Courtyard by Marriott Reading Wyomissing

The location is great and the rooms are spacious, but comfort is lacking for the price. The pillows are thin and the bedding isn’t cozy. Other Marriott hotels I’ve stayed at, including The Residence Inn and Fairfield Inn, were much more comfortable and included free breakfast. Here there isn’t even a piece of fruit. The room cleaning every other day was poor. They left a dirty towel on the bathroom floor, didn’t replenish bar soap, coffee, or tissues, and didn’t leave enough bath towels. The towels were dingy white, too. Staff weren’t very friendly, walking by without looking up to say hello or good morning. I expected more from a Marriott, especially since I stay with the brand regularly. On this vacation, leaf blowers waking us early in the morning were another unwelcome thing.

This place feels overdue for a refresh. I don’t recall the rooms being updated since I think the hotel opened around 2000, and the fixtures look about 25 years old. I’ve stayed at two other Marriott hotels in SE Pennsylvania, and this one doesn’t feel like a Marriott. The rooms, especially the bathrooms, are deteriorated. The shower stall was a mess of rust stains, and the shower head looked like it had been through hell. Maintenance and housekeeping are clearly issues, but stains this bad should also reach the GM. Rust doesn’t develop overnight.

My husband and I had a great Valentine’s Day away, keeping things local for the most part. We got to shop and eat without my kiddo, who’s 18 years old, and the puppies in my face 😂. The breakfast tacos and avocado toast were really good, and staff throughout the hotel were friendly and courteous. The only small issue was that the heating and air conditioning kept shutting down and powering back on when we turned it off. Still worth the time away, and we’ll be back soon.

I was promised a refund for the first day by manager Keyla and housekeeping managers Maria and Lolita, but after that they dodged my calls and never returned my messages. The first day, the bedding hadn’t been changed before I arrived. The front desk said housekeeping had left, so I had to sleep in smelly bedding and wait until morning for it to be changed. The morning housekeeper was Benita. When I asked her to change all the bedding, she said she’d changed it the day before and told me to leave the old bedding outside so she could bring fresh items. She returned with sheets and pillowcases but no blanket, saying blankets don’t get dirty because people sleep under the sheets. She tried to put the old blanket back after picking it up from the floor outside. I said it wasn’t fresh. She defensively admitted she doesn’t change the top blankets and said I must be the only one who sleeps under the blanket instead of the sheets. I politely asked again, and she went downstairs for a fresh one, which thankfully got changed. Then I asked if she could clean the bathroom floor, where there was hair from the previous guest. She said she had cleaned it the day before. When I pointed out the hair, she banged the floor cleaner around loudly without actually cleaning anything. Then, patronizingly, she took the only two face towels, looked me in the eye, and dropped them on the floor to clean with. She used them on the counter and toilet. I told her I needed face towels and that those didn’t need cleaning; she said there were no more. I was completely appalled. There was no language barrier, and her actions were clear. Benita had poor hygiene standards and even worse customer service. She was incompetent, defensive, and spiteful, and unqualified to work in any establishment concerned with cleanliness or customers.