Marriott's Mountain Valley Lodge at Breckenridge — Hotel in Breckenridge

My experience with Marriott Mountain Valley Lodge, the villa resort, reservations, and their customer service has been terrible. The sad part is I have not even stayed here yet.

We booked a vacation with them for the opening ski weekend in Breckenridge and specifically selected the Mountain Valley Lodge because of it's location to the Peak 9 Quicksilver chairlift and because it is a ski in/ski out for Peak 9. We were very excited about our trip until a couple of weeks ago when we received an email from the lodge stating Peak 9 would not be open until 2 weeks after our arrival and they are not considered a ski in/ski out now during our stay. That right there is enough of a reason to be able to cancel our reservation. When a woman called us last week to confirm our reservation, I spoke with her about Peak 9 not being open and wanting to cancel. She said we had until a day prior to our arrival to cancel. So when I called to cancel the reservation (considering we wanted to stay at a ski in/ski out which the lodge no longer is), they stated I could not cancel due to it being booked as an advanced rate non-refundable. However, when I booked the room, I was not informed that it was non-refundable (never would have booked directly through their reservations if that was the case - I would have booked through expedia who offered the same rate but at book now pay later). So I have talked to the resort manager, customer service, reservations, everyone Marriott could possibly pass me off to and everyone told me the same thing - "there's nothing I can do but let me transfer you to such and such". On top of it, they are trying to tell me they show I booked online, which I did not. I spoke to someone in reservations and asked if they could match expedia's rate, which they did - but never said it was non-refundable. Again, I would not have booked through them in that case. I have literally talked to about 7 - 8 different people and am getting nowhere and hear the same thing from everyone. That it is non-refundable. So basically Marriott can not hold up their end of the deal and can back out of being a ski in/ski out, and when that ruins my vacation, I have to stay regardless or lose several hundred dollars??? That doesn't seem right and is POOR customer service. What's worse is that we have stayed at multiple Marriott properties over the past few months due to considering purchasing a timeshare with them. Well that's out the window - if this is how they dupe their customers, I certainly am not going to spend several thousand dollars with them. I am highly disappointed in the fact that Marriott refuses to refund me even though they are not a ski in/ski out like I had booked. I find it extremely hard to believe that there is nothing they can do, especially when their reservations did not tell me it was non-refundable - they simply do not want to take care of their customers. Therefore, my family will be forced into going on a ski vacation where there will be no skiing (Breck has not even had snow, so even with Peak 8 open it will only be trails for experienced riders - which we are not, hence wanting to ski Peak 9). What a waste of money. And for the fact that Marriott does not care to correct their mistake of not telling us it was non-refundable and not actually being what we booked, they will lose ALL future business from us - both in timeshare and regular lodging capacity. WORST CUSTOMER...

Unfortunately we did not have the same experience that many other people had here. We got into the hotel to check in and there was chaos because their TV service wasn't working (didn't bother us, we normally don't watch TV while vacationing) but they seemed to care more about the customers calling to complain, than they did about us who were there to check in, in front of them. Then, their card machine wasn't working to handle our deposit. We asked them if we could just do a cash deposit so we could go and get settled in our room, and the host said he didn't know if we could do that. We asked, what's your policy, $50 is usually pretty standard, and he said he didn't think he had a cash policy. So it was frustrating that he was uninformed, and then all of a sudden their machines were working. (Being out of state we were told it was our card being declined by another employee who walked in on the situation, but the gentleman helping us insisted he thought it was their machines because they had been randomly disconnecting all night) It was strange. We weren't allowed to park in the heated parking garage directly underneath our building of the complex because that garage had spaces that were reserved for people who hadn't checked it yet.. what? We had to park our car in a garage on the other side of the complex which was about a 10-12 minute walk. This was awful if we forgot anything in the car, which I if course did, and getting back late from dinner. We went down into the "reserved" garage later and there were dozens of open spaces available. It was really dumb.. We get into our room, to find the toilet clogged from the previous user, and continued to stay clogged regardless of how many times we plunged it. The rooms were very nice and well furnished, but their air conditioning wasn't running properly so we had to sleep with the windows open, and it was so dry in there, we've had bloody/dry noses since we have stayed (2 nights prior to this review) there was an air humidifier provided but it didn't do much good. The bed was extremely uncomfortable and the pillows didn't offer any support. Check out was 10am, we thought it was 11am, so that's our fault for not double checking, but they made sure to call us at 10am to make sure we didn't need help checking out. Once we checked out and walked to our car, we had a parking violation slip (not a ticket) on our windshield because we didn't have a tag on our rear view mirror for our parking pass, even though we were not supplied with one upon check in. The hotel said they would take care of it, so they obviously knew they had screwed up. Overall it was a very frustrating experience and we couldn't wait to get out of there. We've stayed at plenty of Marriott's and often prefer them, but this one gives the group a...

Absolute incompetence, are the only words I can use to describe the administration of this property. I've never posted a 1 star review before. We visited with a large group, and booked 10 rooms. The property itself is not bad, a bit dated, but good location and rooms are okay. That's where anything positive ends. Upon arrival, they checked me into 3 already occupied rooms, before finally getting me into an unoccupied room. Unknown to me at the time, they pre-authorized my credit card for 2 different rooms, and also charged me for someone else's room after already paying for mine. I've spoken with 7 different people on site trying to resolve during my stay, and the past week since my stay, and still have pending charges of $6k on my card for two rooms, in addition to being charge for another room I didn't stay in...AND paying in full for the one room I actually stayed in upon checkout. Was told yesterday during yet another call, "the good news is that the charge isn't your responsibility, but we won't refund you until we figure out the right person to charge." My response, I don't care who you charge, but you've admitted I should not have been charged, and you still won't refund me??? I've spoken with supervisors, front desk staff, and asked for the hotel manager who won't get on the phone with me to resolve. Called customer care with Marriott corporate, and since I was just "a paying guest" not an owner, they can't do anything, expect have me talk to property staff, which I've done endlessly. Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES would I ever recommend anyone use this property for a group booking. If you do, and anything goes wrong, forget about it being handled. Probably fine for a family or individual stay, but complete incompetence for groups. Marriott, you should be absolutely embarrassed by how inept this property is for group bookings, and how endless the run around has been. I'm a very frequent traveler for the past 30+ years, and have never experienced anything this poorly handled at any...