Cambria Hotel Savannah Downtown Historic District — Hotel in Savannah

Stay June 28-30, 2023 - This review comes with mixed results. This was our first time to Savannah, GA and our first time staying at a Cambria Hotel. Upon check in we met a very hospitable young man named Leonard. My friend had called she’s and gifted my husband and I $50 gift card to the hotel bar/restaurant. I was presented with the gift card and also gifted a small bag of 4 sweet treats and a bottle of Evian 💦 ($8 per bottle in this location) As an added bonus, Leonard also comped our Valet parking for our entire 3 night stay ($35/day) for my birthday. **NOTE - there is FREE street parking as well as free parking behind the building. Also garage parking for $15 per day across the street. The building is newly renovated, clean, and well maintained. The surrounding area is a bit depressing but seems safe for walking around. The decor is very contemporary and sleek. The rooms are very modern and beautiful. We we’re pleasantly surprised 😯 and excited to walk through the door. The only downside was lack of luggage racks and/or dresser for unpacking suitcases. We went to the bar for a drink and found the bartender to be friendly but not very knowledgeable about how to make 🍹 drinks. I asked for an Old Fashioned 😕 She gave me Bourbon, their version of simple syrup, peach bitters and an orange peel. She picked up a regular maraschino cherry 🍒 off a spoon from a big jar but when I told her I prefer the dark cherries she dropped the cherry back into the big jar 😖🫣😬 We went for breakfast the next morning and had quite an interesting experience with Jody…heavy sigh. Bless her lil’ heart as they say in the South. We gave her a lot of grace as she was new but again seemed totally lost behind the bar. Taught her how to make a mimosa and a bloody. She was super sweet but totally lost. Our saving grace was Erick…oh man…chef Erick is wonderful. Bravo chef Erick. He makes a mean bowl of Steel Cut Oats and an excellent 3 egg omelette. Erick also directed us to a cool restaurant for lunch. Thank you 😊 Unfortunately the staffing issue continued to be a problem for us as the barista and cook were not there at 5 pm, as promised, and we had to make alternate plans with our afternoon. No bar or food on night one! No spending my gift certificate! The next morning we met another bartender who again knew nothing about tending bar but took directions on mimosa making. Food was excellent again! The 3rd night we hit the wall with this hotel. There is a rooftop restaurant located behind the hotel called VICI and they we’re having what looked like a birthday party with music. We we’re exhausted from a very long hot day of site seeing and just wanted to chill in our room after dinner to prepare for our 6 hour drive home the next day. The music wasn’t too loud around 8 pm but hit full on party live band mode at 830. It sounded like we had a band in our room. Absolutely no escaping the sound. Not entertaining for us at all. I called the desk to ask how late the band would be playing and was told midnight 🕛 🥺😫 We packed our bags and checked out. Decided to just drive home since we we’re subjected to being tortured by this very loud music until midnight. Long and short is they need to hire more reliable staff and train them better. A pool or access to a pool would have been great. Reduce prices on snacks that were outrageous at $3-4 for 50 cent vending...

Where to start?

The rooms are poorly laid out, with a dark, depressing great-brown paint job. The dim lighting increases that effect. The switches are inconveniently located, and the reading lights are dim and don't face the area where a guest lies. The toilet paper fixture is vertical and hard to reach, behind the arm of a person sitting on the toilet. The adjustments for the blinds are behind the couch, making them difficult to use, instead of at the other end of the window, below the foot of the couch. The TV is perpendicular to the bed, so anyone who wants to lie in bed and watch TV has to pull it away from the wall and angle it toward the bed, causing a dangerous obstruction to any guest who gets out of bed in the middle of the night. The water pressure in the shower was very low, at least on the 5th floor.

The thermostats either don't work properly or are so technically complicated that no one can make them function. We rented three rooms, and one of us had to move because the thermostat didn't work, another needed assistance from staff to figure it out, and the third just muddled through. We are all educated, intelligent people, so that's a bad sign.

There are two elevators, side by side. In one of those elevators, the only button for the lobby is marked 1R, presumably because the opposite door opens when the elevator arrives at the ground floor. The other elevator has two buttons , 1 and 1R, and in that elevator the 1R button doesn't work at all -- a guest has to press 1 to get the elevator to descend to the first floor. Of course, the back door opens on that elevator as well, despite the button.

The staff, especially the woman who checked us in, whose name begins with a double n, were cheerful and helpful in general. When we checked out, we asked the hotel to guard our bags while we explored the historic district, and the person in charge was cheerful and gracious about doing that. However, as it happened we twice had to go back to our bags to get something out that we needed. On the second time, the desk clerk said "Are you going to need us to do that again? I can't keep doing this." At the time, she appeared to have nothing else to do -- there were no other guests in the lobby.

The left turn by car from Montgomery onto Harris, to go to the hotel entrance, is difficult and dangerous, as it requires abruptly crossing at least two lanes of fairly heavy traffic. I don't know what the hotel can do about this, but sooner or later there's going to be...

This was our first time at this particular location and we were expecting a certain level of quality from a Cambria Hotel, we were a little disappointed. The room appeared to be nice and clean. We were very tired from traveling so it was not a top concern since everything else appeared to be in order. The rooms are beautiful and include Keurig and real glasses which is always a nice touch. We were at the hotel for 2 nights, the first night we were in a room with a refrigerator (an amenity we need) that didn't work and it had no blackout shade on the window. We didn't notice these things until we needed use of them. The street lights were so bright in the room that it was very difficult to sleep, the night was restless and sleepless. The following morning the elevator was out of order so we took the stairs to the restaurant to order breakfast for the three of us. There were only three other tables occupied in the restaurant however almost an hour later we still had no food so we canceled the order. Upon speaking with the front desk regarding the problems in the room they moved us to another room that had a blackout shade and a working refrigerator, with no luggage cart access due to the elevator being out of commission it took a while to move everything. By this time it was almost noon on day 2 of our stay and the morning was gone. We headed out to try to make the most of what was left of the day running on no food and no sleep. When we returned to the hotel in the early evening the elevator was working again. Our second night was much better with blackout shades and quiet with less street noise. We slept very well. The staff at the hotel were all very polite, helpful and responsive to our issues/ questions. The beds were very comfortable. We only had to wait 15 minutes for our car even with a lobby full of people who were checking out. Even with our room problems being addressed I don't think we will be staying at this hotel in the future. It is a shame because there are many positives. I know unfortunate things happen but for the total cost of our stay that place should be in tip-top operating order. A note on parking, if you are not planning to drive anywhere the self parking at $20 might be a better use of money. Valet is $45 plus tips so we were in for $120 and we didn't need our car until we left. If we had it to do over we would have spent $40 and self parked. It is $20 each time leave the lot so if you will be driving often valet parking is the...