We are loyal Marriott Gold customers and stay at many Fairfield Inn properties coast-to-coast. We like Marriott as we have always found their properties to be clean and well-managed. Sadly, this was one of the worse (perhaps THE worse) experiences we have ever had at a Marriott property. And it all points to poor management.
The room had obviously not been thoroughly cleaned prior to our check in. The bed was made and the trash emptied, that's about it. The carpet had not been vacuumed, the shower had not been cleaned and there were dirty smudges on the mirror, to name just a few things. Our confidence that the room had been properly sanitized (COVID-19) dropped to zero.
We complained to the courteous and pleasant front desk and asked to speak with the manager and were told he was not in. While we were talking a man entered and went into the office. I noticed the manager's business card on the counter and called the number on it. We heard a ringing phone from the direction of the office and the manager answered. Turns out it was he who had just returned. However, the desk clerk didn't inform him of our request. He did then came out and spoke with us. He listened and expressed apologies for the room and blamed lack of staffing due to the pandemic. While we waited in the lobby, the manager went up to the room himself to look. When he came back he immediately agreed with our report and agreed to move us to another room that he had just inspected. (The second room was fine, but we sanitized every touch point ourselves, just to be sure. After about 15 minutes waiting in the lobby a lady came from the office, obviously not happy, gave us a prolonged dirty look, and stormed out the front door. We assumed that she was the housekeeper who had serviced our room and was just sent home, but don't know for sure; it made us a little uncomfortable.
We are willing to overlook a problem with the room but what really has now made us upset is the failure of the manager to fulfill his promise to refund the Marriott Rewards points we used to pay for the room back to our Marriott account. We called him a month later and he told us that "Marriott is back-logged and short-staffed and they aren't being responsive." Okay, we'll wait longer. We have now waited 3 months and still no points back into our account. I have to conclude that the manager is just hoping that we will go away. I've waited all this time to write a negative review because I understand problems happen and I don't like leaving negative reviews. But, in this case, we obviously have a manager who doesn't care. He could at least call and ask us to wait a little longer; but no call at all.
We will not return to this property again. If they eventually fulfill their promise to refund my points, I'll update this review. In the meantime, 2 stars is about all I can give, and that's only because the second room was okay. The manager's lack of responsiveness is MINUS 5 stars! read more