Drury Inn & Suites Charlotte Arrowood — Hotel in Charlotte

11/11/2024 - It's difficult for me to give a in-depth review of this hotel since we had to cancel our stay after only being here for a few hours on. Our experience is probably unique in a sense. We traveled from Louisiana to Charlotte and booked a room here at this Drury Inn in Charlotte Arrowood for 5 days. Our decision was based on the the reviews alone. Most hotels in the Charlotte area have a good mix of good and bad reviews but this property had very few 1-star reviews relative to its 4/5 star reviews. We drove 12 hours to get here and checked in after 2AM.

Upon arriving the entire parking lot reeked of weed and there was a police officer sitting in her cruiser. I could only assume weed is legal in NC based off of this observation, no big deal, but it was kind of off-putting. I did however go back outside and move our car further away from the weed smoking area out of an abundance of caution.

Our room was relatively clean, but smelled musty. I can't quite put my finger on exactly what it smelled like other than old, damp, and stuffy. It wasn't bad enough to ask for a room change but it didn't smell pleasant or even neutral. We finally settled in between 3-4AM and laid down to get some sleep after 4AM. At 8AM we were startled awake (as in jumping out of the bed in fight or flight mode) by the sound of hammer drills, circular saws, and other industrial construction machinery in the room next door to us drilling into the wall behind our heads. I was incredibly irate! My wife went down to the front desk to explain how unacceptable this was and immediately cancelled the rest of our stay. The staff did apologize, but also pointed to a sign they taped to the doors saying construction will begin on the hotel at 8AM everyday. It's not a sign we noticed when checking in, and likely more of a CYA to point at when someone complains as in "see that obscure sign over there telling you this would happen?" I often work with companies to remedy this exact scenario, the term we use is sign blindness. Signs generally go unnoticed by people because there's often an overload of information in the surrounding areas so all information goes unnoticed (much like this lengthy review. Very few people will read it in its entirety but likely skim through for key things that may relate to their decision to book here). A more appropriate alternative would be to verbally notify guests as they check in, and/or add a prominent banner on booking sites requiring guest to acknowledge they understand by checking a box agreeing to what may be a disruption to their stay. Taping a piece of paper to the door does very little to inform guests.

We got about 3 hours of sleep after driving 12 hours and stayed in the hotel for about 6.5 hours total. We had to kill time sleeping in our car in order to check into another hotel, the Hyatt Centric in South Park which was more than triple the rate of the Drury Inn but 10x nicer of a hotel. It was money well spent in order to sleep in peace.

In a fair world we'd have been refunded for the very limited time we were here, but we didn't push the issue. Sometimes non-life changing money just isn't worth the headache and hassle of trying to recover. No apology can make up for waking up guest who spent 12 hours on the road to the what sounded like an attack on the room. We'll never stay at this hotel again, possibly avoiding the Drury Inn chain in general when we travel because of how angry this experience made us. This is just our experience and I'm sure it's unique...

7/31 Update: Apparently in the Queen City security measures in hotels are more common than common courtesy and common sense!

7/30 For the most part our stay was very pleasant despite being right next to a busy highway with cars revving up their engines and motorcycles going up and down at all types of hours during the night. They have a guest appreciation every night after 5:00 with food and alcohol drinks. I just wished there were more non-pork meat options with the breakfast as well as the dinners. My only true concern was at checkout, my family (including the person that booked the rooms) walked by the front desk as I handed the room keys in (even though they weren't in my name). I returned to the front desk in less than a minute as I left something in our room and I was unable to get a key because my name on my ID did not match the reservation name. Now this is the only hotel that I've ever stayed at that has this policy. So I then had to go back to the car and get the other person just so they could flash their ID, so that I could get a key!? And I understand that it's for "security purposes" as that's what the front desk clerk told me during this incident. However if a guest just handed you rooms keys and returned less than 5 minutes and the keys were deactivated making them go through hoops is unacceptable. Because what if this was a true emergency, like I had left some medication in the room and was required to take said medication at that time?? In my case that was what had happened. My medicine was on the top shelf of the mini fridge near the freezer and no one saw it when removing things out of the mini fridge. The way I see it is this, any of the staff (front desk or housekeeping) could have easily just let me in the room by coming with me so that I could get my personal belongings. I mean there was literally was a housekeeper two doors down from our room. Or just make a new key (without any fuss) as the one prior was just handed back to the person that now has to make a new key since the original keys were promptly deactivated. And like I said earlier, I know it was for security purposes however it was very inconvenient as we were loading our car in the parking lot (not in front of the hotel entrance) for a long trip home and it...

We went for my daughter's 18th b-day weekend and to go to the Renfaire. We got in late on Halloween and missed the Kick-back. I realized I left my wallet at home with my DL in it and bc I was so tired, it didn’t dawn on me that I had a 2nd copy in my purse with my passport. When I stated not having one, the guy was rude and said that no way would they accept a pic of it from my phone. He offered no other solutions, even as I said that we were from near the VA border. It was just me and 3 kids. When I got and showed the ID and passport, he inspected them like I was an alien. There was no empathy on his part and he was very rude and acted like I was wasting his time. I went to the hotel restaurant and got dinner. Pro-bartender is amazing; Con-the food was way overpriced for the low quality. The room and was burning hot, but the kids turned the A/C on and it took forever to cool down. I am disabled, so it was an ADA room, but it was very small. The fridge didn’t seem to work at all, there was trash in the trash cans and trash behind one tv. There were stains on the walls, dust all over everything, the phone and alarm clock were very dirty and the pull-out bed was really thinand uncomfortable with a crumb-covered mattress topper. We heard loud noises from the pool bc we were right above it and from the rooms on both sides. We had to call for help late at night. It is a PARTY hotel, not a family one. We smelled marijuana on almost everyone and in the elevators and many people were heavily drinking inside and outside. There were unattended kids at the pool who harassed mine and it was a problem. But, two of the receptionists were nice women who tried helping us. They did all that they could. One came to turn the fridge up and the other, Meloki(?), told our neighbors to calm down and checked us out. The Kick-Back food was also sub-par while breakfast was quite pleasant. If you're looking for a place to party and don't have higher expectations, like quiet and clean rooms, this place is for you. It is close to Carowinds, but Charlotte traffic...