Marriott Marquis Houston — Hotel in Houston

UPDATE 7/30/24

Insurance approved my claim with the video evidence and pictures. Do not believe any response otherwise. Final damages caused by Towne Center were $2,216 in damages. Avoid management who evades responsibility and fails to take accountability. Do not let soft spoken & professional replies by management overshadow outcome. Original review:

This review is largely about the following three items:

1. Valet Damage to Vehicle
2. Management Lack of Response
3. Food Poisoning

POINT 1

On 5/19 my vehicle was dropped off at valet. It had no signs of damage or issues. This occurred at 1pm. I enjoyed the pool amenities as a guest and around 430PM my child became ill and complaining of her stomach. Upon entry to the lounge she vomitted (captured on cameras) and we were forced to leave. Upon arrival of our vehicle (around 530pm time) we noticed scratches and some undercarriage issues. I spoke with one of the employees who said Mr. Azer Lopez was not there and we would need to call tomorrow. We took our ticket and I took my daughter home.

I sent an email immediately following up to Marriot management, It resulted in several bouncing around, non connections and repeated attempts to contact someone.

Only after threatening a smear campaign nearly 3 weeks after the event did we solicit a response.

I provided video evidence, time date stamp, and explained most of the damage was done under the carriage (nearly 7k worth of damages).

I was quote by Mercedes car dealership and sent detailed response.

After a 60 day ordeal they denied the claim despite 1) corroborating witnesses, 2) documented photos and calls, 3) documented video evidence, and 4) repeated email communications showing it was the result of some type of striking of a non moving object.

I filed a claim with my insurance company USAA thank God who will now take them to court. There will be numerous subpoenas and witness testimonies. I will come to update this review once they are found negligent.

POINT 2

The property manager called me exactly one (1) time after three weeks and failure to have valet properly contact me. It took legal threats, public smear campaigns and social media leverage to get her to respond. I wasn't until 6/7/24 did Juliana Cavazos care to respond. When I called her back and sent her emails radio silence.

I am a platinum 8 year Marriot Bonvoy member. Never before have I experienced such marginalization from staff and insulting dismissal.

POINT 3

My child ordered a hamburger and immediately within 45 mins became ill and started vomiting. Keep in mind this was after the tornado when all of houston lost power. The likelihood a freezer failure occurred is extremely high and most likely was due to the reason she became ill. I am positive it was because she was served spoiled or bad meat. When we stayed the night this one of the only hotels which had power come back on. there is the preponderance of evidence this is probably what occurred.

Did I get an apology? no. Did anyone address the issue? no. Did anyone even give me simple courtesy to recognize the event? no. The staff did and helped my child. It is all recorded on 5/19 around 4pm. Everyone can clearly see a child throwing up in the M Lounge.

IN CLOSING

This has been one of the least integrity driven management cultures in Marriot. the senior staff not only refuses to take any form of responsibility but have made deliberate attempts to 1) ignore 2) suppress sending camera video evidence from their property to confirm my own video evidence and 3) exhibit the lowest form of professionalism in handling a proven 8 year platinum Marriot guest with little to no track record of this type of behavior.

The senior staff should be ashamed of themselves and replaced. A terrible reflection of Marriott and a horrible horrendous display of the worst type of management available in all of North America when it comes to handling anything but routine duties.

I would give the staff a -100 if possible. Do not let valet handle your vehicle and avoid Towne Park Valet services...

2nd EDIT 08/15/2025: Notice the canned response at end of this post from Anthony Smetana, Director of Room Operations, with no hint of trying to resolve the issue with the guest. As someone who has worked in SEO for decades, I can tell you THEY DON"T CARE. Look at the bad reviews they have similar condolences with essentially, "We hope you come back, we might be able to change our behavior." Add a smiley face Anthony, PROVE YOU CARE WITH IT! (If there is an Anthony Smetana there at all...)

EDIT: I wrote the original on 8/08/2025 and checked in on the next day. I stayed one night, had two rooms and checked out today, 8/10. First, I did get a call from a manager and she was pleasant and adjusted the price to where it was only $10 higher than what I originally saw. I had asked to check in early and was told I would be able to. I arrived about 2:45 for early checkin of about an hour. I was told I would need to wait as the room was not ready. I was given a pass to the 24 hr. "members" lounge and found it to be essentially closed, but with cookies and coffee. I was called at 4:10 that my room was ready and I guess me getting to the room at 4:30 was no issue... for them. I went down to the pool area to meet my friend and her daughter and it was overrun due to them selling anyone access to it. The good of this visit was Antoinette at the front desk: Pleasant, smiling, helpful and trying to please. This morning for Breakfast we had Tommy who was absolutely someone who should be working at a better hotel or restaurant. I tipped him generously. The REAL: Sat. eve I went to the front desk to request a later checkout and was met by a surly, unhappy, nasty young lady. You would have thought I had asked her to loan me money. She made it very clear I was not ALLOWED to ask for a late check out until the day of. No, "I'm sorry sir but we are booked so heavily we can only give you that answer tomorrow; could you please call down as soon as you wake up?" Then, when I did call down around 7 a.m. I was met with a similar response. Angrily stated the most we can do is let you check out at noon!! Considering that is a normal checkout at most hotels and as a gold member I get until 2 pm 'when available,' I am at a loss as to how the culture is to attack the guests and put them in their place. Who do they think we are here for!?!?!? My friend went down to ask if she could get a late check out and was similarly attacked but in a much more negative way surrounded by other guests. The housekeeper for my room was fantastic as well, but the pool should just be demolished or made only for outsiders and no Marriott guests. No one who works there acts as if they want to be there. IT IS OVERRUN WITH PEOPLE. Oh, the guy cleaning the tile in the lazy river was also charming. So, the main customer facing people suck, but they have a few lower paid people who actually make it tolerable because their happiness outshines the management and front desk staff.

Original Review: 08/08/2025 I went through 3 people today and none of them could fix the problem they created. The first was likely in Indonesia and kept me on hold for 20 minutes. Another, John, could not fix it except for raising the price then mentioned a survey and something about a discounted stay because of my difficulty then I realized it was them trying to sell me time shares! He asked me to speak with his supervisor and I said, Please. The lady came on and was pleasant and in the end NOTHING CHANGED. Oh, accept the price went up over $50 on the room from my original reservation and an extra 10K points for my reward room. THEN SHE TRIED TO SELL ME TIMESHARES!!!!!!!! So a Gold Marriott member with a lot of stays is worth nothing to Marriott. Unfortunately, there is no way to rate Marriott so you just have to rate the hotels badly.

See the above post about the hotel and you realize the culture comes from the top down...

Disclaimer: My stay here was only for 2 days + 1 night, and I stayed with my wife + 2 young kids (6 +4 year old) , so this review is through that lens. ||Having grown up in H-town, I knew the lay of the land and expectations (ie lots of roads and concrete) however I was pretty surprised when my wife found this hotel in downtown Houston with a "Texas shaped" lazy river. We decided we needed to check this place out on the weekend after a long work trip had me end up in Houston, and my wife only 3+ hours away in Dallas. ||First off this hotel is located right next to the ballpark, as well as the convention center downtown, so its a happening place for sure with lots of foot traffic. The hotel is pretty large, with 3 restaurants + 1 café, and of course the main attraction, the 6th floor "rooftop" lazy river + infinity pool. I used a free night voucher from Marriott that was about to expire + points top up to get a room here, looking at the normal hotel rates I had a bit of sticker shock as it was over $500 for the basic room. More on that later. ||Pros: |- Room was decent sized, clean, and comfortable. Large windows and ceiling made it feel bigger than it really was, sadly ours faced the roof of the convention center so not much to look at there.|- Staff was super nice and attentive, everyone we interacted with was very pleasant and helpful, we had zero issues with any staff/ servers.|-Roof top pool/river - Clean, plenty of towels, and pretty decent service. It was a bit windy during our stay but the pool area was pretty big, you sort of forget that it is on a roof. |- Food we had was good (not counting Bfast), we had dinner at the sports bar (Biggios) and it was great, however extremely packed even at 8:30 PM Saturday night. ||Cons:|- Pool area is absolutely packed. They offer "day passes" just for the pool, so even if you aren't staying in the hotel you can still access the pool+river. This created a massive amount of people at all times. They also have certain areas where you have to "rent" a chair for minimum of $30 (single standard pool chair, not a day bed or cabana - those cost more). This seemed a little ridiculous for the price they already charge for the room. If your staying in the hotel, you should be able to pick any pool chair, this would help create value and actual incentive to stay here. |- Lazy river is not very wide, so expect lots of bumping into people given the above point of it being packed nearly all hours. Parts of the river "floor" are falling apart so some maintenance is definitely needed. |- Breakfast/Marriott Elite - You get $25 food and beverage credit and access to the M lounger for Breakfast and snacks at specific times, at first this seemed great, but when we went for breakfast it appears that everyone has access to the M lounge. We had to divide and conquer to just find a table (no hostess) and then wait in line for mass produced hot lamp standard egg+bacon+sausage etc etc. Pretty big letdown, again, given the cost of a night here. |- Road noise, I realize this is not really the hotels "fault" by if your room faces the CC and its the weekend, better bring some ear plugs + pop melatonin because you are going to hear extremely loud cars doing burnouts/ music blasting/ people shouting. We were on the 9th floor and it sounded like the fast and the furious until about 3 AM. ||Overall, this hotel has a value proposition problem, I don't see any reason to actually stay here, as you can get a day pass for the pool area, and the price of the room is extremely high. There isn't much value in being an elite member and although the staff was excellent and we didn't have any major issues, I can't justify the price tag. If you're in the area, I would recommend to stay somewhere more affordable and just walk over and get a day pass for the pool area. You get access to the best part of this hotel without the steep...