Aloft Philadelphia Airport — Hotel in Philadelphia

Decided to take the family to Philly for the weekend. Upon researching several properties, we settled on Aloft Philadelphia Airport due to the proximity of the attractions we were planning on visiting, as well as the family friendly amenities provided at the hotel. The hotel offers the "camp Aloft for kids" (https://www.starwoodhotels.com/preferredguest/property/features/fas_detail.html?propertyID=3181&fasXRefId=1001567052) which really got our kids super excited about the upcoming stay. Our reservation at the hotel clearly indicated the number of adults and kids that we would be checking into the room with and indicated our preference for the camp Aloft for kids to be included in our reservation. Upon arriving at the hotel, the girl at the front desk was really nice and professional. She indicated that in her entire 2 years of employment at the hotel, she's never once heard or seen anything related to the camp Aloft for kids, despite the fact that I referenced the link to the hotel's amenities page for her. As an alternative, she was kind enough to send up some extra pillows and blankets for our kids to "camp out" on the floor. Clearly, we were beside ourselves. With little choice left, we settled in for the night. Or so we thought. Next door to us was what seemed like a drunken frat party (which is putting it mildly). We had to get creative in explaining to our kids what the constant yelling and moaning from the 5 people staying next door was, as it was incessant and constant. We tried calling up the front desk to request that they please send up someone to quiet them down, as it was already 5am and they showed no signs of stopping. Lo behold, though, the phone in the room did not work at all. Nothing. It was all plugged in and there was a dial tone when the handset was lifted, but nothing else worked. No calls were going through to the front desk (PS if management does in fact read this, I can gladly send you a video I took with my cell phone showing how the phone did not work in the room). We began to wonder what would happen if there was an actual emergency and the phone in the room to contact the hotel staff did not work. I did end up manage to request from the front desk that they send up someone to quiet down the people next door, which they did. We finally managed to catch some long awaited sleep at 5:30am, before the raucous next door commenced again at 9am. At that point, we had enough. I promptly cancelled my reservation for the 2nd night at the Aloft Philadelphia Airport so that I can stay somewhere else. I was promised a follow-up call from the hotel management sometime that week, which never materialized. No one bothered to follow up on this or get back to me. In summation, this hotel leaves much...

Disappointing at best, especially considering it's a hotel associated with Marriott.

Called during my layover to figure out the process for getting the airport shuttle- it took 3 times calling and waiting through 15+ rings before someone picked up and was rude and generally uncooperative about answering questions. I got enough to be able to move forward, though.

Arrive at PHL, follow the instructions given in the previous call (walk outside to wait in the cold THEN call, and THEN we will alert the shuttle you need a ride)... I had to call 8 times over the course of about 20 minutes (again averaging 15ish rings). On call 5 or 6 someone picked up, I think said "please hold," and left me on hold for about 5 minutes before I gave up as having been forgotten. On call 8 I finally got a shuttle requested.

The shuttle is a van only marked by crumpled pieces of paper taped inside the windows. Nice enough van, but certainly a little sketchy looking.

Arrive to the hotel, and the person attending the desk is not at all customer oriented. I had tried the mobile check in but didn't receive my "mobile key." Her response was a short "oh, it's down." No offer of assistance. After I asked "can I get a regular key please?" then she went to work checking me in. A few clicks into her work, I was informed that the type of room I reserved was not available and that I'll get another type- no offer of "is that ok?" like I've come to expect in every hotel I've dealt with before. Every other stay in every other hotel, I've received an overview or walkthrough of charges before being asked to insert my card somewhere- not here. No information. And when I asked for any detail, I got a curt reply that had a tone of "why the hell would you ask that?!"

I take my key, with no offer of explaining where my room is (again, expected practice even when it's fairly obvious), and head to the room. The room is fine albeit dimly lit, especially in the bath, which has a yellowish light that harkens back to the 80s. Pretty basic, which is fine for a room this price.

It's a good thing I showered when I got in, because there was no hot water in the morning. The best it could muster was barely lukewarm.

Signs on the door say masks are required, but even when directly interacting with another guest, the morning desk attendant didn't even ask for compliance from an unmasked traveler.

So in summary, it appears this hotel is understaffed, "take it or leave it," and generally trending toward rude. Not gonna choose this brand...

Beware and avoid at all costs. This place makes themselves out to be the nicer of the 3-star hotel in the area, but at least a Holiday Inn or similar is up front about their quality. This place is not, and certainly not worth the price.

Shuttle: called twice while we were waiting for bags at the terminal (late at night and not very busy, mind you), and spent 30 minutes waiting before calling a taxi. Front desk was apologetic but said they were busy and upon is checking in, told us it would have taken up to half an hour for the shuttle to be dispatched. Well, we had given them exactly that and would have appreciated them being up front about the time, as we could have gotten an Uber or taxi and been in our rooms 25 minutes earlier than we had been.

Ambience: hallway on our floor reeked of weed, small kids running around after midnight and screaming as they went down the hallways. Dingy lighting and sticky elevator floors, too. We know we weren’t the only ones who complained about the noise as the guest across the hall also stuck his head out of the door at one point to see what the hell was going on as we were arriving at our room. There was a cop in the lobby this whole time. We should have known there would be problems when we saw him at check in.

Bar: bartender was MIA for several minutes before they closed for the night. We wanted to take something up to our rooms as we were very tired, weren’t sure if we were going to be served before the midnight closing time. We were served, eventually. 🥳

Cleanliness and decor: Rooms are appointed well, sheets seemed clean enough in ours, fun modern decor, so they got that going for them, which is nice for them. Oh and the loud AC! You’d think that they picked out the loudest AC machines on purpose. Guess that’s what the complimentary earplugs are for.

The crème de la crème, this evening’s finest moment: at 2:30 am, as we were falling asleep, someone banged loudly on our door. Nice! Clearly this wasn’t the hotel’s fault, but it sure was the perfect finishing touch on our experience.

Anyways, if you are into staying at the hybrid of a McDonald’s Playplace and a brothel, this is your spot. If you’re looking for a reasonable night’s sleep, stay away. I will be staying far away from this chain if I...