Mystic Marriott Hotel & Spa — Hotel in Groton

This will be a bit of a doozy of a story...

I went to mystic marriott to stay for a wedding rehersal and a wedding. My plus one bailed the morning of the rehersal, so my room for 2 wasn't needed, but I couldn't change it the morning of. When I arrived, I was told there was no room for me and I'd have to wait for a room to free up (fair enough, I've had to wait for room before.) After waiting for an hour and a half with no room, and only 30 minutes to now arrive at the country club where the wedding rehersal is taking place, I explain to the front desk that I no longer need a room for two, and a single bed would suffice. I'm given a room on the fifth floor, and rush upstairs to drop my stuff off to make it to the rehersal in time. As I enter the room, I'm greeted with 85 degrees of heck. I quickly turn the AC on, and figure ok, well no problem, when I return after the rehersal and go-carting with the groom, the room will be nice and chilly.

I have never been so wrong.

When I returned at roughly midnight, the room retained the 85 degree temperature. I call down to the front desk, and am told "Unfortunately sir, this is a hotel wide issue, but 85 degrees does seems a bit hot, I'll bring up keys to a different room."

Fair enough, I'm trying to keep my composure while I lay sweating in a bed for the next 35 minutes. (the windows are superglued shut, so no cool breeze for me.)

35 minutes later, I'm met with a knock on the door. "I'm terribly sorry sir, but this is a hotel wide issue. I personally checked the next room, and it is 75 degrees."

Needless to say, I spent the majority of the night sweating in bed.

Fair enough though, so far regardless of the issues, the staff have been very nice (and to be fair, this has been an ongoing thing. I had not run into a single rude member of staff and I will not for the rest of this story...... but things still manage to get worse.)

I sleep, I wake up, and my buddy who's the groom for the wedding tells me to come to his place to get changed to go to the wedding (I am a groomsman in the wedding.)

I left the hotel in a pair of shorts and a white t-shirt (thank god I did this)

Wedding goes fantastic, wind up going to a bar with a few people afterwards and then back to the hotel.

When I arrived back to the hotel, I wanted to take a shower, but upon entering the bathroom, realized my EVO shampoo and EVO conditioner was missing. My bar of soap that I had brought, and my deodorant was missing..... wait... where was my beard oil, where the heck is my toothbrush?

As I leave the bathroom, I realize my wireless phone charger is missing (my phone will only charge wirelessly) and hey, where the heck is my bag of clothes?

I left the room to make sure I was indeed in the correct room (I WAS) upon calling the front desk, I was greeted with someone at my door telling my it seems as though housekeeping had cleaned my room as though I had checked out........ HOW.

Brand new bottle of shampoo, brand new bottle of conditioner, brand new beard oil........ actual absurdity..

I'm told house keeping is not around until 8AM the next morning. So the next morning I go to the front desk to check on my stuff.

The woman at the front desk (still genuinely nice about things and I cannot knock her personally) goes to get her manager. Her manager brings my duffle bag with clothing and my phone charger in it. So I did manage to get my clothes back, however all of my toiletries were entirely thrown out and disposed of. The EVO shampoo is anywhere from $25-30 as is the conditioner. The Reuzel beard oil is $20-25. Dove mens plus deodorant, and a $9 bar of duke cannon soap. All now missing.

I was offered a free breakfast and the possibility of having points added to my account for the potential of a free night at another marriott.....

I don't dislike the staff, the were truly nice about everything that happened.... but I do feel like I was robbed.

I don't want a simple response from the management. I want my stuff back. I want my money back. That's it, I will not accept...

The Mystic Marriott Hotel fails at the most basic function of a hotel: providing a good night sleep.

I went to Mystic because I needed a restful break for two nights, and instead I lost a lot of sleep due to the hotel's unprofessional management practices.

On check in, I met with two hotel staff members behind the front desk, one of whom seemed to be in the midst of some sort of personally taxing issue (not sure what, but he has my sympathy) the other of whom acted in a professional way within the bounds allowed to her by the hotel's unprofessional management.

I explained to her that I have a sleep disorder and my sleep cycle is substantially delayed, so I would like to make use of the "Guaranteed 4 p.m. late checkout" given to people with Marriott Bonvoy platinum elite status or higher, which I have (titanium elite) and I did. This was three days before my departure date.

I was told by this front desk staff member that the 4pm late check out is only available "subject to availability" but she would ask her manager the following day on my behalf.

I pointed out that, as per the Marriott's coporate policy displayed on the website, the language regarding late check outs as "subject to availability" is found only in the benefits for "gold elite" and lower, and "Guaranteed 4 p.m late check out" is spelled out explicitly for "platinum elite" and higher Marriott Bonvoy members.

I noted, further, that while the "Guaranteed 4 p.m late check out" carries a loophole on the Marriott hotel website for resort and convention hotels, the Mystic Marriott is not classified as a resort or convention hotel on the Marriott hotel directory, so it cannot make use of this loophole.

I was told by the front desk employee that they would not honor the Marriott corporate policy used to advertise their hotel - which amounts to false advertising - but would request a 4pm check out from the general manager the following day.

This hotel benefits from the Marriott bonvoy brand, but it refuses to follow Marriott policies for guests - benefitting from false representation.

I then found that this problem was severely compounded by the hotel's inadquate air conditioning. I did not sleep the first night of my stay because the air conditioning would not adequately cool the room.

This hotel advertises air conditioning, but it is only nominally air conditioned.

This hotel uses verdant thermostats that are programmed to display a falsely low temperature, deceiving guests for the sake of saving money. While this is a common way for cheaper hotels to cut corners when they don't care about customer retention or presume that their customers are stupid, the gap between the displayed temperature and actual temperature was egregious even by cheap hotel standards, let alone a mid-market hotel. This was made even more obnoxious by the fact that the thermostat was programmed to prevent an occupant from using the continuous fan function, all while falsely displaying the continuous fan function on. This can be overridden by the engineering staff.

I explained the situation to the front desk staff, emphasizing that I really needed to get a cold temperature to sleep well. They were reasonably professional, which I appreciated. They reported that their engineering team had gone home, but would override the 'energy saving' setting the following day.

This didn't happen.

No engineer came the following day, and no manager was contacted to review the late check out request because the manager did not show up that day, according to the front desk staff.

So, I slept badly a second night.

This was very frustrating, but I was assured by a new set of front desk staff the following night that they would contact the manager the following day to request the late check out, so I could at least catch up on sleep.

The late check out was not honored and I was woken by hotel cleaning staff, getting only a couple of hours of...

I stayed at the Mystic this week from Sat - Wed for a business conference I had in Old Lyme. When searching for a hotel there were a lot of options but I was worried about an area I was unfamiliar with and staying with a brand I was not aware of, so I chose to pay more and stay at the Mystic Marriott. I will say the hotel was beautiful, the bar was busy and had good serve and friendly staff. My main issues were with the service and professionalism of the front desk / hospitality team.

When I arrived, I had previously called that week to notify the hotel I would be arriving late in the evening but was confirming my stay. I arrived after 5 hours of flights and an hour drive from the airport to check in. I waited for approximately 20 mins to get checked in because apparently they could not find my reservation. When I show confirmation numbers, emails, etc they didn't even look. The young lady then told me she found in in their "second system". What is that? Not very efficient in my opinion and a bit unsettling that if someone else came to get a room would mine have been given away due to a second system? It was resolved and they got me in a room. I go to my room and immediately notice it's right by the elevator and also a ADA room. Not a huge deal, but there was no tub, which a hot bath was definitely on my schedule after a long travel day. The room was clean and the bedding was amazing as Marriotts normally are. The room was very noisy and I could hear people yelling and running through the halls all night long. I could hear the people next to my rooms tv. So if you are a light sleeper (I am not) I would suggest ear plugs.

Then the next day I go to leave and notice there was no do not disturb sign to place on the door. I normally do not like them to come in and only call for towels as needed. Since there was not a sign I went to check for a safe, but did not find one. None the less, I figured it was fine.

When I returned I noticed that they took the dirty towels but did not replace them. But it was late and felt like I would just deal with it in the morning. So the next morning I get up go to make coffee, and to my surprise they did not refill the coffee and tea box either. So I call to the front desk and ask for towels and coffee and sugar be sent up since housekeeping failed to do it. The woman who answered the front desk said she could send someone up once the housekeeping was "on site". She did not offer to help me otherwise. Housekeeping apparently doesn't arrive to 8am...so be sure to not need anything before 8am. She then told me I could try to call the restaurant and ask for sugar myself. You want me to call the restaurant? So I explained that I would be gone for my meeting before and could I at least get a do not disturb sign since housekeeping isn't doing anything but making the bed at this point. She said that "once they were on site she would have one brought up". Which actually never happened.

Night two - I get back and no towels are replenished, coffee not replenished, yet the last towel was taken. I was over it and fed up at this point

I travel quite often and have stayed at Marriott's all over the country. I have never been disappointed. To have paid over 1k for 4 nights and to not receive great service is not acceptable in my opinion. I own a service based business. Things happen. One offs. But over 4 nights and 5 days, there was no redemption. No apology. Just a can't help you. I will definitely choose a different hotel in Mystic next time I am there. This is just not on brand for how I know Marriott's to run their hotels and it was greatly...