Courtyard by Marriott Ocala — Hotel in Ocala

If zero stars was an option, I would put none. The management of this hotel is atrocious. They have no clue about customer service or how to make a situation of their causation right. STAY AWAY the rooms have no air conditioning, and management does not give a care about you!|I'll give you the short version: I stayed here on a Friday night after a day of driving from south Florida, arriving around 10:30pm. Got into the room and the air conditioning was not working properly. After giving some time to ensure it would not cool (it just blew warm air around 77ºF), we called down to the front desk. They sent up a technician to service the A/C unit. The technician, although new, was very pleasant and was the only one helpful throughout this whole ordeal. Anyway, she was not able to fix the unit, we agreed to switching rooms to one with a working A/C unit (it was now close to midnight), however the front desk was not receptive to that as there was an "auto-block" (not sure what that means) and we could not switch rooms - essentially another room was not an option. The maintenance person called her colleague or supervisor for further instruction on how to service the unit (he had just gone home for the night). She tried an alternate way to "fix" the issue, and this was like the last resort. Maintenance departed the room (again, she was very pleasant), and stated to give it some time to work, but it was basically all she could do. Around 5AM after getting no sleep and sweating through the night, I decided to go down to the front desk to further address the issue at hand. Unfortunately the person (also very pleasant) at the front desk could not do much more than take my name and number and stated her manager would call me later. It took till later in the day for the manager to finally give me a call, unfortunately I missed the call - their voicemail stated they were heading out of the office (waited until then to call) and would call me Tuesday. Not much of a priority, clearly, but fine. Tuesday afternoon comes around and no call back - I figured if this is going to get resolved, I should call. Well I called and laid out my story to the manager, who stated he would call me back before close of business. OK, fine. A few minutes later, the manager did call me back and stated he would offer me a half back refund. Well I paid close to $160 for the night at this hotel, and managed no rest (the prime reason I was at the hotel), and this would not fly with me. I told him that you need to do better, and he was unwilling to be helpful and would not budge. Eventually the conversation with this fellow went from unhelpful to downright belligerent and the manager HUNG UP ON ME! What??? Wow. All I could think! The manager has exceptionally poor oeople skills and really needs some further education on customer service, and how to interact with people. I have raised this issue to Marriott corporate and am working to ensure this situation is resolved. Ideally that the manager receives more training on how to deal with people. My recommendation is...

To be honest, I always stay a Marriott Courtyard when I'm on the road because it's the only chain of reasonably priced hotels that has a kitchen and a bar. Sure it's not the best kitchen, but the food is good. They offer meals similar to what Applebee's and TGIF does at about the same price.

My wife and I stopped here on our way down to San Marco Island and the room that night, while clean and nicely decorated, had a smell. Like maybe it had been a smoking room back in the day. So we were hesitant to stop back here on our way back home. We reluctantly decided to come back because of that experience but we couldn't find a hotel with a restaurant and bar that was reasonably priced. I just hate having to go back out for dinner and drinks after I've stopped for the night.

The meals served at this hotel (and probably all hotels) are delivered frozen in the dish, then heated and served in dish they came in. Applebee's does this, Red Lobsters does this, and many other chain restaurants do this. Who cares? Really, so long as it's hot, and taste good, and you use real silverware it really shouldn't matter. It's not world class quality but it's tasty and it's reasonably priced. The menu isn't big but they have enough for every palate. I have had anything on the breakfast menu but I'm looking forward to the "Eggs your Way" tomorrow morning. If you're not happy with the quality of the food you can always check into the Waldorf. I hear they have an excellent menu.

The bar at this Courtyard is actually very good. They don't have a professional mixologist but apparently they have a great recipe book because my Old Fashion was really, really good. They have a bar you can sit at and a friendly bartender who can follow a recipe very well. He didn't do any fancy shaking or mixing and he didn't even put a smoke bubble on my Old Fashion but it was good. It was good enough that I'm going back for another tonight.

I'm glad we decided to give this hotel a second chance. We spoke to front desk by phone and explained our experience from the previous night. The room she gave us was clean, and smelled like it. Never judge a hotel by one night. And if can find a hotel that has a better kitchen and bar off of I-75 at a similar price, please tell, because between Google Maps and me, we couldn't find a...

As soon as we walked in, we were the only people in the lobby along with the front desk associate who was on the phone with another customer. She didn't greet us; she didn't say anything to us. We were waiting literally in front of her face for 10-15 minutes and she at no point put the phone down to greet us or help us. I've worked in the hospitality industry. If you have someone staring at you, waiting to be helped, you put the customer on hold and then get back to them afterwards. We waited there until another associate came out and finally helped us. This is very unprofessional. I was annoyed at this point.

Now, the room. The room was a decent size. Bed was comfortable, pillows were terrible. Head sunk in and woke up with shoulder pain. But that's not even the worst part, get this! There was a USED washcloth hanging on the shower curtain rod! I was showering and looked up, and there it was! I was the first one to take a shower so it was obviously from the previous guest. This was unreal. In the time of COVID, the housekeepers aren't doing their job properly??? I was disgusted and it made me question the cleanliness of the whole room. Also, the coffee and condiments were not restocked in the room. Couldn't even use the coffee machine because there weren't any stirrers, sugar or creamer.

Another thing, at the time we booked the room, there was a promotion that you get premium wi-fi in the room or a late check-out of 2:00 p.m. When I called downstairs at 10:00 a.m. to get a late check-out I was advised that they could only give me 30 minutes extra. Mind you, we were checking out on a Monday, in Ocala - how many people can possibly be checking in that you can't afford what you offered??

Also, breakfast was only offered from 6am to 9am! That is ridiculous for anyone who is visiting the hotel on leisure. Should be extended to 10 am at least. They didn't even have coffee available in the lobby.

Honestly, the only good thing about this place was the pool and the hot tub. The absolute ONLY good thing. Very unfortunate. We picked this place because of the Marriott name. There are a lot of options in the vicinity. Bad...