Residence Inn by Marriott Rapid City — Hotel in Box Elder

We came for a 4 night stay and were not informed at check-in or by any signs in our suite that ANY housecleaning, no matter the length of stay, must be requested. Our shower was filthy from the start, two wall reading lamps were broken, and carpet is heaving between the door and living room. Believing housecleaning would be completed during our stay, I let it go. There are NO SIGNS in any hallway, at the front desk, in any part of our suite that said house cleaning must be requested. There still are door tags in the rooms to hang on your door when you DO NOT need housecleaning. We placed one our door for our first two nights, removing it for the room to be refreshed and cleaned day 3. We spent extra time morning 3 before leaving for our days adventure to have the room picked up for housekeeping to easily clean the room. We returned from an 8 hour day on the road to our room untouched. When brought to managements attention, there was no real meaningful apology, just stating they are in the process of making the changes known and was THEN given a flyer that had extensive details about the hotel and water park with a note on housecleaning needing to be requested. I informed management that in passing, I had heard the front desk tell people that “due to your 1/2 night stay, housecleaning must be requested”. He asked how many nights we were staying, I replied 4 nights. Then just stating to me again their “new policy” and providing us with a garbage bag of towels and toilet paper for our room and stating to place our trash outside our room door in the hallway. Knowing the size of the trash, I brought it down to spare other guests the tripping hazard and unsightliness of trash from our room. I mentioned other rooms had “no housecleaning needed” signs hanging on their doors too, so very likely, those guests are also unaware of the housecleaning policy. The response was deflecting and not showing any initiative to make sure other guests are not disappointed and frustrated during their stay. I replied good customer service would be to walk the hallways and notify those rooms of the housecleaning policy. Once again, deflecting blame on new Marriotts no housekeeping policy. Horrid place. Booking on Marriott app doesn’t make it very clear there IS NO POOL, and the water park is just discounted to $24 per person, a day. We have been to 6 hotels in the past 3 months apart of an indoor water park and have never been required to pay separately or sign a waiver to enter. The waiver makes sense considering I spotted 2 lifeguards in the entirety of the facility. For a hotel room costing upwards of $260 a night, the quality, service, and included amenities are pitiful. So...

By far not a “bad” hotel but was disappointed. |I travel A LOT across all brands and typically a Residence Inn is one of my favorites. But this location falls short of my expectations. …maybe because it is next door to a water park and instead of business clients, it has more families and vacationers (the place was packed with kids while we were there)?|The facility is nice- what you would expect from a Marriott brand. However, a few minor things were noticed. Most nice hotels have now gone back to daily housekeeping- this location has not. We could have requested service during our three days but did not. Not a big deal, but noticeable. Second, the mirror in the bathroom is damaged. Certainly not a big deal, but noticeable. |Trust me, I know the brand standards for breakfast service and standards were offered — just without any extras or common sense or attention to detail. Scrambled eggs full of water content (from being microwaved). BUT the container of salsa was there but no cheese like most properties. Bread, English muffins and bagels were there but no danish or nutra-grain type bars common at most locations. No waffles, no Nutella (for bananas) but they did have the standard peanut butter, oatmeal was empty two out of three mornings. Standard orange and apple juice but lacking the usual cranberry at most locations. |Temperatures were in upper 90’s in Rapid City but no urn of ice water infused with lemons or cucumbers in the lobby. But hot coffee is yours for the taking. |I just left a Townplace Suites by Marriott earlier in the week. There for breakfast each morning, you had two kinds of waffles with a rotating fruit compote (strawberry and blueberry), chocolate sauce, whipped cream and sprinkles were also offered. In addition, there was a rotating egg choice (scrambled egg, omelet style with cheese on the mornings I was there PLUS rotating protein (bacon, sausages etc), Plus an entree choice that also rotates (quiche, ham and Swiss croissant, sausage biscuit while we were there. Cranberry and chocolate milk. Now back to the Residence Inn: Again no quiche, biscuits, or step up offerings but today instead of scrambled egg, they had round eggs (think McDonald’s egg McMuffin style) which would have been fine if I could have made my own, but the only protein was long link sausage— so no muffin sandwich for me (bacon or Canadian bacon or patty sausage would have worked but oh yeah no cheese at this location. |Of course none of this is really a big deal in itself but it falls short compared to other Marriott...

My check in experience was excellent, and room was amazing. Outside of that. It wasn’t such a pleasant stay. They had what could’ve been an amazing dog area, but there were so many guest with pets roaming off leash, and disregarding the clean behind your pet policy, that it made it unpleasant to even walk our service dog. The hotel provided cleaning stations around the complex, and they weren’t used at all. There was a Houseman who walked around not doing much, and didn’t care to attempt to clean the area, and make it presentable for guest. Not entirely his fault. The breakfast was not too great. The biscuits were stuck to bottom of pan, and when we arrived downstairs @8am, nothing was hardly available. Again, not entirely the breakfast attendants fault.

Before checking in, I did my pre-arrive check in and requested a 4pm checkout (as entitled to, based on availability I know). I arrived, and the check in staff were amazing, and also confirmed my late check out ( but I am guessing they didn’t put into notes section of FOSSE, NOR THE HK SECTION AS WELL,THEIR MISTAKE). when I came to the desk the next morning to confirm, the young lady was extremely rude from the moment she made eye contact and saw who I was. She walked off and made me wait while she went in the back to do something. Then she comes out, I ask to confirm, she immediately got rude, assuming I was lying, wouldn’t honor her co- workers pre gestures and didn’t care about my status. She wouldn’t even nor did she attempt to meet me half way with a 2pm. Stated that if I wanted a late check out, that I would have to pay a full night.

Now my reason for wanting it was because I needed to do my treatment at a certain time ( which I did in my car) as I am having kidney transplant in two weeks. The young lady was extremely rude, and I had my suspicions why. I then asked my wife to go down, just to see her reaction towards her. And just as I expected, she was extremely nice, smiled and all.

After that experience and because of where I was, I couldn’t help but assume her actions towards me was because I was BLACK. I watched her interaction with several people from a distance and she treated them with dignity and respect.
I tried and wanted to speak to GM before leaving this review, but the young lady made that a bit impossible, she didn’t want to get me the GMs card, wouldn’t get me his email, and I called to speak to him after I checked out twice, and was told...