Sonesta ES Suites Raleigh Cary — Hotel in Cary

We had a block of rooms for my wedding at this hotel (I am the bride, and this room was my wedding night hotel "suite"). From almost the very beginning, when working with a former employee named Michelle Muchmore, this experience was less than superb, and by far the worst experience we have ever had with Marriott. As lifetime gold members and Titanium reward status members, we expect far better treatment. Starting with Michelle, who was difficult to reach and impossible to work with: many of our guests were told they were unable to book the wedding block rate because their dates were before the beginning of the block, so none of their nights would be at the discounted rate. This caused many of our guests to contact us (the bride and mother of the bride, who have plenty of other planning details to arrange) to get things sorted out. Michelle left the hotel, but we were never notified so all our efforts to contact her went ignored. Beth Eakes and Chris Pettit did their best to figure out our problems, but by that point a few of our close family members had already booked at other hotels.

Most of our guests had a nice stay, with some of them getting upgraded to nicer rooms. Some, however, were forced to wait hours to check in despite also being rewards members and having "checked in" early on the app. This caused them to have to wait in other rooms crowding family members or to drive somewhere else to wait. We also prepared wedding welcome baskets for our guests to be distributed - with a list given to the front desk for the guests to receive them, but many of the guests on our list did not get them while others not on the list did. This was particularly unfortunate because we provided Lyft rides for our guests to safely travel to and from the wedding, so without the basket they were unable to utilize this service.

Now for this specific room and stay, we specified that this would be our hotel room for our wedding night expecting some sort of special treatment (even just a note). But we were treated as though we were a hassle trying to check in early (just a couple hours early so we could head to our wedding). We were also not given the room type that we booked. We booked a 1 bedroom suite and were given a studio without any sort of apology or compensation for the downgrade. As far as we are aware, Marriott should actually be paying us for a downgrade in room type!

Overall, I would never use a Marriott hotel for any event again. I would also NEVER recommend this specific Residence Inn.

It is unfortunate, as we have had wonderful experiences with Marriotts and Residence Inns in the past, but this experience has left a bad taste in our mouths over ever hosting our guests...

We stayed at this location due to the breakfast advertising and the pool and basketball court. RUN FALSE ADVERTISING!! The breakfast was disgusting. The pancake maker doesn’t fully cook your pancake, the eggs are sitting in water, and they don’t have regular toast. The room was clean. There was no bed set for the let out couch in the room. The pool view was great from the room, loved the blackout curtains. The pillows were so soft they were flat, the bed wasn’t comfortable. The basketball court is a goal added over a tennis court and a rim that’s sitting 45 degrees. 1 goal no free throw line in other words, huge disappointment and disgrace to players. On a day of relaxing at the pool turned into an anxiety attack. There were kids playing in the pool roughly and could not swim. One little boy started fighting his girl cousins apparently in the water. I mean grabbed by the neck and pulled under water. Definitely a parent issue. BUT when the little boy was told by his mom who got called down to the pool to get out he started screaming NO, you get on my nerves and you just trying to whoop me!! The little boy went on to scream another 20 minutes and the pool is less than 40 feet from the front desk. The staff seemed afraid to control the family until the little girl who was being h choked spit water out her mouth! Then all of a sudden the kids were told to get out including my son who was on the other end of the pool. Finally a staff member named Nia came out and told ME, my son needed to get out the pool! I went to the desk to speak to someone and of course she told me she was the only one working. I then asked her to write her managers name down and with an attitude she wrote Chris on a sticky note. After not being able to sit poolside and dry off, we get to the room to blow dry our hair, and the blow dryer in the room did not work. I was over it. The next morning I went down to notify someone of the previous night and a short man said I’m the one he should speak to. He stood at the desk in front of other guest to discuss the issue. That made me feel like he was not to professional and he did not take my concern serious. I hope that was not Chris as he mentioned Nia called him the night before but when I asked for a manger, she stated it was just her there. That was the icing on the cake. I must say I’m disgusted with the service provided by staff. We checked out a night early due to this unforeseen behavior. The lady during the day was very friendly along with the Maintenance and housekeepers. Nia on the other hand needs training on how to properly address guest...

We booked 3 nights at the Sonesta ES Suites Raleigh Cary.  The earliest check-in, as stated on their website, was 16:00. We arrived early at 15:45 and were told check-in is 16:00 as the room is still getting cleaned (not a problem). 16:00 the room is still not ready, it was not until 16:20 before we were given the key-card, the receptionist also told us that the pool was out of order for the next few days as it was in need of some repair (the pool was one of the main attraction for us to choose this hotel). Due to the fact that the pool was out of order, we did receive a discount.

Upon entering the room, it smelled very strong of cleaning chemicals. The suite is very spacious with the bedroom separated from the main area. Also, the bathroom and powder room area were clean and generous in size. The bath towels were lovely thick and highly absorbent, unlike what we have experienced in other hotels. The kitchen area was nicely laid out with a large fridge-freezer, which also had an ice maker. A  microwave oven, a percolator to make coffee, a dishwasher, and had all the utensils one would require. The carpet in the living and bedroom area looked a bit dated and could do with an upgrade. The flooring in the kitchen area felt very tacky under foot. It felt like it wasn't cleaned properly. Later in the evening I was going to cook up a light meal when I noticed that the cooking area and hotplate were not clean, in fact very unhygienic.There were splatters of Grease and fat all over the hotplate, control knobs and kitchen bench area. We decided to clean it up ourselves. The bed was comfortable and made for a good night sleep. The breakfast provided had a great variety and was of good quality. I also like to mention that the ice maker can be very noisy at times, also the air-conditioning unit which is built into the wall in the bedroom,  and locked behind a separate door is very noisy at night. To make for a good night's sleep, we turned it off. The hotel would greatly benefit from a higher cleaning standard and a friendly smile from some...