The Citizen Hotel, Autograph Collection — Hotel in Sacramento

I don't even know how to rate this properly. I am Marriott Bonvoy member. We always stay with Marriott. We love the service, the hotel locations, and budget options. This experience was so out of character for a Marriott, especially at this level hotel.

We started our family vacation off at the Fisherman's Wharf Marriott in San Francisco and had a wonderful experience. We were on our way to a camping trip in the Redwoods and had a roof rack that didn't fit in the underground parking. This hotel said, "No problem! That is our issue, not yours! We will park it with the other oversized vehicles right in front of the valet area." AWESOME! Customer service, in every aspect from Valet, to Front Desk and Concierge, to the bartender and hospitality were 100% on point with every other experience we have had with Marriott.

The Redwoods were amazing as always and we headed off to what we thought was going to be luxury after tent camping. Sigh...

We arrive at the hotel. Valet comes up to us and we ask about the roof rack. They didn't know the clearance and said if it doesn't fit then we might want to stay somewhere else. WHAT!?? After trying to figure it out, I asked if my husband could go with Valet to see if our vehicle would fit. After telling us "No" repeatedly, they finally allowed my husband to go assist and make sure there was no damage done and if we even fit. There was an entire foot of clearance and we were in. Yay.

I go to the Front Desk to check-in and just didn't get that happy feeling. Not professional in the least. I felt like I was an annoying acquaintance rather than a hotel guest checking in. I was thanked for being a member, given water bottles, and headed toward our room.

I booked this hotel stay in Feb of 2021 (before CA reopened)...that's 5 months in advance of my stay. We get to our room (mind you, we just drove 8 hours and all we wanted to do was shower and relax like we did in San Francisco) and discovered we were placed across the street from a night club with nothing but people screaming, drivers revving their engines and peeling out over and over and over again. Every Marriott I stay in gives us a room we have always been pleased with based on our preferences they allow us to choose when we book. Not the case here.

Around 1:45 am, we hear repeated tire screeching and people screaming outside. We run to the window and look down to watch a crowd of people recording a drunk driver doing donuts in the intersection. This driver nearly missed people, cars, and buildings as s/he (not sure) drove in circles. Sadly, no police anywhere in sight.

We needed to take our dogs out before we turned in and had to cut it short because the rats in the park and the unfortunate situations of those living in the park. Park residents were hallucinating and screaming and we didn't feel safe. Back to the room we go.

The bathroom hadn't been fully cleaned prior to our arrival. There were watermarks all over the counter from the previous guests and there was a layer of dust on the blinds that had obviously been there for a while. Yuck.

We finally get to laying down and were wondering why it was so hot in the room. I looked up and the vent in the room was completely closed off from dust. No joke. Our room never fell below 79°. We called it a night shortly after 2 am and were up by 6:45 am and left.

The pictures of this hotel WAY oversell it. You expect luxury after touring the hotel virtually. Our experience was so unlike any other experience we have ever had with Marriott. From the lack of customer service to the not so clean (and hot) room, I can't say I would recommend staying at this...

TLDR: no sound insulation in the rooms, noisy streets at night, downtown unpleasant for even a single walk.

The hotel at the first glance appeared rather interesting, with old-luxury type interior of the lobby and the retro exterior styling. There are some quotes about politics in the elevators and some political cartoons on the walls of the rooms, which was quite neat. However, that impression changed after the first night. There is basically no sound insulation, I was able to hear loud and clear doors to neighboring rooms closing and people talking in the hallway. What’s even worse is that the noise from the street was also a nuisance. It seems like there is some kind of a nightclub because until early morning thumping music was audible, making it hard to sleep. Loud vehicles passing by the hotel (some with obnoxiously loud music, think strapping a bunch of loudspeakers to a car) made it even worse. There was even a pair of earplugs in the bathroom, so they are aware of the noise problem but in the 100 years since the building was built no sound insulation has been added. For context, I had a room on the 7th floor looking out to the 10th street.

Another point of contention with the rooms was the lack of a mini bar or any kind of snacks. At a rate of $550 for the room I would expect a mini-fridge stocked with snacks, but there wasn’t even a single bag of chips. There was an empty mini-fridge, a small coffee machine with some coffee pods, and 2 bottles of water (of course at an extra charge).

The experience with the valet was rather subpar. They send out the valet ticket as a text message but while checking in with the valet he inputted my phone number wrong so I never got the text message and had to go there again and they had to re-input all of my information. So, double check that they input your information correctly into their system. It also took them 20 minutes to fetch my car while moving out, quite a long time given that they had no cars arriving at the time.

The location of the hotel itself was rather poor as well. The downtown was very run down, with most shops closed shut and graffitied over. There were seemingly no people in the streets other than the homeless, who took over basically the whole nearby park. One guy was shouting and swearing something while walking with a bike in the street (quite a jarring experience for my first walk in Sacramento). So walking in the downtown didn’t feel safe or pleasant. Granted, the Citizen Hotel isn’t responsible for the whole downtown, but the location is still a consideration when selecting where to spend the night in a city you are visiting for the first time, and the location of this hotel is just unpleasant.

Thus, due to the location and the problems with the rooms described above, I wouldn’t...

I made a huge mistake booking this hotel for 3 nights when I was attending a conference . First, each night there was an event and the music was so loud in my room (suggested at the front desk as being above the parties, but ended being directly above) I might as well have been at the party . Second, the hotel is old, which didn't initially bother me, (in fact it seemed to add to the charm) but the windows are not double paned, there seemed to be no insulation, and it was extremely cold in my room at night - I had to put on a heavy sweater over my pjs to make up for the very thin bed covering (none extra to be found in the room). On the last night I thought to ring for a blanket - but after calling room service and guest services with no answer I had to go down to reception where I was told they don't actually have room service and they are also short staffed (then why have the room service button on the phone ?). The second day I waited for the elevator (I was on the 9th floor) only to realize it was out of service (no signs were posted). A colleague had to walk up to the 10th floor to bring down luggage, and nobody offered to assist him when he mentioned to the bellmen that it was a lot of stairs . Third, on the second morning there was no hot water - discovered after having to step into the shower to turn on freezing cold water and being wet in the process since there was no way to reach around to the taps other than standing under the shower. Fourth - the bedside light points down thereby not providing any light to read, which meant using the overhead light and getting out of bed to turn it off which was annoyingly inconvenient. And fifth, the cupboard was tiny with no shelves to put clothes, and there was no counter in the bathroom for toiletries, again somewhat inconvenient.

When I mentioned the noise issue to the front desk, being careful to assure the (very) young desk clerk that I wasn't blaming her but that management should be aware, she explained they can't tell you there will be parties when you book because of legal issues (really ?).

And lastly the room was quoted at $880 for the three nights, but the hold on my credit card was for $1144.74 - this has never happened in any of the hotels I've stayed at and seemed completely unnecessary particularly as I was there for a conference and am a senior citizen unlikely to cause mayhem.

So trying to work was hard- and no point watching television because it was drowned out by the noise!

I would have expected to be comped at least one of the nights, if not more, but instead I was offered a free breakfast (no time as I had to go to the airport )or bonus Marriot points .

Oh -they do provide ear plugs so clearly this is a regular issue.

I give this...