Philadelphia Marriott Old City — Hotel in Philadelphia

Marriott should be embarrassed by this hotel. After spending last weekend there, I honestly don't know how it's still in business. I will never go there again, and it will be a long time before I spend another night in any Marriott.

But let's start with what little good there was. The location is, of course, excellent -- less than a half-mile walk from Independence Hall. I visit Philadelphia frequently because I'm a history buff. The staff at the front desk was also excellent -- friendly, helpful, service-oriented and an overall credit to the hospitality profession. Ditto for the gentleman who transported our luggage to our first room.

That's the end of the good. The rest was miserable. The list of reasons why is long but I'll hit the highlights here.

First, the hotel is stupidly designed. I don't know whether it was built as a hotel -- meaning there's no excuse -- or if it existed as another building that converted to a hotel. A great many of the rooms including our first room face the obnoxiously loud atrium, which includes the bar/restaurant/lounge. Blaring noise pulsed through the thin glass window even in the late afternoon. There was no way my wife and I were going to be able to sleep with that much noise -- and the hotel's placement of cheap earplugs by the bed was laughable. When I went to the reception desk to request another room, there were already people in front of me asking for the same thing.

The sympathetic staff found another room for us. I thank them for that. When I asked for a luggage cart to move all of our luggage, though, the staff told me they didn't know where one was and to ask the parking assistants outside. I went out there, where two young men had no interest in even trying to help me solve that problem -- brushing me off and making it clear this was not their problem.

The second room was more quiet but no less uncomfortable. The design of the room was uncomfortable and unusable. The mattresses on both queen beds were apparently made of mashed potatoes. We sunk into them so deeply it was like falling into mud pits. It was the most miserable night of poor sleep I've ever experienced at a major hotel.

The walls, meanwhile, were 1950s mental institution white, with eyesore-inducing geometric lines running randomly across the walls. The room was so dimly lit, even with multiple lamps, that I could not read a book or work on my computer. I have 20-20 vision with my contacts in, but I could not see well enough to get anything done. The hotel needs to put brighter lighting in the room.

The "desk" was unusable. Instead of a normal desk for people of normal heights, this desk was jacked up so high that it came with like a bar stool, meaning I had to place my feet on a rail, which is not acceptable even if there was enough light to work.

The "refrigerator" was a joke. Apparently off by default (makes sense for electric savings/environment), you can only turn it on for two hours at a time. I've never seen anything so stupid. Other guests I spoke to reported the same absurdity. Even when it was on, the temperature wasn't much lower than room temperature. When I went to go get ice to at least keep some things in a cooler, I learned there was no ice machine on the floor and had to go to another floor to retrieve it.

When I turned on the TV to at least relax, I learned that the Marriott appears to be the only major hotel chain with outdated, non-HD TVs -- so the picture quality was poor, causing me to turn off the TV instead of watching a football game.

When our time at this miserable hotel finally came to an end, we followed the instructions and texted a number 20 minutes before we needed our car. What happened? You guessed it? The parking staff had great difficulty locating our car. I calmly told them I recognized it was a busy weekend and these things happen. One attendant apologized. Another took personal responsibility for finding the car. After 40 minutes, we were finally...

BEWARE OF CONSTRUCTION & NOISE (TL:DR at the end) Lifetime Platinum Elite and current Titanium member of Marriott. We stayed at this Marriott last year and it was an absolute delight of an experience. This is why we chose to stay at this property recently. Unfortunately if was not the same experience.

We reserved a room and were pleasantly surprised when we were notified that we were upgraded. Unfortunately that is where the problem starts. We were upgraded to a corner room closest to the interstate on the highest floor. When we looked out the window we were staring straight into a massive construction site with four large cranes. The first night was great, no complaints. Unfortunately the second night (a Saturday night), we came back to the room around 6PM and were shocked. The construction site was chaos and we were so close to the action we could hear workers yelling and every type of noise imaginable.

We went to the front desk and asked them how long construction usually goes on. They said it would stop at 9PM, which was fine for us. We had a very early morning the next morning (5AM wake up) but were fine being out of the hotel until 9. Unfortunately when we got back to the room close to 10PM, the chaos was still going strong. Additionally, three gigantic spotlights were pointed straight into our room - making the room feel like daylight even with the curtains closed. We waited until 11:45PM but the chaos and lights remained strong.

I called the front desk and told them the situation and asked if we could be reassigned to a different room. The front desk told me it's not the hotel's fault construction continued and was very passive-aggressive in response to my request. The front desk told me he would call back. 45 minutes later I received a call back and was told there was only one room we could move to. So at 1AM in the morning we moved all our belongings across the hotel and away from the spotlights. Unfortunately the room we moved into had a broken A/C system and curtains which only went down the window a quarter of the way.

I tried calling the front desk 3 times and no one picked up. So we resigned ourselves to sleeping in the hot room with streetlights glaring into the window because of the broken curtains. We checked out the next morning and I mentioned to the front desk the problems with the room and the front desk didn't even offer an apology. Just a "thanks for telling us, here's your receipt. I think for our next trip to Philadelphia, we will find a different property.

Ironically, I had hoped the hotel would send a guest satisfaction survey so I could privately share my experience with the hotel but never got one. Hopefully this review helps another person not have the same experience.

TL:DR: Major construction right next to the hotel. If you have to stay, ask for a room on the other side. If you get stuck next to the construction - the hotel staff aren't very sympathetic. Hotel has no warning on...

My stay here was extremely frustrating and conflicting. The room was absolutely perfect for the setting and trip. They have modern furnishings and the bed is extremely comfortable; lots of lighting options and a nice chaise lounge that someone could sleep on if they wanted. Unfortunately, the room wasn't super clean (hair on a lamp that looked like public hair... and some stains on the toilet seat). No other real issues with the room other than the fact that it was insanely loud. The rooms on one side of the hall all overlook the lobby/restaurant area, and since it's completely open things echo all through the night until the bar closes. It's really aggressive.

The other issues I had were all with service. First, they seemed understaffed and had a difficult guest before me, but it took about 20 mins to check in and I was only second in line. They also said there was no room service menu and you had to use a QR code located only at the front desk or the bar. Bizarre! That completely defeats the point of room service. If they'd at least told me when I checked in, I could have screenshotted the menu. Instead, I had to call 4x in a row and it took about an hour to get ahold of anyone, and was then told this. I eventually got passed around and transfered 3x to order and was told theres also an extra delivery charge, but was never given a receipt for the service. So frustrating. The few other times I tried to call for things like a late checkout, they similarly didn't pick up the phone (I tried from my room phone and two different cell numbers). Another issue was that the only restaurant in the place was closed randomly and didn't follow the posted hours, plus the coffee bar seemed like it was permanently closed. Maybe an ongoing COVID thing? I definitely haven't ever had such bad service at a Marriott, but really don't think I've experienced something like this at ANY hotel. To top things off, I've been trying to get in touch with them for over a week about charges they put on my card and still haven't resolved it, even after getting in contact with corporate, who had to reroute me to the same hotel staff again.

So, overall, if you don't plan to ever interact with anyone on service, this could be a great place to stay. There are several cute restaurants nearby and it's not a long cab from transportation or nightlife. You can even walk to a few cool areas for drinks/dinner pretty easily. But, if you may have any single request or hope to rely on posted hours, skip this and find...