Sonesta Simply Suites Baltimore BWI Airport

I’m still waiting for my deposit a month later, and now my calls get put on hold and disconnected. I’ve never dealt with an establishment that felt so crooked. Before booking the room through a third-party site, I called the front desk to ask whether a check-in deposit was required. The clerk said no. At check-in, the clerk asked for my card for a deposit, denied having told me one wasn’t required, and said I could leave without using the reserved room and lose the money I’d paid. I took the room and paid a $100 deposit. At checkout the next day, I was told it would be returned in 5-7 business days. When it didn’t arrive, I called and was told this hotel takes 10 business days. On the 13th business day, I was told it would be released, but it still hasn’t come back.

The room impressed me and had everything I needed, though the place didn’t seem especially clean overall. Night service was 10/10. In the morning, staff were there but not very helpful, about a 6/10. They didn’t really engage with my questions and got distracted by a phone while I was standing there. It’s a government-owned hotel, so set your expectations accordingly.

The first room was great: clean, comfortable, and very spacious. I was told it was a free upgrade, which was a nice surprise. When we needed to extend the stay, we checked out of that room and into a studio under another guest’s name. Room 318 was filthy. The towels were frayed, there wasn’t a full set, and there were no washcloths. There was also a stain on the carpet to the left of the bed that looked like throw-up, though I’m not sure what it was.

After all that waiting, we never got an unoccupied room and had to drive four hours home after my daughter’s competition. The room had been booked for $145, but they charged $265 to my card. We’d chosen this Sonesta as one of three options for her stay-to-play competition. There were three people ahead of us in the small lobby, and check-in took about 15 minutes per person because the employee was working from papers and a cell phone. It looked like the computer system wasn’t working, or the employee wasn’t properly trained. We waited 45 minutes, then learned our reserved room still wasn’t ready after 5 p.m. Another 30-minute wait ended with a key to a room that was already occupied. We walked in on a man in bed. Back downstairs, another guest said the same thing had just happened to him. The man in the room we’d entered also came down because his key had stopped working after they assigned his room to us. My daughter had nowhere to get ready. The desk employee left and went around knocking on doors to find out which rooms were occupied. After about half an hour, he still hadn’t returned, and we had to leave for the competition on time.