My stay at the Bordeaux Renaissance Hotel for 5-nights in March was for a combination of work & vacation. We had high hopes for this hotel, but the hotel failed on the most basic service needs. Like other 30+ year Marriott Bonvoy loyalist Lifetime Ambassador and Titanium members, we went out of our way to stay at a Marriott property. Here are the Pros and Cons:
Pros:
1. Breakfast - I saw other reviews about poor service, but the food quality and service for breakfast were consistently very good.
2. Bed Comfort - The bed mattresses were very good.
3. Roof top balcony - Nice view of the wine museum and city with fairly good cocktails.
4. School of Hospitality and Tourism - Located adjacent to the hotel, there were always young people working at the hotel eager to help. Problem is, they really didn't know what to do because hotel management was no-where to be found.
Cons (it's a long list that could be much longer...)
1. Location - The hotel feels like it is in the middle of nowhere. It is a 5-min walk to the tram stop, another couple minutes waiting for the tram and then 25-30 min tram ride to the city center. Way too much wasted time on transit every day. The only alluring things well-worth seeing close to the hotel are the La Cité du Vin (wine museum) and Bassins des Lumières (indoor light show) --- both are must-see attractions. Other than that, the better restaurants and attractions take an hour plus round-trip from the hotel.
2. Hotel Atmosphere - Old, heavily worn and drabby. The hotel needs a major renovation and a complete reorganization of its management. They made a big deal out of a simple upgrade. Hotel rooms are dark and the air conditioning does not work well (we opened the windows to cool the blazing hot room, but that just let cigarette smoke in from the Las Halles bars).
3. House Keeping - The worst I have seen at ANY Marriott property...GROSS! Basic requests for soap or a roll of toilet paper not handled. No bath towels another day. Bed linens not changed during the 5-night stay. Clogged sink and a broken phone. Filthy hallways and foul smells in the elevators.
4. Wifi Service - The hotel wifi was so slow that I had to leave my room to use the Internet. One of the employees (Tamara - who was excellent) offered to move us to another room. I visited this room and it also had very slow Internet speeds. As a matter of fact, we did a speedtest and the download speed was less than 20 Mbps.
5. Room Phone - Reported it broken 3 times, never fixed. This forced me to make international cell phone calls to the front desk any time assistance was needed (requests for ice, questions about the fitness room, house keeping issues, etc.), often being placed on long "hold" times while other guests were being tended to.
6. Fitness Room - A complete joke. A rusty treadmill and a few other heavily used equipment that should have been replaced 10 years ago. Worse yet, the fitness room is not open 24 hours/day for business travelers. It's open only 6am-11pm. I tried at 6am-locked, again at 7am-locked and then asked the front desk who said they cannot open the fitness room.
Management at this hotel should be FIRED. Seriously, they are awful. When I complained to Mr. Gabriel Payet, Guest Experience Supervisor, he acted like it was a big deal to give me 10K points for the problems experienced...that does not even cover 25% of one night for Bonvoy awards points.
I highly recommend staying at a different hotel even if you are a Marriott loyalist. As a matter of fact, I would NOT stay at the Renaissance Bordeaux Hotel if it was completely free for 5-nights...it's that bad! read more