Market Pavilion Hotel — Hotel in Charleston

WARNING: BEWARE— DO NOT STAY HERE- PLEASE READ THIS CRITICAL INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR SAFETY AND HEALTH The Market Pavilion hotel deserves zero stars based on of on a night of my stay. A very loud shrilling fire alarm inside the hotel went off around 11:15 pm without any explanation or warning as we were in bed for the night. It took several attempts to contact the front desk to inquire about the situation. We were told that everything was alright. But then about 5 minutes later, the smoke detector went off again. All the guests on the 3rd floor were popping their heads outside their door confused and not knowing whether it was time to run for your life including a guest who was standing outside his door in his boxer shorts repetitively saying “ I don’t know whether to go or not.” There were no announcements.

We called the front desk and we were told that there was a fire but everything was ok now. And yet, the smoke detector in our room goes off again and started “chirping” every couple of minutes. We called the front desk again for the third time and Rebecca and Bryant both “ managers” came to inspect. Bryant appeared dumbfounded and perplexed by the sound of the smoke detector. Rebecca nonchalantly says, “oh, it’s the battery, the battery needs to be changed”. And she turns to Bryant and instructs him to go get the ladder. At midnight, Bryant comes struggling into our room carrying a 12 foot ladder to “replace the battery”. This is when this saga was just too surreal to believe it was happening. I truly felt that I was either watching a scene from a comedy skit of Laurel and Hardy or a dramatic scene from Gone with the Wind with Scarlett O’Hara. It was then decided that it was necessary for us to immediately pack our things and go downstairs to request a different room. We speak to an apathetic Allison at the front desk. She hands us a key and tells us, “there aren’t any rooms available and says, “this is a nice small room”. We go up to the new room and see that this room has a queen size bed and clearly a downgrade from the room we were currently staying in. We go back downstairs to request we be given the same category room we paid for. I check online and see that they do have a room available with a king size bed even though Allison stated that they did not have any rooms available. Finally, after much anxiety and stress. We were given a king size bed suite room around 12:30 am. This doesn’t change the fact that we did not feel safe staying at a hotel that doesn’t know how to handle an actual fire emergency. It doesn’t makeup for all the inconvenience of having to move our things at midnight and a sleepless night.At checkout, we explain to a disinterested Eleanor (front desk) what happened. And she also states that it must have been the battery. Are the smoke detectors battery-operated? No one seems to know whether the fire alarm system is hard-wired. In the United States, the Hotel and Motel Fire Safety Act of 1990 states that it is a legal requirement for hotels and motels to have ‘hard-wired, single-station smoke detectors in each guestroom in accordance with the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standard. I would be very hesitant to stay in a hotel where smoke detectors are solely battery-operated. HEALTH ALERT: the rooms have dehumidifiers which indicates a severe problem with humidity and MOLD GROWTH inside the rooms. MOLD SPORES are circulating throughout the room. You are breathing this toxic mold. The windows do not open for fresh air. Mold causes serious health complications. ATTENTION: OUR ROOMS HAD BLACK MOLD IN THE BATHROOMS and very possible there is also mold hiding behind the walls and underneath the musky carpet in the room. The Market Pavilion has not properly trained their staff in fire safety and procedures and the rooms need immediate mold remediation. Do you know that there are nearly 4,000 hotel, motel fires with several deaths and injuries each year due to...

Our Market Pavilion check-in was a hard landing. The entrance is on the corner of a narrow street congested with walkers from the adjacent market building. It's like maneuvering into aisle 3 of big box store to reach the hotel entrance. Our arrival was also gummed by photo-shoots (apparently fashion ads) both outside and inside the petite revolving door entrance of the Market Pavilion. This was our first stay so I was unsure about parking options, but the mess outside necessitated valet. I wedged into an opening and asked two uniformed guys if I was in the right place for valet parking. They looked our way but didn't answer, which was odd. At first I thought we had interrupted their viewing of the photo-shoot, but even when one guy approached the car, he was fully silent. OK. I left the keys and we carried our bags in through the crowd. The desk person was surprisingly brusque. She demanded photo ID and credit card like a penal boss. We had been upgraded but the room had no windows, and who would want no windows, she reasoned, so she downgraded us to a room which was not ready an hour before 4 PM check-in (whereas the windowless room had been ready, she told us after the change). OK. Go have lunch, she directed (what, it's 3 PM?), and she'd call us when the room was ready. She didn't. But she did call to ask if we left our car keys. I told her they were in the car (I'd told the silent guys that 45 minutes ago) and couldn't believe our car was still wedged into that busy crowd (with keys!) 45 minutes after our arrival. When we finally returned on our own, our room was ready but the key didn't work and they had to bring another. Look, the Market Pavilion is not a bad hotel. It's just a bit of an inconvenient, sadly maintained hotel (e.g. dirty spots on the hallway carpets) that might be saved by Southern charm but instead puffs fancy and comes off cold and a little oblivious to its pretension. Unless antique furniture styling is your main thing (and some looks more distressed than vintage), you can do better than the Market Pavilion in Charleston, especially for the cost. In a last-minute pinch of availability, it will do, especially if you approach with a...

We've stayed at the Market Pavilion 3 times now, and every time is a true pleasure. The location can't be beat, the accommodations are beautiful, staff is very pleasant and helpful, and the food at the downstairs restaurant is out of this world.

About a week after our first stay, we found ourselves stranded in Charleston for a night because the flights after our cruise were cancelled. We called the hotel at 6:30a while getting back into port and asked if they could help us - they set us up with a room within 30 minutes and there was no charge for our -very- early check in. We found ourselves eating dinner at Grille 225 downstairs almost every night we were in town and have a new favorite side dish at home - the tomatoes with spinach from the menu is one of our go-to's.

Our next stay was over Thanksgiving 2012 and the food was PHENOMENAL. We didn't know what to expect with a holiday buffet, but it did not disappoint. The food was every bit as good as when you're there with regular table service. We came back for dinner the next night and as thanks for coming back our sweet waitress presented us with a bottle of champagne. It was a gesture that wasn't expected or needed - we were already hooked on the service at that point - but it was appreciated regardless.

This year's trip is over New Years weekend and we're really sad that the Market Pavillion isn't in the budget for our 5 night stay (the only drawback to this place is the price per room, which is still COMPLETELY reasonable for the 5-star service and is leaps and bounds better than the prices in Boston for the same value that we're used to) - but we know that we'll get to Grille 225 and the Pavilion bar upstairs at least once during our trip. Can't wait until we can stay...