Guest User
December 20, 2023
This is a hotel that knows it has problems. The management team subtly warns of the indoor air quality problems that await you as you approach the front desk. There are at least 4 commercial grade air fresheners that greet you in the lobby area attempting to mask the issues by numbing your olfactory nerve and overpowering any other odors. You leave area smelling of cheap perfume the remainder of the day. The issues will initially manifest as a slight cough or the sniffles that you may dismiss as a cold or mild hay fever. The telltale sign that the condition is related to the hotel is that you will improve the longer you spend outside. The symptoms will get worse over time. Depending on your sensitivity to dust and mold, heavy sinus congestion and/or infection could develop rapidly. Mold and/or mildew are in the bathrooms. The hotel is halfway through a remodel that may temporarily address this issue. More concerning is the contamination of mold and dust in each room’s HVAC system. While it is possible that the ducts, coils and fans can be cleaned, the problem will return. The hotel has modified the HVAC system to make the air filter accessible to the housekeeping staff to reduce the demands on the more costly maintenance staff. The filter has been moved from its designed location on the side of the unit to the intake grate in the wall. This allows air that seeps in around the service access door to enter the ventilation system unfiltered. Dust and the mold then enter the system and recirculate throughout the suite instead of being filtered out. If you notify the staff that you have a problem, they will offer to move you to another room, or clean the film off the service door jam and vacuum the visible dust from the cooling coil. This satisfies their obligation under Marriott’s 100% Guarantee Policy. You are on the hook for first night if beyond the cancellation deadline, any additional days that you may be there, and according to their local policy, one additional night if you check out early. The latter reinforces my opinion that they are aware of the problems. The General Manager was “kind” and waived the additional night penalty when I spoke with her. We spent two miserable nights at this substandard hotel. We were in a local emergency room the following day for eight hours to be diagnosed in order to get the medication we needed. It took a fourth day for the medication to bring our symptoms under control and 8 more days to get back to normal.