Residence Inn by Marriott Boston Downtown/Seaport — Hotel in Boston

To say it pains me to do this is the understatement of the year.

For the last 5 years, my family and I have stayed at the Residence Inn by Marriott Boston Downtown/Seaport AT LEAST once a year, if not more. Anyone who knows me knows that I lovingly refer to this hotel as "My Boston Apartment" and I have probably told 30 of you to stay there when you ask.

The staff is lovely, the rooms are gorgeous, the location is prime and they are pet friendly.

I had a reservation for two rooms for my birthday weekend with my father, friends and family and I was beyond excited to show them my "home." Unfortunately due to my work trip to Chicago, I had to cancel with plans to reschedule in June or July (when rates are higher mind you). I called Central Reservations to cancel as I was unable to cancel the reservation from my app.

Imagine my surprise when I received TWO hotel bills on my birthday - one from the Marriott property I stayed at in Chicago and one from none other than the Seaport Residence in for upwards of $400.

When I called the hotel, the manager on duty told me she would be unable to refund me and that I needed to call central reservations and open a case. When I called back to check on my case today, I was told that the case had been close as the Manager would not refund my "no show" charge because the hotel was "sold out" that night. (i.e. the would have lost out on the $400 due to a mistake during the cancellation process).

Central reservations called this same manager again today and she again told them she would not refund me. In total disappointment and disbelief, I called her myself again, to confirn that my loyalty and love for her property, in fact, was not of more value than the $400 mistake that was out of my control.

Her response remained the same.

Many of you know I have been travelling EXTENSIVELY (as you can see below) for work and leisure since 2013 - and I have stayed exclusively with Marriott Hotels for ALL of those trips except two restaurant openings where the hotels were already full.

I'm incredibly sad to have to sever my relationship with this particular property, and let everyone I've recommended it to know that there is no value placed on your loyalty by this management team.

Being in the industry for 15 years, many of you know that I would NEVER take the time to write something like this if I didn't explore every avenue for resolutions first.

When I re-book my trip, I will be trying another pet-friendly property in the area and I will keep you all posted with our experience.

Marriott Bonvoy,...

We recently stayed at this Marriott property for three nights. It has such a great location - nearby the Seaport and not too far from Downtown by the "T". The staff for the most part was very friendly and took the time from their busy days to get to know us and our furry four legged family member.

This hotel is labelled "pet-friendly" so if you don't like dogs or are allergic, please reconsider coming here.

We had an unfortunate situation occur the very first evening we were there. The whole family went out to dinner, leaving our dog behind in the room in his crate. We received a call from the hotel telling us our dog was barking uncontrollably and was disturbing one of the guests. This call came in around 7:15 pm. My husband immediately left the restaurant and headed back to the hotel. When he arrived back at the hotel (in about 20 minutes), he stayed outside the room for approximately 3 minutes. In that time, he heard no barking. Upon entering the room, our dog softly whimpered. Needless to say, we were extremely embarrassed that our dog caused such an inconvenience to one of the other guests. From that point on, our plan during our stay was that the dog would not be left alone in the room by himself. This did put a damper on our travel plans, but so be it.

The next day while my husband and I were getting on the elevator in the lobby with our dog, the general mgr appeared from no where and stopped the elevator. It appeared to be that he was going to greet us and welcome us to his hotel. But the conversation quickly changed to the incident from the evening before. He said he was a pet lover too and could understand how we felt about our dog but the guest was quite enraged over the barking that was going on. He said that certainly we would understand. Now I was mortified!!! Thankfully no other guests were nearby or I would have packed our bags and left on the spot!

As much as we did really like this hotel, I doubt we will ever stay there again. I was on pins and needles every time our dog made any sound. Perhaps the hotel could better locate pets in the hotel. I'm sure there are those of you reading this saying, "Sure. The best location is NOT in this hotel!" Well, it looks like you have won because as I said earlier, we won't be coming back here with or without our dog. Our intention was never to upset any guests. Please accept...

First, it took over an hour after check-in time to get a room. Not our room, a room. Apparently the person in what was our room decided to stay longer so we got inconvenienced. We got moved to another room where they bragged about extra windows.... Viewing the alley. Literally a terrible view. Our room WAS on a higher floor and should have actually had a decent view. Also being higher, not as much noise from being so close to the street. Our "upgrade" was a clear downgrade to whatever they happened to have available but they couldn't just tell us that.

Then, the windows have the sound dampening of a sheet of paper. 5am and I hear a trash truck right outside my window for like, 30 minutes. I could hear everything all night. It was terrible. If your going to have rooms lower to the ground, 2nd floor, you have to have good windows to block the sound.

The room itself was nice enough, even if the secondary blankets felt like rough plastic and not comfortable at all. I really can't complain about the room itself at all, aside from what I mentioned.

Now, the breakfast since the parts above this were written before the breakfast...

The breakfast was okay. Not good, okay. It was really nothing special. The eggs were clearly just powdered scrambled eggs. No muffins or anything like that but they did have stale bread and halfway decent bagels. The waffles, which you had to pour the pre-made, generic batter from the commercial holder into a plastic cup was ok. The pray bottle they had there to make them not stick was also empty. The fruit looked a few days past their prime as well.

Summary

-Now some good things... *Very close parking for a very good price. Just check in first. *The bellhop was cool with me parking in the temp spot for over than the time allotted. *The place looks very nice in the lobby. *The room on the surface looks very nice *room we had was equipped with a fridge, dishwasher, sink and dishes... perfect for a longer term stay. *prime location in south Boston. Easy to get many places by foot in south Boston or by a very quick Uber/Lyft ride.

-The bad *Had to wait an hour for a room past check-in time *Room given was bragged as "having more windows" but none had any actual view *spare blankets are terrible *room "upgrade" was actually a downgrade *Breakfast was not good though not technically bad. *windows do not...