Fairfield by Marriott Inn & Suites San Antonio Downtown/Market Square — Hotel in San Antonio

We had a two-night stay with two young kids on a family vacation road trip in October. Overall, this is a fairly old property with standard hotel rooms and is closer to downtown. ||||Location, Transportation and Parking||The hotel is close to downtown and I-10, which makes it a great location if your trip is to visit downtown either for business or pleasure. There are many hotels in the same area within several blocks, and there is a Residence Inn across sharing the same parking lot. Being in downtown the surrounding area is very old, and there were road constructions everywhere, so you wouldn’t feel good/safe especially at night. ||||The hotel has a free shuttle service takes you to the downtown Riverwalk, which is really nice. They do not have a scheduled departure time, whenever the shuttle is there they can take you. They do have scheduled pickup times from the Riverwalk, it was like every the other hour from 11am to 10pm, make sure to check the pickup schedule. The shuttle drivers were very nice and polite. ||||The parking lot in front of the building has plenty of spaces, you do need to get a parking permit decal when you check in to place on your dashboard. Across the parking lot is the Residence Inn, not sure how many additional parking spaces the Residence Inn has but it shares the parking lot with this hotel.||||Facility and Room||This is a very old facility built in 1995, and the most recent renovation was in 2013. Not sure if Marriott originally built it, but it doesn’t seem to fit Marriott product lines. On the second day we were there, the building partially lost power for about 8 hours from 9am in the morning to around 4pm in the afternoon. Air conditioning was not working (on a 98 degree day), lights in the bathroom and door area were not working, emergency lights in the halls were all activated on the first and second floor (we were on the second floor), no WiFi…… This tells you how old the property is! The front desk said they could move guests to the Residence Inn across the parking lot if they didn’t have the power back by the evening. ||||The room is a standard hotel room (comparing with suite that we normally stay) and most of the times you have to sit on your beds since there is no other places. Everything in the room is old but seems to be functioning. The small fridge makes strange low volume noise that is annoying. The room has popcorn ceiling, which you don’t see since maybe 20 years ago.||||One note that if you wanted to use the Digital Key in your Marriott app, you have to request that at the time of booking (which was unheard of before). I was told since I didn’t request that when I booked (I booked through Marriott official web site and don’t remember I was given option to choose Digital Key) so they could not give me Digital Key, not a big deal, but……||||We saw pictures and reviews of the property before booking, so nothing was really unexpected except losing power for the second day. Just keep in mind before booking.||||Hot Breakfast||Hot breakfast is definitely a plus when you have young kids, so you don’t need to look for breakfast every morning. This hotel has the very simple “hot breakfast” that seemed to be simpler than Mariott normally offers at this hotel’s tier level. It might not be sufficient depending on what you expected. ||||The breakfast area was very small and very crowded for the two weekday (Monday and Tuesday) mornings we were there, we couldn’t find a table that can sit four of us. We didn’t really expect anything with high quality here for the “hot breakfast” so no surprise. ||||Staff||Hotel staffs are good in general. Front desk staffs would greet you when you pass by, and most times there would be at least one staff there. All front desk staffs were nice and with smiles on their faces all the time even during the partial power outage, and they assured you they were working on the problem and trying to get it resolved asap. They said they would move guests across the parking lot to their sister property of the Residence Inn if didn’t have power by the evening. ||||The shuttle drivers were all very polite and professional. ||||The housekeeping staffs would not (not single one) greet or acknowledge guests when encountered in the hallways. ||||Overall||We don’t usually choose Fairfield and this might be the first time, not sure if Fairfield products equal to old and lower tier level properties in Marriott. The front desk staffs were nice and trying their best! We would not have chosen here if it was not for its close proximity to downtown. However we would probably choose somewhere else newer and better next time...

Let me start by saying that we really love the Marriott hotel which is why we booked our stay directly through the Marriott website. The reason for our stay this time was our honeymoon. My husband and I recently married and were looking to spend some time together seeing the sites. We like the location a lot because it was close to the interstate, about a mile to where were were wanting to go downtown, and about a quarter of a mile to market square. I had stayed at this hotel once before about 3-4 years ago with my parents and it was excellent so I insisted we stay here again all the while telling my husband how amazing it was.

When we checked in, the front desk staff was very friendly. However, as soon as we got on the elevator, we were kind of taken aback. The floor inside was buckled and very loose. We proceed and selected the fourth floor. When the elevator tried to go up, it dropped about a foot suddenly and then went up. I was skeptical at this point. We unloaded our stuff and went back down. The elevator did the same thing! On the second day of our stay, we notice that there is someone already waiting for the elevator and it is SUPER slow, so we decide to take the stairs. When we get down and are setting down to eat breakfast, we notice fire trucks pulling up... The guy that had been waiting to get on the elevator, had gotten stuck in the elevator and emergency personnel were working to get him out!!! Now, I was beyond scared to get in this elevator. For the rest of our stay (5 nights total) we walked up and down the stairs.. 4 FLOORS every single time.

The button for the elevators on the first floor were caved in as if someone punched them out of frustration for waiting on the elevator. In our room, there were cracks and patch work on the ceiling. The last night of our stay around 5 pm, my husband became very sick and was throwing up and running a fever. Just as luck would have it, there was a family of 6 that was checked into the room next to us. They had young children that were allowed to run in the halls and scream. I finally left out room to get my husband some tums and a sierra mist from the front desk and when I walked out, the kids kind of froze and looked at me and then continued to run and scream. They also kept going in and out of their room and slamming the door. It was miserable for me and horrific for my husband who is throwing up constantly and running a fever. We did not...

I stayed here for Labor Day weekend and I found the service and cleanliness to be lacking.

The room I stayed in had dirty socks on the floor, the bathroom smelled awful, one of the beds in my room had dirty sheets, and the room fridge would continuously turn itself off after a short while of being on. At first these smaller issues didn’t bother me too bad but once I noticed the dirty socks and dirty sheets I became disgusted and frustrated.

I also became frustrated with the service when an employee gave my sister attitude while making waffles for morning breakfast. The employee was helping cook waffles since it was busy and many people were waiting in line for waffles. She asked how many waffles she wanted and ultimately snapped at her after answering this employees question. As a fellow customer service employee I understand how stressful it can be when working with people especially in a busy setting. However, I found her attitude to be unnecessary and unwarranted in this situation where my sister wasn’t being confused, difficult, or unkind in any capacity.

Another incident regarding customer service that I found worth mentioning is when employees behind the front desk were talking bad about guests. I overheard these employees complaining about guests using the shuttle bus which left me with an uneasy feeling as I was also using the shuttle bus during my stay. I understand having complaints about work/customers or certain circumstances but it should be avoided to discuss these complaints in front of guests as it makes the staff look bad and makes the guests feel burdensome for using the services provided by the hotel. Also, regarding more shuttle bus issues, I called the front desk and asked if they knew if the shuttle bus was running behind since I was running late and wanted to see if I could make the bus or if I should make other plans until the next one arrived. The person answering the phone greeted me then after asking my question the line got silent then hung up. I’m unsure if there was technical issues but this happened the same day I heard employees talking bad about guests using the shuttle bus which made me feel like it might be related.

Overall, rooms are disgusting and some staff can be unpleasant to deal with. On a positive note I enjoyed how close the location is to the riverwalk and the convenience of the shuttle bus despite the issues with the...