Courtyard by Marriott DeLand Historic Downtown — Hotel in DeLand

This hotel cancelled my reservation without any notification. I just happened to call the day of my reservation (which I had reserved for close to 6 months prior to the event I was attending with my family (The Daytona 500), to advise them we would be checking in late that evening, only to find out my reservation had been cancelled. The representative at the front desk was of little help and would not tell me why they cancelled my three night reservation. I called my Marriott Ambassador Elite representative and she looked into it and advised they cancelled because the credit card I reserved the room on six months prior, had expired. Marriott further explained the local hotel should not have cancelled as I had another primary card on my account that was not expired. Additionally, they confirmed someone should have contacted my by phone/text/email to advise so we could swap cards. My Marriott Ambassador representative further advised the GM of the hotel would not respond to her contact efforts either. The GM of this hotel had no decency to advise me they were cancelling my reservation, and would not even respond to Marriott corporates inquiries about it. Needless to say I will never stay at this hotel in the future and I highly recommend everyone that reserves a room at this hotel to triple check their reservations, their credit card, etc. as this hotel obviously does not care about their customers. Something tells me they cancelled my room on a technicality at the last minute, so they could just rent it out and 2-3x the rate due to the Daytona 500. We ser very disappointed. Marriott was great in helping us find another hotel but it was much farther away. I have been a Marriott rewards member for well over 15 years and have Marriott Ambassador status, and this hotel/GM could not have cared less. Terrible customer service. The GM of this hotel should be ashamed that they treat any customer this way, much less a loyal Marriott patron. We stayed at this same hotel for the Daytona 500 the year before so we were a returning customer and they still had no decency to even call us to discuss the cc issue. All cc's expire after so many years and we had been sent new ones, but I had no idea this could happen. I suggest looking elsewhere when needing to rent a hotel in the Deland/Daytona area.

Update: 4-3-23. Two weeks after posting this review, still nothing. No response from this terribly operated, and obviously TERRIBLE owner/management staff. And as I read other reviews, I see similar issues with last minute cancellations with no warning or justification. This is the worst managed and operated hotel I have ever come across and is an embarrassment to the Marriott flag. Surprised they are even able to keep their...

Right away upon check in, my sister expressed to me that she wanted a room closer to the corners of the building but didn't ask because she felt front desk at the time didn't want to take requests let alone was friendly. My sister is a Marriott manager at a different location and felt the energy wasn't accommodating upon arrival. The bistro, we were told, only operated on the weekends. There was plenty of space in the lobby which looked nice, but no breakfast or dinner was available on some days we were there so we opted for WaWa down the street every day. The pool area was very nice and the ease getting around the hotel was fine. We phoned for 3 extra towels to be brought up and were told to retrieve them from the front desk. Previously, we were staying at Hyatt the evening before who were more than accommodating to our needs like extra towels and soaps being brought to the room. I ended up having to catch a very sweet housecleaning employee to ask for extra items later in the stay. The front desk receptionist sat in the office instead of being at the front most of the time. We carry medication around and needed a freezer for our ice packs. When my sister went downstairs to ask for the freeze packs to be stored in the freezer the day before check out, she was told they could not accommodate her. My sister being a manager herself had to assert there was a freezer in the bistro of all Marriot's. Parking is a ridiculous $11 an evening. A storm came through one evening and tree limbs fell on top of a car out in the paid on site parking lot. When I tried to go to the front desk to alert someone, no one came to the front desk so I had to just walk away after a few minutes. Moving onto the room, it was spacious but we were told we would have a "city view" only to find out the view was to the parking lot. The beds are extremely uncomfortable. There were 2 queens, one I had to share with my daughter. I'm 140 pounds and the springs of the bed dug into my bones. I got the worst sleep of my life for 3 nights. The door to the room was super heavy and loud. There were no trash bag liners for the trash cans in the room or bathroom so I lined them with grocery bags. All in all, this Marriot was a disappointment. The Fairfield I stayed in in Jacksonville had free wifi, free breakfast and free parking. My sister kept saying how a lot of the protocols her Marriott holds were lacking at this location. If it wasn't for her discount, I wouldn't have even gone to Deland. Orlando prices for a sleepy town with zero bells and whistles. Sort of a disappointment. Don't know what we would have done without the manager discount. Fine for business...

Great location and a fairly new property in Deland, Florida. Unfortunately, it is hard to recommend this Courtyard. The staff do not seem to be having any fun working and it shows.

The fitness room card reader was broken the entire week, so one had to trot down to the front desk every morning, find an employee with a master key, then trot back to the door for entry. Just replace the reader. It was unbelievably hot in the room, perhaps the sauna experience was a no charge freebee – saving a $ on AC more likely. No business news (most of the channels were broken) on the monitors and of course the one remaining treadmill was broken the entire week. How about fixing a few things?

One small bar of soap to share between the shower and sink. Covid is over. Really-no more excuses. The safe keypad was broken, and no one could fix it. The room smelled of Lysol the entire week. Must have been “deep” cleaning.

I checked in with the app and selected housekeeping service every other day. When I arrived, I was informed that housekeeping service was only available every 3rd day. No one showed up in the 3rd day in the afternoon, so I made the request at the front desk. You would have thought I asked for a free bottle of water. Weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Then there were the elevator issues. The elevators were having problems during the stay. No one seemed to be proactively working the issue, resulting in a group of us being stuck on the elevator. We could not reach anyone at the front desk and had to call 911. I’ve been to many 3rd world locations over the last 35 years, but I have never been stuck in an elevator. Using the steps for 4 floors was a better workout than the fitness center. Not a fun experience. I assume they did not want to call a technician due to the extra weekend fee?

The best part was having a smoking station right outside the main entry door. Must have been a smokers convention the week I stayed. It was something to look forward when entering and leaving the property.

The theme at this location is trying to do everything on the cheap, not maintaining the property. Too bad as Deland is a fun town and this hotel has a good location. Fortunately, my last time at the...