JW Marriott Austin

Staff is helpful

Great hotel. Central location. Close to everything. Fabulous contemporary rooms. Stunning night time views. Beautiful clean bathrooms. Rooftop pool is a plus. Gym is well equipped and all equipment worked. Breeze to check in. Prompt service when we called down for extra luggage rack, pillows, bedding. Lovely turn down service and always willing to accommodate with extra towels and chocolate. Cleaning every day was superb. Never disturbed us, somehow knew we were late sleepers. Elevators were fast. Ice machine on 5th floor or could call down for ice delivery. Concierge level breakfast, hors d’ouevres, drinks, snacks were plentiful and delicious. Conference rooms were large and staff were extremely professional in setup. Even the bellhops were extremely helpful (thanks Holli & Rigo for helping us load our luggage). All employees were excellent and professional in every way. Made our stay wonderful & so relaxing . Only thing was they were undergoing construction in the lobby, Dean’s restaurant which we wanted to eat at suffered some sort of fire damage the night we checked in and was closed our entire stay. And of course, the annoying $25/night resort fee that could only be used at Dean’s & the Corner onsite restaurants. We couldn’t use them at the gift/provisions mini-shop nor the Burger Bar. We ended up just forgoing the fee. It’s becoming more common to tack on this fee to sustain the hotel restaurants. But the hotel itself and all the facilities and staff were stellar.

We are local in Austin. For July 4th, we like to skip the traffic snarls, check into a nice downtown hotel and walk to the fireworks display. This year, the JW Marriott was up. So, a room advertised as $309 on ******* became $484 out the door with parking and breakfast. Yes... ******* fine-print did mention some extra fees, but not only was the price a bit of a "bait and switch", the fees were complicated and cumbersome. In particular, there was a "mandatory destination fee" of $25 added to the room which was a use-it-or-lose it credit for hotel restaurants. Also annoying was a $14.95 internet fee which was advertised (free if Marriott Bonvoy if you book direct) (Uhmmm no ******* I guess) but if you looked carefully in the packet of stuff handed to you at checkin, there was a little "Just kidding about the internet fee" card. Let's see, the lobby was 2/3 walled off for a remake of the lobby lounge. The room was really nice, but the power connection to the little coffee maker was flaky. It would only work if I held the power cable up while it was making the coffee. Finally, the building is nice, but this is a hordes-of-tourists hotel. The tag line if you Google "JW Marriott" is "Discover classic luxury in JW Marriott hotels, with mindful experiences and inspiring spaces to improve your well-being and enrich your mind, body and soul." We would have been happy with the $484 price, if the experience lived up to the brand's tag line....As it was, we went home disappointed and not feeling like we had received the expected value for the price charged.