JW Marriott Indianapolis — Hotel in Indianapolis

I was booked here as an invited guest from IU and it was a series of disappointments. First, on checking in, I was given a plethora of credits from my interviewers which the Marriott staff encouraged me to use. Looking at their in-room dining menu, it was 80% non vegetarian (I’m a vegetarian) so I called them to discuss if they could make simple changes such as maybe take meat off the nachos/take shrimp off the pasta dish for me to eat. After 20-30 minutes of back and forth, I was told no. I ended up ordering fries (which were worth 10$ based on menu pricing) I was told to sign on a room service bill of 29$ (steep upslope to bring a 10$ dish to the room in my opinion). I did it anyway, they brought it to my room, its fine. I made a point not to order anything again, credit or no credit.

Next morning’s breakfast was delicious but the service was painfully slow- showed up for a meal 1 hour before my interview departure, still ended up having to hurry out of the door (took them 35 minutes to get a simple order in, made several mistakes in something as simple as egg white omelet and toast - forgot to even bring out toast till 5 minutes before my meal ended)

This was followed by receiving a Folio at 2 AM in the morning which read “79$ being charged to your incidentals card” I was outraged I called them to discuss it further at 3 AM since I couldn’t go back to sleep after this. Turns out, there’s a 25$ a night attraction fee. In Indianapolis. LOL. At first, the manager didn’t want to hear it, kept saying “talk to expedia”. Once she finally understood that I DIDNT EVEN BOOK MY ROOM, Im an invited guest, we worked something out.

I thought this will be the end of my woes here. But no, I tried to order a coffee early in the morning that I would go down and pick up (no more 150% room service upcharge) they couldn’t even connect me to their restaurant. So I physically went down 15 minutes before another virtual interview to grab my coffee- they told me their phones have stopped working LOL. I was like sure, I’m about to check out, whatever. Just give me coffee and let me go.

But no- thats not where it ends. A housekeeper knocked through my one virtual call endlessly despite me telling her I’m in a meeting. I then went to check out with my one room service receipt to be told I have a 0$ balance (thank god). Once I LEFT, I received ANOTHER bill for 29$. They tried to charge me AGAIN for that room service bill that shouldve been 9$ essentially after adjusting for daily credit. Several phone calls later this is resolved. But what a tedious journey. Beds are nice. But...

UPDATE: as you can see from their reply here, they still won’t own up to doing construction during the time period that we literally have a video of them continuing to be disruptive. Exhausting to continue to be gaslit about something so easy to just own up to.

Really wanted to like my stay but ultimately impossible to leave anything but a negative review given several experiences mostly related around poor service.

I arrived at 1am, found the front desk moved due to construction but staff was helpful and attentive. I got to my room and the AC was set to 74 but was 78° on the thermostat. I called down for help but got ai operator which wasn’t helpful and messaged through the app asking just for a fan. They instead sent up the engineer who was quite nice but said “it was cooling and since no one had been in there for awhile it had heated up. He said it was going to be down to 65° within 30 to 45 minutes. It never got below 70° during my stay.

Additionally the lock to the door died and had to get help. Again tried to call but ai so had to go down and wait in a lengthy line to get help. Went back up to my room, the machine they had to fix it didn’t work, had to get another one, and the process took about 30 minutes all in. I was assured I wouldn’t need a new key and yet the next time I came to the room neither the room key nor app worked so again back down, wait in line, get a key.

Most importantly though, we were attending for a conference where we were doing several trainings but the noise from the ongoing construction was incredibly disruptive. After the first day we reached out and no response for help. During the second training I messaged through the app and was told a manager was coming. They never did though staff later told me they did and spoke with the person “in charge in the room” and that they didn’t hear any noise. Obviously that want the case. They assured me the construction would stop for our 3pm sessions. It didn’t. They then assured me the noise didn’t occur during the time and when I said I had a video they changed their tune.

For all of this, after gaslighting me and lying repeatedly about managers coming to the rescue and such, they offered to “purchase” 10,000 points on my behalf.

I had not asked for points and understand some things happen and can’t be controlled, but lying repeatedly and then finally offering pennies in return seems wild.

And finally, my booking didn’t include a destination fee but they added it anyway. Working to get it removed since this isn’t compliant to add but another annoyance that I shouldn’t have...

Do NOT stay at this hotel. They overbook the hotel during events (to the point that they plan ahead and contract backup rooms at other, lesser hotels before they even run out of space), and then treat you like you're the problem and refuse to offer any reasonable solutions.

We had several double queen rooms booked for our staff for an event at the convention center, called on Thursday to confirm all of the rooms and ensure payment was set up, and yet had 3+ rooms unable to check in over the weekend because they were full (I know of 3 but I believe other people in our group had issues that they resolved on their own). At some point they recommended a member of our group sign up for their loyalty program because "we prioritize our members when giving out the last rooms," despite our rooms being booked with a Marriott account.

They then offered us single king bed rooms at other hotels, but refused to replace the double queen rooms with double queen rooms or book more than three replacement king rooms, meaning we had unrelated staff that were expect to share a bed. Ultimately we ended up with two king rooms at a hotel two blocks away, and one king room at a hotel nearly a mile away with two small air mattresses (see attached photo). This was their solution for 5 unrelated adults and one 17 year old who no longer had beds. Upon explaining to the top manager on duty that we had people who could not share beds (including one minor who we had to have parental permission granted to share a room but absolutely could not share a bed), she said "I understand, I'll see what I can do," walked into the back, clocked out, and left out the back of the hotel. When she didn't come back out for 30+ minutes, we asked the desk workers and they said her shift was over, she left, and she had not told them about any issues they needed to resolve.

Hotels of this size seem to think that they can do anything they want and that there are no repercussions, but know that if you book at this hotel, you may or may not have a room and they will have no interest in helping you in any reasonable way. Our 6 beds at their hotel attached to the convention center were replaced with 3 beds and 2 air mattresses at hotels that were not attached to the convention center (1 bed and 2 air mattresses that were not reasonably walkable during...