Courtyard by Marriott Orlando South/Grande Lakes Area — Hotel in Oak Ridge

This was our first stay in a hotel since Covid arrived to terrorize the government and many in our population. It was an interesting experience. The many changes have made staying in a hotel a less enjoyable experience.

Marriott appears to be doing a good job in sanitizing and exercising the mask requirement of Orange County, FL. The desk clerk was wearing gloves when using the computer, hotel cards are placed in a separate basket, the room had been wiped clean, the doors to the hotel required a key card to open, etc.

It left something of a surreal impression with images of what staying in a Courtyard hotel used to be like.

Our room was spacious, clean and comfortable. When registering online, I had requested foam pillows. I repeated the request when registering. That never happened; the requests got lost or ignored.

A man was outside of our room in the hallway yelling at friend(s), apparently, down the hall. I do not know what he was yelling about as it was in Spanish but it was about 6 AM and ensured we were up an hour or more before we had intended. That is not the fault of the hotel but it does not make for a pleasant experience.

I have eaten breakfast at a Courtyard on a number of occasions in the past. We ate breakfast there this time as well.

I do not recommend it.

The area was very clean. It was well sanitized. Plastic utensils and paper cups were used. The menu is very limited now. I ordered an egg sandwich. It appeared to be a sandwich prepared in advance with an egg that had been fitted in a container to work on a sandwich. It was heated on a grill. The bread was fresh but the sandwich was burned. It also came with a fruit cup. I ate the fruit cup. Regular coffee was not available. I had two bites of the sandwich.

The cost for the sandwich, a paper container of Cheerios and a Starbucks latte came to just under $20.

When we checked out, we found a breakfast place (Keke's) not too far away and enjoyed a breakfast of real eggs, an omelet with fresh eggs and pancakes cooked after they were ordered. The cost for two people was about $25.

Marriott has done an excellent job of cleaning. Unfortunately, the breakfast quality has been sacrificed to make sure everything is clean. While very clean and safe, this was not really a breakfast that is worth serving in a quality hotel hotel chain. They should drop the pretense.

The room was clean and comfortable. The overall experience was not what I was used to at a Marriott based on 30 years of staying in their hotels. Perhaps we will recover our former quality of life when more people are vaccinated, we can stop wearing masks, and hotels will again provide a breakfast...

The staff and service is inconsistent, lacks hospitality and integrity, and is humiliating.||||The first problem I encountered with this hotel had to do with checkout time. I had requested late checkout at 4:00pm, and one of the front desk employees had promised and approved it; this 4 pm checkout time was also shown on my receipt that was sent to me early in the morning on the checkout day. However, I received a phone call at 1:00pm on the checkout date, from a different front desk employee bluntly demanding that I had to checkout and leave my room by 2:00pm. That is completely unreasonable and unacceptable, as that was literally a last minute demand, and also violated a promise and commitment from the hotel. This might have been excusable, if I had been notified early in the morning since I had plan based on 4 pm checkout time. ||||When I talked with the front desk manager, Samantha, she kept stating that the 4:00pm checkout time could not be allowed, and that it was based on room availability. In addition, Samantha literally insulted me by allowing me "a couple minutes past 2:00 pm". How would a couple minutes be useful? They had made a promise and granted my 4pm checkout request; however, at the last minute, they pulled the rug out from under me and attempted to kick me out of my room abruptly. I was forced to rush and pack my stuff to meet the deadline of 2pm, which was extremely stressful.||||The next problem had to do with inconsistent breakfast service and the breakfast staff. My room rate included breakfast which I paid for. On day one, the breakfast staff did a nice job. On the next day, a different staff was reluctant, and cited rules to me before relenting to my food orders like the day before. Additionally, the breakfast staff asked me if I would like a large or medium cup coffee. I asked for a large cup, and he proceeded to bring me a large cup, but only partially filled; he said that they only provide medium size cup coffee. Then what is the point of asking me whether I wanted a large or medium cup, if only a medium quantity of coffee would be provided? Yet, he had both size of cups available at that time.||||For an alleged 4.5 star hotel, it surely feels more like 4.5 "slaps across the cheek" hotel, given the horrendous staff service and attitude. Be prepared for a bad stay; my advice is to take your patronage elsewhere. Due to the bad experience encountered, I have cancelled my subsequent booking with this hotel. There are a lot of choices in Orlando. No one deserves to suffer intimidation from this hotel. If you don’t want your stay and mood to be ruined, stay away...

I stayed for 4 days at the hotel. The staff was nice but unhelpful at times. The bed was very nice as well as the room accommodations but that's where things stopped. The echoing sounds of doors slamming became a HUGE nuisance. For the first 24 hrs I thought that since I was on the first floor and staying next to the workout room that someone was working out with the free weights and dropping them on the floor. There was a “BOOM BOOM” sound every few minutes from early evening through about 9:30 that evening. Since I woke up at 4:00am that morning I figured I would sleep through it which I basically did. The sound started back up at around 7:00am and I left shortly thereafter for the start of a conference. When I returned Monday evening I entered my room to hear the sound start back up…..I left my room to go check out who was in the weight room only to find that it was empty. I went to the front desk to complain and the staff person looked at me puzzled and said she was not sure what the sound was….while standing there talking I heard it again and ran around the corner to find a staff person walking out from a staff door….It was the staff door that was slamming behind them as they walked in and out of the area. The staff member at the front desk offered to move me but I had already unpacked my belongings and had set up camp in the room so I declined. The flowing day myself and one of my coworkers asked for some recommendations for where to go get food, the hotel staff referred us to the touchscreen board next to her station. It was difficult to navigate and left us with no recommendations for food only places around the hotel. Most of the time people have opinions on places to go….we were very surprised that we couldn’t get anyone to say “oh yeah, this lace has great food”……seems like a no brainer for hospitality…. I liked the idea of a “store” inside of the hotel, it was handy to be able to get drinks or food instead of a vending machine……..It would have been great if they had WATER……..plenty of soda and beer and fruit drinks…I realize they had run out when I was there but seems odd that they were unprepared for something as simple as having bottled water. Seems odd that I never heard from the hotel manager while I was there. I spoke to the same person most of the time, she was very nice and jovial and always left to go speak to the manager about the issues I was bringing up (loud noises from doors, no water...