Renaissance Reno Downtown Hotel & Spa — Hotel in Reno

My spouse and I came to stay here for a special occasion. Before our arrival, we looked at the Hotel's website and saw there was a $20.00 parking fee for the Self parking lot, but when we pulled up, nobody was in the booth. As we rolled our luggage across the Self Parking lot we came upon the valet's and they greeted us. As we walked inside and looked at the front desk, nobody was there to take our parking fee, so we went to to our room because we had self-check-in and no key was required, only our phone. As we arrived about 10 min prior to check-in time, we found out the App does not work until exactly 4pm, then we could unlock the door.

The room was nice, the view was to the south, so we saw the roof mechanical stuff like fans/blowers and stuff like that. Oh well, not the best view for our special occasion. The bed was very nice as were the bedding. Everything was clean. My spouse went to take a shower and I turned on the TV and went to sign into Netflix. Did not work. John the engineering tech came up and decided the Hotel set-top box was not working as it should. Not a big deal. After John left the front desk called and upgraded us to a suite. I went to the suite, and I decided it was a no go for us as it was like a dungeon, dark, very weird furniture and when I looked at the shower, that was a no-go. The shower was a normal tub-shower. We came here to be in a nice place, not a Shower-Tub like a roadside motel in the middle of nowhere-land. So, we kept the room with the TV that did not work properly. I called the front desk and let them know we went back to the original room. Then one of the staff came up and gave us a free breakfast comp for the morning. Thank you.

We originally had reservations at "The Shore" for dinner but after viewing some more pictures and reading reviews, I decided it was not for us. We decided to have dinner at Wild River Grill and that was amazing. The next morning we had breakfast at "The Shore" and I will not be going back. Loud, noisy, overpriced, uncomfortable, and kinda dirty. Think of it as an roadside old-school diner with a bit better menu, but much higher prices. Yes, it was free for us because of a comp, which was nice. But, could not recommend it. I might be wrong, but $16 for french toast with fake & cold maple syrup or $9 for oatmeal seems a bit out of touch. Oh, I had to get up, go to the diner counter and a to-go box because the staff would not come over when I attempted to get their attention.

We left and when I got home, I had a card under my wiper blade of my truck saying I did not pay for parking and scan this QR code to pay. Really, seriously. You did not have anyone at the parking booth, nobody at the front desk, you valet's did not say anything both at entry or exit of the property. If this place had an employee actually working at the normal work station, I would obviously pay.

Oh for the women out there, please upgrade your bathroom mirror lighting, it's so dark even with all...

Conflict is what you gain on entry. Lukewarm hot tub and staff who spark a negative experience from their initial interaction with arbitrary excessive parking fees in an otherwise empty lot. The check in process was a gal looking at a computer screen and not at us - not a single mention of the wonderful positive qualities of the property but instead how we were at risk of being charged $100 to park our van for the night. (Where else are we going to go on short notice? They have you stuck when it's late, without the ability to easily switch hotels.) Rooms aren't as clean as they used to be - there was caked on urine on our toilet lid attachments and sparse finishes for even the "Penthouse Suite" (of which there are four, not one). We called to get a second robe and slippers (they only stock one in the room, and the pool attire won't fit a man with feet larger than a Size 9) but they never came. Had to go to the front desk the following day to get that resolved. The notepads now have just five pieces of paper to improve on margins. This used to be my favorite hotel in Reno, but now it's subject to the Marriott nickel and diming that seems to be par for the course in Las Vegas. What used to be a relaxing getaway experience has turned into a total dud complete with multiple stress induced visits to the front desk to take care of problems they could easily avoid. If you want to use the spa, a one hour massage package is $320+. Complete disconnect on creating a great customer experience and extending a good value. I miss the days when Robbie Loose was the GM - he really knew how to go above and beyond, and always made guests feel like they had a home away from home. Now this is just another poorly managed West Coast property devoid of any warm welcome or charm. Even the lounge area has bizarre art that looks like a Midwest Grandmother on the left and a displaced goofy pop artist on the right, complete with a selection of dollar store bread, "Death by Sugar" cereals, and dried out eggs. Unless they find their heart and soul in the future, I sadly will not be returning to this hotel again. I miss the days when it felt exciting to be at the Renaissance - when you didn't feel stuck, anxious, or put into a hostile encounter with someone trying to extract additional money that you never anticipated spending. The only good thing I have to say about this property is that nothing got stolen out...

Attended a wedding reception on Aug 25th. The property and the venue are not bad to look at. I am going to list out the positives and negatives below.

Positives: Location, Front Desk Staff, Valet, Bar Tender for the event.

Negatives: Lighting of the event venue. Air-Conditioning was absolutely ineffective. It was stuffy and suffocating. Although, complaints were made, there was no remediation. This is the ultimate basic requirement.

Food: Guests were told that they can grab appetizers within a certain time-frame and if they can’t (because I mean it’s a party, some people might just come by to eat later), too bad! Also, never been to a banquet where appetizers aren’t actually doing rounds, but are placed in chafing dishes for guests to go collect. Weird!

Food 2.0: Guests got a maximum of 1 hour to rush and grab dinner. Given the stringent time constraints, many guests grabbed their plates and left it on their respective tables in order to finish drinks, take pictures, dance, and celebrate with the couple first. To everyone’s surprise, the serving staff just took FULL plates of food away saying they cannot wait me that is the “rule”. Never been to a hotel or banquet event with such atrocious rules where you don’t care if the guests go back home hungry.

All in all, a property of this stature, must exude service at its finest, but instead, it scarred the experience of so many people traveling from all parts of the World for this event.

The staff clearly didn’t wait even until the event was done and come to think of it, they rushed clearing the tables because they wanted to head out.

If anyone from the Hotel ever reads this, know that I have a Masters in Hospitality from Switzerland and I have worked in multitudes of Hotels and not one of those hotels would ever treat their guests the way we have been treated.

Truly abysmal and disappointing. I feel for the hosts as this is their money...