SpringHill Suites by Marriott Raleigh-Durham Airport/Research Triangle Park — Attraction in Durham

What I liked:|* Professional and courteous staff from all departments. All paid attentions to their guests and greeted with a smile, which created a warm and hospitable atmosphere.|* Responsive management - after checked in and walked the room. I raised areas I needed them to work on. The manager, Alexander, showed up, and I asked him to recap what I went over in writing, he wrote a list with 90% accuracy, I just had to add one item that he forgot. When I returned from outside after half a day, it was all done and done the way I asked/expected. They solved it completely. Many hotels could not solve issues completely, but with this hotel, they did it. The manager was not argumentative, defensive, or making excuses, he just listened carefully and got it done. |* Cleanness - the housekeeping did an exceptional excellent job, all corners cleaned. No hairs on the floors or debris. No hairs on linens. Impeccable. There were a couple of small debris in the closet where iron board was located, I told them, and they were not offended, apologized, and got them vacuumed. Even inside of microwave and refrigerator were well cleaned. I tipped the housekeeping who prepared the room on my arrival day the highest housekeeping tip ever for a one time stay. I don't tip daily if I stay multiple days. This was a huge compliment. |* Excellent hot water temperature up to 124 or 125 Fahrenheit, whereas many hotels can only get up to 120F.|* Excellent hot water pressure.|* Complimentary free parking included and there are plenty of parking spaces.|* Great location: it's tucked in the middle of Raleigh Airport, Research Triangle Park, and less than 30 minutes away from Duke/Durham, and Chapel Hill.||What I did not like:|* Poor soundproof - could easily hear footsteps from the above or even on the same floor, which is standard for many older buildings or new buildings in the USA, wood buildings are more susceptible to soundproof.|* It's near a highway, so you could hear traffics from the highway in the evening also.|* No centralized temperature control, you adjust directly from the machine instead of the wall mounted thermostat.||Additional Comments:|* This is an old building but just renovated new.|* There are two night stands on each side of the bed, but only one side has power chagrining outlet and USB outlets, and it's located in the further side. Did not know why they did not think of adding charging outlets on both sides, they must have structural limitation. For a short-term stay, there are workarounds. |* The mattress was outdated with one side tilted, either it's old or they combined two twin beds into one, so the surface felt uneven. Likely it's one isolated case, but Springhill Suites is known for its comfortable mattress, but this one felt rough, which is sub-par from other Springhill Suites|* The breakfast is standard, freshly made, not a lot of selections but not limited, about average in terms of selection compared to other hotels, but it's definitely freshly made. The cafe area was well organized, clean, and neat. |* The room was on the darker side, I asked if they could add two more lamps and they did it. ||All expectations met, I want to call out their positive attitude, responsiveness, and ability to completely solve items I brought up to a satisfactory level. ||Comfortable recommending this...

This is our fourth attempt reaching out to Marriott corporate (our first attempts were by way of e-mail, survey, and phone). The only thing more disappointing than our stay at SpringHill Suites Raleigh-Durham Airport/Research Triangle Park has been your total disregard for customer service. No, we do not wish to speak with the manager of that hotel AGAIN because his response to our inconveniences was to issue us only 2,000 points. That is just insulting, ESPECIALLY because the issues are KNOWN by the hotel and HAVE BEEN (unfortunately, we only found this out AFTER going through our own troubles and finding reviews left by guests echoing our sentiments. And then we saw guests were offered way more in exchange for the same inconveniences during the same time period – see attached for proof). What were the issues, exactly? Bumps and rashes on skin after waking up, only to have our worst fears confirmed when I found a bed bug on the couch on our last night (it was close to the otherwise amazing food I was eating, which I subsequently had to throw out). We were moved to another room, but that room had mold and spiders on the ceiling above the tub (also, the tub itself was shaped differently than the other room’s whereas it made it slippery to stand in). This was midnight on the eve of leaving, so we just crashed there, but we were so annoyed and exhausted by the experience we took off for home immediately after checking out – we didn’t even get to do the things we wanted to do our last day in town because we just wanted to get home and wash/sanitize our belongings ASAP. General lack of upkeep. Yes, we are in a pandemic and they were renovating, but that doesn’t excuse absolute filth of the rooms (fecal matter from last guest on toilet seat lid, stains on carpets). Gym was disgusting (crud on machines) and was missing weights. Also, I don’t know if this is a pandemic-era policy for all Marriott properties, but not having housekeeping until guests check out is probably what’s contributing to these messes and infestations. And when we did put our trash outside, our bins were returned without plastic bags (however, we saw that others on our floors had bags). Banner outside advertising that the pool was open, but it was “closed for maintenance” ALL 4 DAYS of our stay. Everything was annoying, but the most upsetting was the presence of bedbugs (and having the manager essentially shrug it off as “a bug” in an e-mail exchange. Bedbugs are...

Worst hotel I ever stayed at. It wasn't worth the $5 that had to be paid in addition to the points used. Pros:

It had a heated pool and jacuzzi It's location was decent The room was pretty big They had popcorn at night

Cons:

The jacuzzi jets actually made it less enjoyable since it's just causing the water to splash on you... Including face and head The jacuzzi cement was so rough I actually cut my foot on it. To that point, even after the hotel was notified they didn't seem to care that I bled a bit in there. To my knowledge they didn't close it off to drain and refill. While the room was big, the layout wasn't great. A lot of the furniture was dated, some of which you'd think they picked up from a thrift store. You could only watch the TV from one of the "queen" beds The "queen" size beds were actually full. Really glad I happened to have an inflatable mattress with me. The couch was very uncomfortable There was black mold in the bathroom Be aware that with the TV, the main channel the TV comes on will say "no signal", just flip up channels to stay getting some that work

Regarding their food/coffee/etc. When my wife went to get coffee all that came out of the dispenser was coffee grounds. Not actually coffee They did not have hot chocolate packets out and had to go on a hunt for them. The stations for coffee/tea vs hot water dispenser were across the room from each other. Very stupid since you have to keep walking back and forth unless you're just getting the "Fresh coffee" grounds. The breakfast was a joke. They had fake eggs and dried out turkey sausage for the hot food. Neither of which looked appealing. Bread slices and bagels out, where I didn't even bother since it was probably all hard and not even where it's protected from all the people walking past and sneezing/coughing. They had no cereal which is a big deal with our kids. The first hotel I've stayed at that did not have cereal. They had two fake juices. Any water all came from the same dispenser which I'd be willing to bet never gets cleaned and wouldn't be surprised if it has mold

This was the first hotel ever I didn't get anything from the free breakfast aside from a few yogurts for my kids. I seriously felt like I would regret eating anything from there.

Also they don't seem to have a dress code since they don't seem to mind people walking around with their butt...