The Ballantyne, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Charlotte — Hotel in Charlotte

My family and I were so excited to book a hotel stay at the Ballantyne for Memorial Day weekend as we read many great reviews about this place. Never did I imagine to have one of the worst hotel experiences and encounter such a condescending front desk staff and manager (Blake) over basic housekeeping matters. Who would have thought that asking for standard housekeeping would be a huge undertaking for a reported 4 star “ luxury” hotel. My husband and I were met with such disrespect and disregard that I’m utterly baffled as I am writing this. ||We left our room in the morning and came back around 1 pm and saw that our room had not been cleaned. We understood that it was still early and that housekeeping would likely be on their way. No big deal. We left again around 3pm and on our way out, we spoke to the concierge and kindly asked that our room be clean at some time within the next three hours (I wanted to make sure we put in a request as well). We got back to the room at around 630pm with our two young kids, ready to get them settled for bedtime only to find that it still had not been touched nor had the towels been replaced. I called down to the front desk staff expressing my concern. She told me that they would be by within 10-15 mins. I hauled both my kids down to the lobby to confirm that housekeeping will indeed be there to clean up the room and refresh the towels. I also wanted to get them out of the room so housekeeping can do their job. Instead of confirming, she tells me that housekeeping had three rooms ahead of me. I informed her that my children will need to be in bedtime by 8pm and if they could prioritize our room since they seemed to have missed it during the day. Instead of letting me know that they would make an effort to prioritize our room, she states that rooms are only cleaned by request. I asked her if the hotel provides daily housekeeping to which she says “yes”. I reminded her that I also put in the request for housekeeping. Blake, the manager, than comes over and I explain the situation asking that our room be prioritized since it was missed earlier. To my dismay, he says that housekeeping needs to prioritize check ins. Again, it is now 630pm and check in for the hotel is 4pm. Feeling completely unheard, I say that I have a 2 and 4 yo and they would need to go to bed soon. Again, I ask if our room can be done sooner rather than later as the room has dirty diapers in the trash that I wanted to have discarded. He looks at me with a blank stare and just nods his head indifferent to the entire situation. He than says that housekeeping cleans until 9 pm so they are still within their window. Again, taking no ownership of the situation while making excuses. I remind him that I have two young kids and I did not want to wait until 9 pm to have the room cleaned. He continues to nod and looks at me with a condescending stare. He than says he is just hearing about this situation and he can have towels be brought up to the room if I did not want to wait. Mind you, before coming down to the lobby, they had told me that it would be 10-15 minutes. Now, I’m being told that it could take until 9pm before the room is cleaned. Realizing that these people could careless about our situation, I literally just walked away because I could feel myself getting so frustrated that I wanted to cry. As a mom with two young kids, I felt completely disregarded and treated like trash. I never thought I would have to beg a |“Luxury” hotel to clean my hotel room. ||If they had just simply said sorry, we fked up, we’re going to do whatever it takes to get this fixed so you and your kids can have a clean room with clean towels, I would have been fine. Instead, I was told that we weren’t a priority because we weren’t checking in while also giving the excuse that house keeping is only by request ( even though I had requested it) to | “ housekeeping cleans until 9pm so they are still within their window to “ we can’t control the housekeeping schedule.” One excuse right after the other. ||Needless to say, this will be the last time we stay at this hotel. We were looking for a hotel spot that we could stay quarterly and make it a staycation location as we are from the triangle area. They showed that they don’t respect our business so we’ll be taking our business elsewhere...

My best friend & I booked our room & spa services for our girls’ getaway about 6 months in advance. A couple weeks in advance of our visit we received some inaccurate spa service confirmations. We called & left messages for days before beginning to leave messages for managers & finally getting a response from the spa assistant director. Thankfully, she was able to correct everything. When I was walking off my plane in Charlotte at 7:15pm the day before services, I received a call from the spa letting me know my therapist was sick & they needed to make a change & would have a male therapist for me. I requested a female & said no thanks & to please rearrange in some other way because our services were booked months in advance. After several phones calls the spa let me know they figured it out. This was a hectic & infuriating experience less than 24 hours before the service at a destination spa. Upon checkin we asked if they had placed the non feather pillows in the room we requested. The front desk staff acted confused & said they’d check. We never got alternative pillows or any follow up. The visit at the spa the next morning was phenomenal. Danielle and Courtney are TOP NOTCH estheticians. Our pedicures were great too. We returned to our room at 3:30 to find it unattended to. Called front desk & asked about service & they were very confused. They had no idea whether the rooms should be serviced or not or only on request. After much back & forth at this self branded ‘luxury’ property I asked for a manager to reach out. Instead I went to the desk to resolve the issues in person. I began speaking with the man sent out as a manager. Explained everything & in the end he asked if I wanted a manager! He was sent to speak to me as a manager & I guess it was too much for him to address. I told him we were going to relax & change & we’d like a manager to reach out at 5:30 and housekeeping at 6. He said fine. In the meantime the front desk girl called our room back & spoke with my friend who requested the same thing - service at 6pm. Twenty minutes later, just after 4 housekeeping knocked and woke us up! We asked her to return at 6. We returned to the spa for massages. Worst massage ever - I asked to conclude the service early - which was so nerve wracking because I’d never done that before. Ninas touch was not gentle or relaxing. She used so much oil in my scalp & on my body that it dripped into my face & onto the sides of my body more than once. She rubbed so repetitively and vigorously - never attending to a single area but just glaring over my entire head at once or my back. And her hands were also very rough. I felt like my head and back would be rubbed raw. I spoke with the spa director and explained. I asked her to ensure our Sunday services were not with Nina & asked for a prorated bill to cover the portion of the service I stayed for. She comp’ed the entire service which I appreciated because no part of it was relaxing or enjoyable. The next morning, Saturday, Alan the actual manager met us at breakfast. We discussed our fun and he apologized & said it would be addressed. We moved on. We went for a wine tour all day & when we returned our room was made up & Alan had left us a fruit bowl. Sunday morning we left for breakfast and returned to our room being serviced even though our checkout wasn’t until 2pm. We told housekeeping and she left. I’m gonna guess this was poor communication on the part of management again because they were unaware when we did check out before our final spa services that afternoon. Spa services that afternoon were also excellent. Body wrap/scrub and massages. Danielle and Kefiya were fabulous. Over all the hotel fell short as did spa - for luxury prices we certainly didn’t expect this many issues. Will look elsewhere next time though the few great spa therapists did hit it out of the park. Also much construction where once was golf...

Me and my fiancé just finished staying here for a staycation. We were between the Ritz Carlton and here but decided to stay here due to the positive reviews as well as the spa having better reviews than the Ritz. The rooms are pretty much the same as any Marriott property, the first floor gets a bit loud at times but nothing out of the ordinary during regular hours of normal foot traffic. Location is quiet and a bit secluded from being in the main city of Charlotte so it’s good for relaxation. There appears to be some construction but we didn’t hear any noise at all. The bathrooms have a separate tub and shower which is really nice. My review is focused on the quality and treatment of African American guest who choose to stay at this hotel. Some of the staff and patrons here are not black people friendly. We saw numerous people Being checked in and the details and locations of the hotel were explained to them. We weren’t pointed in the direction of the pools or restaurant and explored the hotel on our own to find where everything was. I asked for a bottle of champagne to be sent to the room. It was put in for the wrong night. There are a bunch of weird looks walking through this hotel. The first night of our stay we were asked “why” when inquiring what time the Ryal Bar was opening. Assuming when we were seen the following night it was known that were were actually staying here and the treatment was better. I had my fiancé booked for a spa appointment. She received some nasty looks but said one of the staff members made her feel welcomed. For $1200 stay for 3 nights, it’s just not worth the experience that we thought we would have. When being overlooked and as if you don’t belong, we were even considering checking out a day early. The older gentleman bartender in the Gallery Restaurant walked our direction several times and never acknowledged us. At checkout their was a room charge for drinks that I paid with directly at the pool bar. I always take pictures of receipts, especially when traveling and showed it to the front desk staff. For some reason they could find every check but mine which was a bit weird, and also the fact that I never gave my room number as I knew I wasn’t billing anything to my room and paying as we go. The front desk ladies were able to get it resolved for me and very nice about it. We have stayed at many luxurious hotels and resorts and as a bonvoy member, this Marriott property is probably the most disappointing. When you see staff members speak to other guest but look the other way towards you. I will say the pool staff was awesome our first day Thursday and very friendly. The doorman and security also do great as well and even offered to take us on a tour of the hotel as first time guest. The restaurant dinner we had the pork chop and salmon. Both were good. As a successful business owner myself, personally this isn’t a property that we would revisit as it doesn’t seem as though minorities aren’t welcomed there. Customer service is everything and it lacked tremendously. Guest should be made to feel welcomed and enjoy themselves to the point they want to come back for repeat business. Hopefully there are some discussions on diversity and inclusiveness within their staff on how to treat and acknowledge all guest to truly make them...