Residence Inn by Marriott Palo Alto Menlo Park — Hotel in Menlo Park

DO NOT STAY HERE!! HORRIBLE HOTEL ETIQUETTE! SCAM I used to work at a hotel so i know this is all just bad news here. they are scamming and taking advantage of people. On 3/31/17 I experienced a very upsetting and disturbing stay at the residence inn of menlo park. First of all, we usually stay at the one in san mateo but the penthouse we booked had an unexpected overnight stay. I always stay there with same friends and never experience any issues. The staff is very friendly. Unfortunately, they directed us to stay at the one in Menlo Park. We were iffy on it because we never been there but ended up giving it a shot. It is a 2 bedroom,full living room room so we thought we would be able to all be comfortable. These people are rude, prejudice, lying, thieves. The other night me and my boyfriend rented out a big 2 room suite so that me and a few friends could stay there. It was $300 with a $250 deposit. We had the tv radio station on and got a call complaint about the noise. The lady was very rude about it yet we complied with kindness. She even threatened to evict us if she had to call again. (something they do a lot to make a quick buck) they even said we had too many people there at the time (only 7 people) and told us there was no partying? Stupid assumption but fine whatever. The lady told us we could only have 5 people so we asked our friends who were not staying the night, to leave. Now, it is a no smoking hotel and we fully respected this so we went outside and in the designated areas to smoke. When we came back in, the lady called and told us we need to leave at 3 am. Shocked and upset we asked her why and very rudely and ignorantly she replied “i'm not stupid i know you guys are partying” a few moments later she is at our door and me, annoyed, I pointed to our only 5 guests in the room , 2 of which were sleeping. She looked us up and down as if she was profiling us and said “i don't care you have to go or im calling the cops” now we are very confused, tired, and upset. Not wanting to deal with trouble, we packed our things and left. 2 people even had to sleep in their car because they had been drinking and woken up and didn't want to drive like that. And the lady was aware of this and did not care. The next day we notice they took our $250 deposit as well as an extra $300 charge on our card. Mind you, nothing was broken or thrashed, the room was in normal condition, no trash even laying around. I called and spoke with the manager, esmeralda, who spoke to me in a belittling manner. Asking her to send us smoking evidence, because this is not right at all. She was very rude as well and even laughed at me on the phone. I asked her why we were evicted and she said we had too many people in the room, that it is only 4 people allowed. I told her we only had 5 which is what we were told was ok and she stuttered and said oh well i don't know the allowed amount, it's actually about the smoking, we found weed. (weed is legal to have in california and still proves nothing of smoking inside the room. So I said ok, well send me this evidence then. She said she would and never did… I am still working on this injustice but bottom line is, these people switch their words and take advantage of kind complying people. There was absolutely no reason to kick us out and take our money. We did every single thing they asked, and they only gave us one rude warning before kicking us out. I genuinely feel they saw what we look like and took advantaged of us.. Don't let this happen to you. Go to a kinder and more...

As a Marriott Titanium Elite member I stay at Marriott hotels often; I have never had the bad luck of staying at a Marriott with a rail road 50 feet from my room. I had the misfortune of being in room # 207-A (AKA one of the rooms directly facing and closest to the rail road; fyi and there are a lot of these direct rail road view rooms!) During the busiest parts of the day the train passes by 4 times an hour but the minimum is 2 times an hour and the train hours run 5 AM to Midnight! As you can imagine I had two sleepless nights at this hotel, luckily my stay wasn't a business trip because I would have been a zombie the next day at the office! I made this room reservation over two months prior to my stay, as a Titanium Elite member I would have appreciated being given a room away from the rail road but it seems like the management at this hotel does not give priority to the Marriott loyalty program members (not even a Titanium Elite Member) Aside from this very significant issue there were other lessor problems. After driving 6 hours to get to this hotel with small children, I check in and was provided two room keys. We unload the kids and luggage and walk over to the door in building A and find that our room keys do not work. So I had to leave my spouse with our kids and all of our luggage and walk over to the other side of the property to get a pair of room keys that actually work. We ordered food via Postmates several times. We asked our postmate delivery person to leave the food at our door but it turns out the front desk did not allow him to enter the hotel they were required to leave the food at a table in the lobby. I called the front desk to find out if this was true, as this never happens at other Marriotts and sure enough the postmate delivery persons were not allowed to enter per hotel policy...so on three different occasions I had to walk over to the front desk to pick up my food but on the last day of my stay, I hear a knock on the door of my room and find that a hotel employee had brought me my Postmates delivery. I thanked him and said oh I though Postmates were not allowed into the hotel, he replied I am a hotel employee and that is correct the delivery drivers can't enter the hotel but we are happy to bring up the food...I was never offered this option the first time I inquired about the food delivery policy. On the flip side the room was very spacious and well kept and the property is in great condition. The room has a sound machine to drown out the train noise (which did nothing for me) as well as ear plugs which I did not use. The bedroom window has an extra pane of glass over the window frame to help reduce the train noise as well as a really thick sound absorbing curtain to again "help" with the train noise. I can see that management / ownership has made efforts to mitigate the train noise but the efforts don't do anything for the constant blaring train horn that make staying at this hotel, at least for...

The only reason I'm giving this hotel 2 stars is because the staff members were very kind and friendly during my stay, plus the prices are reasonable for the area. I stayed for four nights as part of a business trip.

But here are all the reasons I'm never staying at this hotel again:

Located right next to Caltrain -- I stayed in Building A on the third floor and consider myself a heavy sleeper. This hotel is situated very close to the caltrain; so close that you'll hear it pass by every 15 minutes, plus the ground and room will rumble and shake everytime it speeds by. Thank god the caltrain stops running for certain hours of the night, otherwise I woudn't have been able to get at least 3 hours of sleep every night.

Outdated vent/fan systems create loud noise -- Apart from the noise coming from the Caltrain (which by itself is enough to keep you awake), the room vent system and fan is so outdated and old that everytime the heat/cool turns on and off, it makes a racket of a noise jolting you back awake at night. I've tried turning on the whitenoise machine (also, how bad can it be that hotel needs to have a whitenoise machine for its guests) but I still could not sleep past that. Eventually my only option was to turn it OFF entirely. My room heated up to a toasty 75 degrees which was way too hot for me but I preferred that over waking up to the AC every 10 minutes.

Breakfast had spoiled food -- I was running late one morning and grabbed a hard boiled egg from the complimentary breakfast and the egg was clearly spoilt and tasted sour. I have no idea how long they store the foods // re-serve to guests the next day but I would not eat the breakfast at this hotel other than the bananas and apples they provide.

Not major problem but my minor nit -- Elevator needs maintenance/repair. If you ever watched the sloth in Zootopia, the elevator going up to Building A rooms at this hotel is that Sloth. It is so slow to open -- overall it felt really janky and took forever to get in and out of the lobby into my room. There was a sign saying there needed maintenance but it was really annoying.

I do want to say the staff was kind and friendly, but there's no way in the world I am returning to this hotel for this price -- there are plenty of airbnbs in the area so I would recommend...