Lafayette Hotel — Hotel in Marietta

The Lafayette is a charming hotel with a great location in downtown Marietta. It is a quick walk to many great dining establishments and areas of historical interest. Walking around the hotel you really do get a sense of how impressive it must have been back in the day. The hotel is not very updated with modern furnishings so if you are looking to kick back in some of that old-world charm there is a lot to enjoy.

We stayed in the Riverview King Parlor with Balcony (room 208). The description of the room on the website says “This grand room has one king sized bed, a private balcony, and a parlor that offers guests a comfortable sitting area that lets them sit back, relax and take in the views of the Ohio River.” However, this is not an accurate description of the room we stayed in.

The high ceilings are nice but the room is not much larger than your standard hotel room. Given the hotel’s age I guess this is understandable. However, the “parlor” is just an empty mini bar and two regular chairs next to the bed. It is not remotely possible to see the river from the “parlor”. In fact, you don’t get a good view of the river from the balcony either. A better description would have been “balcony with view of the buildings across the street”. The river can be seen if you sit on the far edge of the balcony. Unfortunately, it’s in the background past the street and parking lot. There is hardly even enough room for two people to sit next to each other while looking at it since the balcony is so narrow. It was so unimpressive my wife and I didn’t even bother sitting on the balcony the whole trip.

Our particular room was difficult to sleep in. The roof outside the window where our A/C unit sat had a LOT of humming and buzzing noises that came and went every half hour or so. Another disappointment was that every night around midnight there was a group of (drunken) people outside of the hotel lobby yelling. Cars were revving their engines as they sped up and down the street below the window. While those last two items can’t necessarily be attributed to the hotel itself it is something to keep in mind if you have a room that sits along Front Street.

We had dinner at the Bar and Grill one night and breakfast in the Gun Room the following morning. The food was good in both places but neither is spectacular. If you want to dine at a bar and grill establishment The Marietta Brewing Company is a short walk down the street from the hotel and was MUCH better for the same money.

If you are looking for a charming hotel and want to feel closer to history then there is a lot to like about the Lafayette. However, it might pay to be wary of the exaggerated descriptions for the rooms. The disappointment we experienced colored our vacation in a negative light. I personally would not stay there again but I would give it a 3.5 out of 5 for someone looking for an authentic...

I truly regret spending money at this hotel. From start to finish, the experience was frustrating and disappointing — especially given the $400+ nightly rate.||||At check-in, the concierge made us feel like a burden rather than a guest. He was curt, unhelpful, and provided no information about amenities or even basic hotel orientation, despite all the flashy marketing touting them. When our room was finally ready, no one offered to help us with our luggage. Instead, we were left to roll our bags through the middle of the crowded pool area and then navigate a confusing maze just to reach the room. It felt absurdly inconvenient and beneath the level of service you’d expect from a hotel at this price point.||||The pool club itself was the worst part of the stay. It was overrun with L.A. day-trippers blasting music and “reserving” chairs they didn’t use for hours. The hotel clearly prioritizes selling day passes over caring for overnight guests, leaving paying customers with no space to enjoy the pool. It felt chaotic and overcrowded, not at all like the exclusive “resort” atmosphere the hotel pretends to offer.||||The interior design may look stylish on Instagram, but it’s just wallpaper over an uncomfortable, tense environment. The same theme carried through to other “amenities.” The bowling alley, which is heavily promoted, turned out to be just two lanes — impossible to reasonably accommodate guests. Service at the attached cocktail bar was laughably slow; it took over 20 minutes just to try to close a tab, and we ended up leaving because it was such a mess.||||Our dinner reservation at Quixote was equally bad. Despite booking ahead, we were placed at the worst table in the restaurant, crammed near the bar with people constantly hovering around us. We sat for 15 minutes without even being offered water, let alone service. Eventually, we gave up and left — hungry and irritated.||||The only positives: the room itself, which was small but comfortable, and the early morning concierge at checkout, who was kind and professional.||||The Lafayette tries so hard to be “unique” and “curated,” but the reality is a pretentious, overcrowded, and poorly managed hotel blanketed in loud wallpaper and cheetah-print fabric. It attracts exactly the kind of Instagram-hungry, entitled crowd you’d hope to avoid on vacation — and unfortunately, the staff doesn’t rise above that energy.||||Save your money and...

This review is specifically for the rooms, the staff and the management. My husband and I had a room block for our guests to reserve for our wedding, and we also booked a suite for myself (night before the wedding) so my bridesmaids and our mothers could get ready there. When we checked in, we were given keys to a one room hotel room with a full bathroom... not the two or three room suite with a kitchenette like they told us. After speaking to the front desk we were told there was a roof leak in the room we had originally booked, so this was the best they could offer. Our only other option was to get ready in an ugly, tiled, mirrorless room without a bathroom in the basement of the hotel. The staff brushed our concerns off, and when we would try to speak to any staff member other than Julie (the manager) who wasn't very helpful either, all of the staff members just passed the buck off to Julie and didn't want to provide any type of customer service. The staff said they called the other guests staying in suites to see if they would switch (and no one was willing), I don't believe they spoke with the person in the room with the "roof leak" because we spoke with them. They were right across from the room we were in, and it was only wet in the bedroom next to the jacuzzi tub. The man in that room said once he checked in, all of the fans were removed that were drying the carpet, and they were being charged the same rate we were. They had a 2 room suite, we had a 1 room suite, and their room wasn't discounted at all from the water problem. Not only were we very frustrated by the entire situation, all of the guests that stayed in the hotel for our room block said the rooms smelled, they were damp, some of them weren't given the hotel bags that we dropped off, and they said the front desk staff was rude also. Too many people want to stay at this hotel because of its history/charm, but they are paying for crappy service, rude staff, and uncomfortable rooms. My cousins had a better experience at The Red Roof Inn for less than $60 a night, while we paid $160 for our room because they only discounted it $30 after all of the inconvenience and problems we had. I would caution anyone booking a room here, especially for weddings. We wish we would have stayed somewhere else and our...