Renaissance Atlanta Midtown Hotel

On our last night, the power went out. At around 6 in the morning, my partner and I met Stephen and Blue in the lobby, and I was impressed that two managers were there that early. Sandy and Paul at the desk were great. They offered us muffins and coffee while we waited for the power and water to come back. Outages happen, but caring staff like this are hard to find these days.

Traveling with tired, hungry, sleepy children late at night is already hard, and the rude service from Autumn made a bad situation worse. She never apologized. Management should be careful about who works at the front desk, since that’s where guests first interact with the hotel. People are doing their best during hard times, and bad attitudes and customer service have no place in hospitality. We drove more than 4 hours to get there and had been messaging the on-site team through the app early in the trip about our estimated arrival, which was after 9:00pm, well past the usual 4:00pm check-in. Autumn acted shocked that we had booked the Penthouse Suite. Housekeeping hadn’t cleaned it, and she told me they could verify the card on the day before arrival, then changed our reservation to a small room for my family of five. We needed the space and weren’t going to accept that in place of the suite. A manager on shift, Dalease, admitted the mistake and said she’d clean the room herself in 15 minutes. She put us in a temporary room so we could order food and relax. The 15 minutes turned into an hour, and the phone in that room didn’t work, so we couldn’t order room service. When I went back down, Autumn was rude again and wouldn’t help explain how to order food, but Dalease came to the rescue once more. Later, I saw that my final bill hadn’t been sent or updated in the app. The reservation had changed from the Penthouse Suite to the temporary room and then was completely deleted after we got home. I never got an email bill and had to call the hotel to get one sent so Marriott could update it in my app. The trip had so many twists and turns.

Housekeepers never came to clean our room. We had to ask for towels and water bottles every day because they never made an attempt to service it. The first thing I was told when I entered was that the hot water wasn’t running, and the next day a different receptionist asked me to check whether it had been fixed because she didn’t know if the problem was resolved. The room was clean and neat, but the mattress was so cheap. Customer service was poor. The first receptionist had an attitude at check-in, and she only gave me a twenty-something discount card for a meal after I asked. She wouldn’t have offered it otherwise. The two Black women I spoke with didn’t provide good customer service. I don’t understand how this place has so many good reviews. It was a terrible experience, and I never want to come back.

The staff were friendly and polite, but my king bed wasn’t ready until 5pm. The laundry service company had an issue and the linen wasn’t delivered on time.