W Minneapolis - The Foshay — Hotel in Minneapolis

This is by far the worst Starwood experience I have had to date. As a brand new "Gold" member, this was a hugely disappointing... as I was expecting a little more from being a SPG, not less.

This is the first time, in visiting over 20 Starwood hotels in the past one year, that the front desk person did not make an effort to get to know us, or to inquire if there was anything she could do to make our stay better. She was disengaged, and did not seem to care one bit about the hotel, their guests, or her performance.

We emailed the manager about three days before the stay, requesting a rollaway be in the room before we got there, for our son. I received confirmation back that this would be done... It was not. We called down when we got there to request the bed. They said it would be up soon. We waited, and waited. After 90 minutes we decided to leave, when we opened the door the housekeeper was there with bed. She then turned around and left! She left the bed in the hallway, and we had to maneuver it into a corner room on our own. Let me tell you, this is hugely difficult without dinging up the walls. It is a tight fit around a very small corner. My husband pushed the bed into the room while I tried to direct it. I ended up smushed in the corner, and the bed ran over my foot. Is this Starwood service? I know from experience that it is not, so I seriously question the Category 5 classification. I've stayed at category 3 Starwood hotels for less, leaps and bounds better than this. They also didn't send pillows with the bed, so we had to call back down for those.

Other service complaints:

They do not recognize SPG status. This 27 story hotel was not busy during our stay. As a gold SPG member, I was put in a 4th floor corner room with my window facing a huge brick wall less than 4 feet from the window... The upper 10 stories have sweeping views of the Minneapolis skyline. The hotel had ample opportunity to put me in a high story room, and I have right to those rooms given my status. No sir, not here.

As a gold member, I have right to a 4pm checkout as well. The front desk lady wrote noon checkout on my card at check in. I called right away and told her that we would need check out at 4pm. She said she updated it. On checkout day, we leave the hotel for lunch. We come back, wait 8 minutes for the hotel elevator, come to find out that our key cards had been deactivated at noon. We had to leave our elevator, to go have the cards deactivated. Our son wanted to see the 27th floor before we checked out, but they didn't give us access to that floor, so we said never mind, not worth the time or hassle. We honestly couldn't wait to leave.

Other complaints: awkward rooms, they do not recognize SPG status, no pool.

Good things: Mannys is amazing, highly recommended (not worth staying at W however), and the hotel is connected to the skyway making...

W Minneapolis: #1 choice for hosting an underage after-prom party for 20+ teenagers.

Marriott offers several affordable options for luxury hotels in the Minneapolis region. We ultimately decided to stay at the W Foshay Hotel in Minneapolis due to previous positive experiences with the W brand in Washington DC, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Las Vegas. We are saddened that our honeymoon with the W Hotel has ended with this trip. I'll frame our experience with three negotiations I had to conduct with the front desk in our attempt to recapture our experience at other W Hotels.

As Bonvoy members, we have previously received automatic upgrades to the best rooms available in DC, NOLA, and Vegas, which resulted in life changing memorable experiences. However, staff at this hotel fights for all "favors" gifts to its guests. It denied our suite night upgrade in advance, and then we requested an upgrade at check-in. We needed to complain about our cold small room with stained furniture to get an upgraded corner king on the 22nd floor.

We decided to check-out early because we didn't like the hotel and there are many other options in the Minneapolis area. The manager advised of early departure fee of one night rent. This required escalation to waive the fee even though our primary complaint was dissatisfaction with this W Hotel.

W Hotel management rented the adjacent room to underage teenagers who hosted an after prom party Saturday night (26 Apr). We called the front desk twice (around 9:30pm and 11pm) to complain about the noise (which was so intense it must've disturbed all guests on the 22nd floor). The front desk sent security up twice and ultimately moved us to another room on the ninth floor (nicer than our other rooms) to escape the noise. The night manager came up to our room with the new keys and expressed her regret that we had to move. She also thoughtfully conveyed our options for Marriott to "reimburse us" for such an inconvenience. Unfortunately, the front desk treated the situation as yet another negotiation the following morning: I immediately advised that a successful resolution for us was 30,000 points credited to my Bonvoy account. However, the manager-on-duty offered 10,000 points, then 20,000 points, and then finally had to call the overall manager for approval to add 30,000 points.

Standards matter. This is the W Hotel and not the Red Roof Inn / Econolodge off highway Exit 45. Don't nickel-and-dime your most loyal guests who pay $60 for two drinks in the lobby bar in favor of HS prom kids who booked through besthoteldeals for $122.

After our horrendous experience, we went to the JW Marriott at the Mall of America, where we were treated like royalty in our complimentary upgraded suite at a beautiful modern.

Look elsewhere- you will do better with your money in the Minneapolis area than...

Stayed here last weekend to celebrate our friend’s wedding. The manager was very unfriendly and did not want to give us any options for the inconvenience the hotel caused. We booked a double queen room a few days prior and when we checked in, there was none available —which is confusing because why would it allow us to book if none were available?? The “accommodation” was a king size bed with a queen rolling bed which ended up actually being a twin size rolling bed. We went to talk to the front desk as we were misled to believe that the rolling bed was a queen size. Mind you, two couples are trying to share the room.

The manager was passive aggressive, and very firm in saying there’s not much they could do since the double queen rooms were unavailable and that was the accommodation so what other accommodation did we want. When all we were kindly asking for was what other options they could give us besides that. She continued to state that there wasn’t anything she could do. We then asked if they could just roll in another twin size bed since they weren’t willing to give us anything else, she said they could but would need to check to see if it was a fire hazard.

After checking, for what ever reason she finally gave us a REAL accommodation and gave us two rooms for the price of one which was really nice BUT why cause so much back and forth when it’s the hotel that caused this issue in the first place. The manager made it seem like we were the problem! Please don’t be afraid to advocate for yourself and don’t let them push you into doing something that is not worth the price of you staying at their hotel.

Side note: The bar supposedly closes at midnight but they started not serving 15 mins to close and the DJ stopped playing music because they needed to clean up before closing. Not sure if that is typical or not.

The aesthetic and vibes physically look very cool and that’s why we were really excited to stay here! Very rude and unwelcoming costumer service from the manager. The other front desk lady was very kind and understanding. Won’t be staying here again and wouldn't recommend to anyone, spend your moneys worth...