the elite member lane. There was a staff that guards the lane to make sure only elite members line up there. A good idea as Chinese do have a bad tourist reputation when it comes to ahem... line up properly. The front desk staff start checking me in and stopped half-way and went to the backroom. The manager came out to greet me and personally continued the check in process.

I then proceeded to follow the footsteps of the great masters of Flyertalkers and pulled the "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM" card. I am Marriott 5 Star/ Platinum Elite/ Platinum Premier/ Lifetime xxxxx!! I demanded the president suite or else those Marriott hotels in China will be shut down during health/safety inspections! arrrrrrgggg! Hear me roar! The staff trembled in fear and I was promptly upgraded to the presidential suite!!

That was actually from an alternate fantasy world. Back in reality, I responded in a more civilized manner and exchange kind worlds with the manager and showed my enthusiasm of staying at this hotel for the first time. She mentioned the hotel was quite crowded during this time due to long weekend. I Gong Hei Fat Choy her as we enter the year of the pig. She laughed and I communicated it's busy because it's also Chinese New Year and Chinese people (and Hong Kong people) love going to Japan regardless what comes out of the mouth. She handed me an envelope with map and instructions to how to get to my hair cut area. 

I was given my room key and noticed it was on a very high floor. A nice touch was made as well. A few minutes after arriving in my room, I received a phone call by the manager. She asked if the room was sufficient and I said it was good enough. I don't expect suites every time but I do like a warm vibes if hotel staff showed they care.

Overall: I like the extra body language done by manager checking me in personally and did a follow-up call. There may be rules management can't just give out the penthouse. But within what staff can do, going the extra mile and performing extra work is symbolic but it is also heart felt.

You guys have been waiting for this part. What did I get?

It's really just a high floor room with King size bed. The view is perhaps the better one as the room is looking at the Nagoya skyline (and not the opposing office building towers). I wonder if guests didn't or forgot close the curtains, those working late in the office towers might get some live action view once a while!

You can see by the floor map that my room is a bigger room than standard room - but not the biggest on the floor but it's good enough.

For Platinum guests, the hotel offers two choices of breakfast. Eat at the buffet in the lobby restaurant or eat at the Executive Lounge.
During my stay, the Executive Lounge was in the process of moving to the 34/35th (can’t remember) floor from the 15th floor lobby. I was there on day 1 of the reopening of the lounge at the 34/35th floor.

The weekend I was there the hotel was in full capacity and there was a line up to get into the buffet. That’s understandable. If you use the Westin Tokyo or Sheraton Yokohama or St Regis Osaka as the gold standard of highest quality of breakfast buffets, the Nagoya Marriott Associa hotel’s buffet is a few levels down. Slightly above the Sheraton Miyoko Tokyo’s full buffet (at their Chinese restaurant). There are range of bread station, Japanese & English style foods and juice station as shown in pictures.
The design of the buffet is little awekard since the egg station is right in the middle of the entrance and the design error of having people flow from the line into the middle (area between the lines) instead of flowing sideways where the food is.

That being said, your first impression of the quality food would be the egg station because that is the first thing you would naturally get – it’s in the middle and first thing you see in the entrance. And the hotel should have staffed their best chiefs there to make the perfect omelet. Instead I got to see corner cutting and a sub-par omelet by not-so-good chiefs. Look at the pictures, they dare cook eggs with equivalent of PAM lubricant cooking spray instead of higher quality oil. The omelet came out ok in western standard but it is far from the perfection you are use to seeing in a high level Japanese hotel. Physiologically, it just bugs me here I am eating some eggs from chemical spray.

The rest of the buffet was ok. The place was quite lively (or noisy) and under full capacity, my plate was rarely changed so I stack them and probably one of the longest times in Japanese hotel experience that the plates were taken away. You also need go get your own tea/coffee and no one would pour one for you. Service there is little.

You can also choose to eat breakfast at the lounge on the 34/35th floor. There is a smaller selection of food (as you can see from picture). However, there is better service. There are more skillful chiefs there and I got my perfectly looking omelet and unfortunately, they still use PAM lubricant spray.. The environment is more quiet and you get access to the canned drink bar so I can pick a diet coke (pop or alcohol) for my breakfast drink instead of various water, juice, coffee or tea. My plate was replaced in a proper speed. It feels like I am having breakfast at the lounge of a similar Westin/Sheraton lounge in Japan. Excluding the PAM lubricant spray, everything else feels comfortable.

In short, if you want more selection of food, go to the lobby buffet. If you want a more quiet environment, better service, and better looking omelet and want a little pop/alcohol for your breakfast, go to the lounge for breakfast on the 34/35th floor.