Courtyard by Marriott Newark Downtown — Hotel in Newark

• sorry as this is a long and detailed review *||||On July 3rd, my family and I arrived to the Courtyard Marriott Newark downtown on Broad St in new Jersey. The first room we were in was 720 which was a handicapped accessible room. It was okay except the bathroom had a shower curtain that was about 8 inches off of the floor so when we took a shower, the bathroom floor became soaked and dangerously slippery. We asked for a room changed which was granted the next morning which was July 4th. We were moved to room 720.||||July 4th, my daughter woke up to raised bumps and blistering on her lower calf. I put some Benadryl on it thinking she had a spider bite or something. Well after another day of it looking worse, we reached out to our doctor virtually who viewed it and said it looked like bed bug bites. Well, we had switched rooms, so I reached out to the front desk to ask them to check the previously room before anyone else goes in there. The manager, Camille Grant reached out to me and stated she closed off the room and would keep us posted after environmental services check the room out. She asked us if we had any expenses that were incurred which we did...the doctor's visit and two medicines. I met with Ms. Grant when we returned to the hotel later that evening and she stated the hotel would pay for the doctor's visit but she wasn't sure if they would reimburse for the medicines. Ms. Grant offered to launder all of my daughter's clothes in hot water (which she did) and we checked her luggage to make sure everything was good. We also put peppermint oil on the interior of my daughter's luggage to kill whatever may be in there.||||The next day, we were informed that environmental services said no bed bugs were found on the bed. Okay. Fine. She stated no one would come in our current room until environmental services checked it out once we left. ||||Fast forward to the night before check out, we came back to our room and realized we had fresh sheets and towels. Housekeeping had been in our room although we were told no one would have access to it. We pulled the duvet back and that's when we saw the stained sheets. My husband went down to ask for new sheets and Ms. Grant was there. He didn't want to cause alarm for other guests checking in so she told my husband that housekeeping would be up. Housekeeping lady comes up and brought the sheets and told us she was off and we would need to change the sheets ourselves. Say what now?! You brought the sheets up so how are you off. We need you to change these sheets and covers because obviously, items aren't being laundered properly. We reached out to Ms. Grant but she left before returning our call.||||I took a shower and as I was grabbing the towel, I saw something moving on it. Low and behold, it's a bed bug. A nice sized one. Pictures are attached of bed and towel. There is quite possibly an infestation on the laundry cart or in the laundry room. I went downstairs to talk to the front desk and ask for someone to come up. The front desk attendant is busy but the female housekeeping lady is still there standing near the coffee station with her hands on her hip. Wait a minute? I thought she was off, but I guess she has selective duties after a certain time because she had no problem grabbing items for other guests. At this point, my husband became irate as we had been in the lobby for 40 minutes, it was hot as the AC in the front desk lobby was out the entire week we were there, and the front desk gentleman kept asking the housekeeping lady to go to our room and she said no, she wasn't doing it.||||I have since reached out to Camille Grant, the manager and she has CC'd her manager on the emails with no response. Why ask what time I am available to talk and I tell you after 4pm to still not receive any phone calls or emails. Ms. Grant was there until 7pm when we were there for the week. This has led me to post a review because others need to know about this possible infestation.||||We checked out on July 8th. The security lady, front desk attendant and the shuttle driver were the best but we will never stay in this...

Let me explain why I had to give only three stars and this was actually a tough call on three versus four stars. The staff at the hotel is amazing, Let me just say that. Peter at the front desk, Diane with housekeeping, And even though I don't know his name, he is chef b on Instagram (I know it's awful that I never actually got his name)

Checking into the hotel was a breeze. It was very pleasant and again the staff is very very friendly. I got to my room and the very first thing that I noticed was that my refrigerator would not get cold. So a quick trip right back down to the front desk to talk to the maintenance man whose name escapes me right now who was also very very friendly and gave me some wonderful advice on some places to get some great New Jersey pizza.... Anyways, I digress Maintenance guy comes up to my room and he comes to replace my refrigerator only to find out that the refrigerator that was currently there was unplugged for whatever reason. However, he did replace a refrigerator which was awesome in itself. The next thing that I noticed was that it looks like someone tried to do the nasty in the shower and put their foot up on the soap dish or where it was and ripped that tile right off the wall and it was never properly sealed back up. Then there was the issue with the TV that did not have a guide. It never worked once upon multiple reboots of the TV calling the front desk and and rebooting the unit on the back of the TV had the same results which was nothing, unavailable. I felt that the room kind of maybe sort of needed some TLC. The wallpaper was peeling up in multiple places. You can see where there was touch-up paint done and even the border carpet was coming off of the wall. One of the windows looks like it was permanently frosted which was actually very frustrating to see that three of your windows are perfectly see-through yet you have one that is frosted. If you have OCD this would have killed you.

The bedroom also didn't have your typical extra pillow blankets and sheet set for the unfoldable king couch thing so that was kind of odd. Granted I didn't use it but it would have been nice to have the extra blanket. Now before anybody says well why didn't you just call down to the front??? Because I didn't want to okay. I had felt that I had already bothered them enough over the TV and the refrigerator and the shower. I didn't want to seem to be like I was "that guest". You know what I mean??

I did also check out all the facilities from the workout room/ AKA mini gym, to the meeting rooms and just kind of walk the halls over there. I have no idea why the ice maker room was hotter than Mount Vesuvius for whatever reason, but the ice was cold and that's all that mattered.

So would I stay here again??...

Located on Broad St. the Courtyard is central to the hustle and bustle of downtown Newark. Convenient shopping and activities the Courtyard is the perfect place to stay for your overnight fun while visiting Newark, NJ. The rooms were standard, two queen sized beds, a flat screen television with basic cable plus HBO, refrigerator, coffee, tea and a decent bathroom. The hotel offered a restaurant on the lobby floor with Starbucks coffee. The lobby was open and were filled with plenty of seating area to gather. The hotel staff was nice and accommodating. All things that you would expect from a chain hotel. However, there are a few things that I found that would have improved our stay. My family had a flood and elected to stay at the Courtyard because of its proximity to our home. Unfortunately, because of a Nor'easter, we had to stay longer than we'd anticipated. I believe there are things that the hotel could have done to ensure a pleasant stay for us but weren't offered. The parking in the hotel is not free, but there isn't anywhere to park. The parking lot is shared with the Prudential building, if there is an event guests of the hotel will have a tough time finding parking. Furthermore, guests are told to park on the 5th floor and above. At $26 for parking, I think the guests should guaranteed a spot but also be able to park on the level the hotel entrance is on. The hotel rooms that we were given had refrigerators but they were tiny, big enough to had a few bottles in. Additionally, the hotel has no microwave in the Market. I guess the microwave was placed there because you buy things and heat them up there. However, why only have one microwave. The Market is the hotels store for snacks and things. EVERYTHING in the Market is over priced, $7.00 for a cup on microwavable oatmeal. There was no free breakfast offered. Along with the expensive parking and Market, the hotel offered a laundry room that the use of the washer and dryer was also expensive($6 to wash and dry). Most people don't come to a hotel to wash there clothes I understand but it doesn't need to this expensive to wash a load of laundry. The restaurant prepared breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's closed at times to prepare for the changing on the menu. The menus were placed in the rooms for room service. However, the in room menus weren't updated and the staff at the front had to read their version with detail. But don't worry about the prices because they are either $7 or $12 and the front desk can't tell you which. All in all the Courtyard offers a place to sleep but please bring your...