Courtyard by Marriott Austin Northwest/Lakeline — Hotel in Austin

I like new hotels: they're still clean, and nothing is broken. This Marriott opened less than a year ago, so how bad could it be?

It turns out even a new hotel requires competent management.

When I went to check in, the woman at the desk turned away from me to finish her phone call. She was unsmiling.

In my room a pile of dry cracker crumbs greeted me on the floor. They were still there when I checked out 10 days later. A single vacuuming couldn't have missed them.

When I ran out of Kleenex in the room, the maid never replaced it.

The hotel is designed with green intent, but some idiotic design choices undercut that intent. For example, the refrigerator is encased in a little cabinet behind a closed door where it hums furiously, trying to keep cool while heating the air around it to at least 100 degrees.

The low-flow shower head is painfully low-flow to start with, but this is worsened because bad plumbing causes water to continue to leak out of the bath faucet while the shower is running.

In the part of the hotel where my room was, the water softener is badly calibrated. The result is that you can't rinse off. (The water in the public bathroom on the other side of the hotel did not have the same problem.)

The sink faucet is so low-flow and the plumbing so badly designed that in my fourth floor room it took over two minutes to get hot (just warm, really) water. I ended up letting it run while I did other things. So much for the advantage of the low-flow spigot!

The glasses in the room were all slimy to the touch, like the door handles and light switches. I ended up buying some rubbing alcohol and cleaning it all myself.

I needed to do laundry. I asked the woman at the desk if she could give me change, and she promised she would, but when I went back, another clerk sent me to the nearby gas station. I bought an iced-tea at the gas station, but the attendant was still short when I asked for quarters: "Did the hotel send you here? They should get their own change!"

I also had dry cleaning. The woman who wrongly told me about the change told me that if I dropped it off on Friday night, I would have it back by Saturday night. I didn't. When I asked about it on Monday, it turned out that my dirty laundry was still sitting behind the desk. I ended up getting it back Tuesday evening. The hotel, decently, did not charge me for the cleaning, but I had nothing to wear for my Monday and Tuesday meetings.

Whoever carpeted the stairs should never be permitted to work with carpet again. They are falling apart.

The windows in my room were filthy.

On Sunday morning a friend met me at the hotel to go out for breakfast. As we left, he told the desk clerk that there had been a huge puddle outside the elevator. After slipping on it himself, he had grabbed some towels from the pool and put them over the puddle. The desk clerk responded with one of those "why are you telling me this?" looks that you don't like to see in your hotel staff, and sure enough, three hours later when we came back in, the towels, covered in shoe prints now, were still outside the elevator.

I'm running out of space, but we also had our company meetings in the conference room:

Ugly orange stains on wallpaper. Automatic sink in men's room never turned itself off. Breakfast was supposed to be out at 7:30 but trickled out between 7:45 and 8:10: we ended up ordering breakfast tacos from a restaurant. The uneaten breakfast was still sitting out at 4:00 pm. Coffee and snacks were never refilled. The conference phone didn't work, and they didn't send anyone to fix it when asked.

Ok, I hate to finish without saying something nice. So let me add that I'm pretty sure the hotel doesn't have rats. I base this conclusion on the presence of a half-eaten sandwich that I noticed on the stairs on the day I checked in. It was still there 10 days later, untouched by vermin. Here's a photo of it...

We stayed at this hotel for two nights during our visit to Austin. The reason that we chose this hotel was due to the location and being part of Marriott Bonvoy program. ||The hotel is located about 15-20 minutes from Austin downtown and offers good value. There are plenty of shopping and restaurant options around it. It also looks like a pretty new building. While being comfortable in general, we didn't have the warmest welcome and the room cleaning was skipped during the stay. The room was also quite noisy from the outside highway. Apart from that it was a good hotel and it is an affordable option in Marriott portfolio that offers a good value stay.||Details on some specifics are as follows:||Welcome: We arrived at the hotel around 4 pm. The receptionist quickly provided the room keys and some water bottles which is nice (but why can't they just leave water in the rooms). Some of our requests were met with higher floor rooms however we were given a connection room which we don't prefer due to noise.||Room: We were impressed by the room amenities with the comfortable bed and large sofa and good size tv. There was also a coffee machine available. The wifi speed was also decent and it was easy to connect. Bathroom had all the necessary amenities and was ||Service: The hotel makes the Marriott app available for requests and service chat line. However, when we asked for dental kits, the response was to come and get from the reception. I suggest the hotel to disable this function on the app if they are not interested in providing the service. Also, the hotel skipped room service completely and they claimed that they only do every two days unless specifically asked. Our room was such a mess with full thrash bins and towels on the floor due to this. ||Location: The hotel is nicely located near shops and restaurants but it's near the highway and it causes some noise disturbances at night. The drive to the city centre is mostly ok but can take up to 40 minutes at rush hours. So I would recommend planning accordingly.||Overall: It was a good value stay but could be much better with less noise, better room servicing and more...

We stayed at this hotel for two nights during our visit to Austin. The reason that we chose this hotel was due to the location and being part of Marriott Bonvoy program.

The hotel is located about 15-20 minutes from Austin downtown and offers good value. There are plenty of shopping and restaurant options around it. It also looks like a pretty new building. While being comfortable in general, we didn't have the warmest welcome and the room cleaning was skipped during the stay. The room was also quite noisy from the outside highway. Apart from that it was a good hotel and it is an affordable option in Marriott portfolio that offers a good value stay.

Details on some specifics are as follows:

Welcome: We arrived at the hotel around 4 pm. The receptionist quickly provided the room keys and some water bottles which is nice (but why can't they just leave water in the rooms). Some of our requests were met with higher floor rooms however we were given a connection room which we don't prefer due to noise.

Room: We were impressed by the room amenities with the comfortable bed and large sofa and good size tv. There was also a coffee machine available. The wifi speed was also decent and it was easy to connect. Bathroom had all the necessary amenities and was

Service: The hotel makes the Marriott app available for requests and service chat line. However, when we asked for dental kits, the response was to come and get from the reception. I suggest the hotel to disable this function on the app if they are not interested in providing the service. Also, the hotel skipped room service completely and they claimed that they only do every two days unless specifically asked. Our room was such a mess with full thrash bins and towels on the floor due to this.

Location: The hotel is nicely located near shops and restaurants but it's near the highway and it causes some noise disturbances at night. The drive to the city centre is mostly ok but can take up to 40 minutes at rush hours. So I would recommend planning accordingly.

Overall: It was a good value stay but could be much better with less noise, better room servicing and more...