Pier 5 Hotel Baltimore — Hotel in Baltimore

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Parking, valet not present regardless of advertising as such, garage far from hotel, we were told our car might even get towed for parking in the Pier 5 garage. Night employees BLASTING music at 2AM in the lobby Ignored requests for water in the room upon arrival Offered free breakfast in place of our special requests then explained how much breakfast will cost us, never giving us any indication that breakfast would be free or how to claim it. Front desk employee, Courtney, seriously unpleasant, unfriendly and unknowledgeable staff. Construction going on at all hours, debris plentiful, rugs in the hallways covered in paint, saw dust. Outdated and unmaintained room, fire alarms from the 80’s, fixtures broken and dated. Chipped ceilings Chipped walls Room is consistently 80+ degrees regardless of the AC being on, if you leave your room, they will shut it off automatically. Unmaintained amenities, ie: circular lighting track still on ceiling? No lights on it. White fixtures turned yellow over the 40 years they have been installed and unmaintained. Appliances, furniture reused easily since the 80’s Scratches on glass table, coke razor for sure. A thick layer of dust over every surface in the room. Balcony in pictures, no balcony, just railings looking down at the balconies below us. Both TV’s don’t work, incessant connectivity issues even though HBO and channels are advertised on the listing TV remotes not meant for the TV’s in the room, could not access settings, could not connect to Bluetooth on TV, only volume and channel +- Jacuzzi filled with brown flakes when filled, not sure what it is. Jacuzzi knobs missing/broken, can’t adjust jets or bubbles Blown out ceiling recessed lights Provided makeup mirror doesn’t work, light functionality non-existent. Water stains on ceiling of every room in the unit Microwave in bar area, but no place to plug it in, had to walk it over to an outlet elsewhere to use it Coffee cup lids don’t fit the cups provided Lack of garbage cans in the room Shower nozzles corroded, sprays water everywhere No directions for shower, confusing setup, difficult to use. Bedroom TV broken, lift mechanism broken, cracked, does not lift or hide the TV Most drawers in dresser broken, cracked Garbage from previous guest left in the room Dirty towels from previous guests left in room Stained couches Ripped wall paper on room walls Attached Ruth’s Chris Steak House, terrible food, undercooked, completely overpriced ($200+ for 2 people), forgot items, low food quality. Overpriced breakfast ($16+ per person), eating in the main lobby where construction is going on, guests are frequenting. Housekeeping did not come to our room even once even though we personally went to the front desk to ask for our room to be cleaned AND called down to housekeeping. Timer on the wall by the shower is supposed to turn on the heated light above, the timer works, the heater doesn’t. We can time our showers, just can’t dry off. No shampoo or conditioner in the room, a ton of body wash and body lotion.

Overall it seems like this failing hotel was purchased by someone who does not know how to run a hotel, maintain a hotel and has no business providing lodging to travelers. The hotel overall but specifically the Presidential Suite is completely unmaintained, messy, uncared for. Of all rooms in this hotel, the presidential suite should have been absolutely pristine, not at all the case, it was truly embarrassing to have been so massively swindles by this hotel.

If I had to guess, the last time this room was booked was likely 1988 by Motley Crüe where they proceeded to absolutely trash the room, do cocaine off of the glass tables and surfaces and essentially break any and all wood surfaces in the room.

A sad excuse for a Hilton-owned establishment. -20/10, highly recommend staying in inner Baltimore under an awning before staying at...

TLDR: not a great place for a wedding party / service not up to par with their peer hotels

Details:

For my wedding at the Aquarium, we had a great deal of people coming in from out of town. We set up blocks of rooms at a few different hotels - the Hyatt and Delta by Marriott to name a couple.

Both the Hyatt and Delta offered free upgrades to a bridal suite if we filled out our blocks. But we were concerned the space would not be enough to hold our bridal party for getting ready before the wedding and our guests after the wedding for a little after party. We were also concerned it might rain so we wanted to find an option that was very close to the Aquarium.

We also knew that we love McCormick & Schmidt’s which is where we held our rehearsal dinner and it’s connected to the Pier 5 Curio so we figured it was a no brainer.

My husband called and set it all up. He spoke with Morgan who was very nice and accommodating, offering price breaks since we blocked 10 rooms including the Presidential Suite (their largest room.)

They were even nice enough to let me scope out the room a few days before the wedding so I could take a video to send to my photographer to give her ideas for photos of us getting ready.

Immediately I noticed the decor was kind of funky and many elements were very worn, but I dismissed it as “historic charm.”

When we checked in the day before the wedding, things seemed to be going great. There was a free happy hour and all the staff was super nice. When we noticed our jacuzzi and kitchen sink didn’t have hot water and when one toilet was clogged we called room services and the maintenance guy immediately fixed all those problems. They’re problems we shouldn’t have had but we appreciated their quick turn around rectifying it.

I asked for 12 champagne glasses and while we got it Friday, no one ever came to wash it (even though I called and asked) so by the time of our “mimosas and robes” photo shoot the next day we ended up just using plastic glasses we bought at CVS.

There was literally no turn down service or any indication that we were even getting married. Most hotels would give at least a complimentary bottle of champagne or flowers or just SOMETHING. But again, this was something I dismissed since the room was so huge and our view was amazing (everyone else had boring views.)

Then breakfast we had to pay for - which we also didn’t mind but found odd considering I’ve stayed at many hotels who at least offer a free limited option. And for having the Presidential Suite and filling out our entire block, you’d think they’d at least throw in some cereal.

But the real thing that made me blow my gasket was after the wedding. Their night staff must hate their job. I came in all smiles and the people at reception rolled their eyes. One of my guests took notice of her loud sigh and brought it up later. Look, I get it. I’ve worked retail before and it wasn’t for me, but when you work in the HOSPITALITY industry you might wanna be, I dunno, HOSPITABLE?

To top that off they complained to us about noise 3 times (it was midnight on a Saturday after a WEDDING) did they think we were going to quietly play Monopoly in their largest suite? Someone also stopped my cousin in the hallway on her way back to her room to try to get her to sign a “party waiver” and she refused. My husband ended up having to pay extra for “incidentals” not that there were any considering my parents cleaned better than their staff.

It was really the most disappointing part of a life changing, beautiful weekend. If we were just a couple there for one night for a conference, maybe it would’ve been okay. But to you future brides - there are way better places to spend your money.

I’ve voiced my concerns with Morgan who has told me their general manager will be in touch. I have yet to hear what if anything will...

Really cute interior and nice friendly helpful staff, even late at night on Christmas Eve. Loved the high ceilings in our room and the purple walls. I really really wanted to like this hotel but there were a couple big issues.

PARKING Parking lot is really frustrating to find, extremely poor signage and way too easy to park in the wrong lot and get a citation. Huge thanks to the front desk guy who gave detailed instructions TWICE and who also said he’s been trying to get management to do something about signage, because guests are constantly baffled. Also, having to PAY FOR PARKING as a guest when the hotel HAS A PARKING LOT is a total slap in the face. Especially considering can’t even leave your car out front for more than 5min when you check in & unload bags because it’s a valet station for the adjoining Ruth’s Chris. Plus when I ran back out to move the car, it took me 15min just to pull away because the valets & customers just leave cars sitting 3-abreast totally blocking the drive. Just a badly conceived system.

FIRE HAZARDS & SAFETY I work in the entertainment industry and I’m overly attuned to this sort of thing because of theater & event venue tragedies and because I’m a union steward, so safety issues flag quickly for me. The stairs from the lobby only go to the second floor - you have NO OTHER CHOICE but to take the elevator to and from the 3rd floor (where our room was) and you need a keycard to activate the elevator. (Do celebrities stay here a lot or something? Why the extra security?). BUT. There are NO emergency escape plan diagrams or signs explaining this. Not in the elevators, not outside the elevators, not on the hallway walls, nowhere. There’s no public stairs access and the emergency stairs are completely hidden from view from the elevator bay. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE AND A HUGE FIRE HAZARD. From nowhere in the hotel is there any indication of how to access the 3rd floor in an emergency. Not on the third floor, not on the second floor where the public stairs terminate without any explanation, not in the lobby.

When we left our room to go down and the elevator was taking a minute to come, we wanted to just take the stairs, but there didn’t seem to be stairs anywhere. We could see the stairs to the second floor, but none from the third. The kids were totally baffled and were joking about launching themselves over the waist-high wall down to the open-air landing for the stairs on the second floor since “there’s no other way to escape, we’re trapped!!!” Out of belligerent curiosity my partner and I took them for a walk around the entire perimeter of the 3rd floor. The escape stairs are counterintuitive to find (kinda screwy exit sign locations and arrows that seemed to direct us towards rooms instead of exits) and when we did find doors to the stairs we learned they’re alarmed and cannot be accessed from the lobby and are only in case of fire.

What does this hotel do if their only elevator is out of order??

And to boot, there are NO CERTIFICATES OF INSPECTION in either elevator. The cases where you’d normally find those papers were just empty.

Get it together y’all! We really genuinely liked this hotel, it’s cuter than many I’ve stayed in, and I’d probably stay again if it didn’t feel shady.

Last thing: I would have cried for some complimentary drip coffee in the lobby. We didn’t want to pay $20/ea for the full continental breakfast (especially not after paying nightly parking fees) but the Keurig pods in the room were undrinkable - must have been really old. Also water ran brown in our shower so we weren’t enthusiastic about drinking the sink water? Possible it could have been resolved, we just didn’t want to bother anyone with it...