I very rarely leave negative hotel reviews, and I am generally someone who is pretty easygoing when…read moreit comes to hotels. I've stayed at Marriott properties for approximately 12 years and have accumulated 800+ nights with Marriott, so I have a pretty good understanding of the standards I expect from the brand.
Unfortunately, my recent stay at the Borgata was one of the most disappointing hotel experiences I've had.
We checked in Saturday. That evening, we went to put food in our refrigerator and discovered food belonging to a previous guest still inside the fridge. Gross, but I initially brushed it off as an isolated housekeeping oversight.
The next morning, things got significantly worse.
The TV in our room wasn't working, and when my friend went to take a shower, she discovered a significant amount of someone else's hair sitting in the shower drain. There was also no soap in the bathroom hand-soap dispenser, so we had to call to have that addressed.
At that point, we went to the front desk and spoke with Connor, a manager. We explained everything, and he was apologetic and told us he would put a $100 food & beverage credit on our room and send housekeeping up to properly clean the room.
We appreciated the response and went back upstairs.
Except housekeeping never came.
After waiting, I called the concierge to check on the request, only to be told that there was no housekeeping request in the system. The concierge then put one in and I asked how long it would take because we needed to get ready for dinner.
I was actually told that I could take a tissue and remove the hair from the shower drain myself.
I'm sorry, but absolutely not.
I paid to stay in a hotel room. I should not be cleaning another guest's hair out of the shower drain myself.
Eventually, housekeeping did come. However, after the housekeeper left, the hair was STILL in the shower drain. I literally had to follow the housekeeper into the hallway and point out that the hair had not been removed.
This is not about expecting perfection. Hotels make mistakes. It is about basic cleanliness and the fact that we repeatedly gave the property opportunities to fix the problem, and somehow the most obvious issue was still not addressed.
Then, to make matters worse, I received our folio after checking out and discovered that the $100 food & beverage credit Connor specifically promised us was never applied.
So now I'm left wondering what, exactly, was being done to resolve the situation.
I have stayed at an enormous number of Marriott properties over the years and have never experienced this combination of poor housekeeping, lack of communication, and failure to follow through on a commitment made by management.
Food left in the refrigerator. Hair from a previous guest in the shower drain. Missing soap. Broken TV. Housekeeping request not entered. Being told to clean the hair myself. Hair still left in the drain after housekeeping. And finally, the promised $100 credit not applied.
That is an extraordinary number of basic failures for one stay.
The Borgata is a major property, and as a Marriott-affiliated hotel, I expected significantly better.
