My husband’s work selected this hotel for us to stay while he attended a conference.

I have a laundry list of complaints, some of which the hotel has control over, some of which they do not. Out of their control or unchangeable: the water smells disgusting. It reeks of sulphur. You have to get all consumable water downstairs. The rooms are offensively small. The mattress is framed by the walls and window, and the toilet is in the shower. You can see into all interior facing rooms if their blinds are up from the elevator bank.

My husband fell ill our last night and the hotel was extremely unaccommodating when I asked if we could use his corporate rate for my extra room. His company had 10k+ people traveling for this conference and very strict rules about how they could go about making reservations. That, paired with his sudden illness rendering him unable to act as a travel agent to help me find a solution, made it that I had to pay nearly $400 US to stay in the same hotel where my ill husband and all my belongings were currently. For such an expensive hotel, one would expect a higher level of customer service than was ever provided to us. They like to kick responsibility up the chain at this establishment and pretend their hands are tied for any request at all.

The man working the front desk developed an attitude with me when I didn’t thank him that evening for the water that I picked up (because remember, the water from the room is disgusting and I was asking for assistance because I didn’t want to touch the water dispenser and spread more germs). He was upset I didn’t thank him when he pointed out that there were already bottles filled and provided no services. I didn’t realize verbal tips were required when no work was done, but I guess the staff at CitizenM require more encouragement. At this point I asked to speak to the manager, where I expressed my dismay.

I told him that I took issue with paying a premium for a hotel with no space, rude employees, issues with theft, and constantly malfunctioning elevators (good luck getting up to your room when everyone who is attending the same conference is going up and down the elevators to get breakfast or leave for the day!). You are required to scan your key to get up to your room (a security feature I usually appreciate) but the scanner regularly fails or it simply forgets the button you pressed afterward. The elevators often break and at least one of them has to be dedicated to housekeeping, so there were many occasions where only one elevator was expected to serve all the hotel guests.

The manager’s rebuttal to my complaint about the elevators was comical - he said, “that’s been a problem since you got here, it’s not anything new since you paid for this second room!” As if that makes it any better!

The phones in the room did not work for us, so any time I needed to call the front desk (I.e. for more towels or to find out if there was a doctor they could connect me with), I had to go downstairs.

They also have a theft problem - at least one person in our group had a bag stolen from the lobby during breakfast. So be wary and always keep your belongings close.

Oh! And I almost forgot - The pleasure of finding all sorts of foreign hairs in my second expensive hotel room! They have these disgusting pillow dolls that they place in each room, and there is no way that they wash them with any frequency. I found a hair on it upon arrival. There was also a long hair adorning the exterior shower / bathroom curtain facing the bed (so difficult to describe the setup because it is just so incredibly nonsensical) and stains to really keep things exciting. Repulsive. Definitely not worth $400 USD, and it pained me to pay it.

I hope I never have the displeasure of staying at a CitizenM again and would go out of my way to stay at any other option close by.

The day workers were all nice and accommodating.