Embassy Suites by Hilton South Jordan Salt Lake City — Hotel in South Jordan

We stayed at Embassy Suites South Jordan for 9 nights around X-mas. We were in a two queens room, and one of our family members got their own king bed room. We found that layout of the rooms was different - our room with two queens had a "classic" two-room design with bedroom completely separated from the "living room", while the king bed suite had a more modern, open space design with extra space, but only a half-wall between area with the bed and area with the sofa. I cannot speak about other possible layout variations between the rooms which the hotel might have. Rooms were nice and clean, one can see that it is a relatively new building. Room service was on request, which is standard in the covid days. We requested it once through the stay, and got new towels several times. Breakfast starts at 6:30 am (7 am on weekends) and it is a step above over what one finds at, e.g., Hampton Inn. Custom omelets is a nice feature! On-side restaurant (which BTW also is the place which provides breakfast) is convenient and food is quite good - salmon was my favorite, fish and chips was good, too. The location is convenient for skiing, esp. if you prefer Alta/Snowbird and need a shorter drive to Little Cottonwood Canyon. For non-skiers, there is really nowhere to go - without a car, one cannot get anywhere, it is all concrete, wide open spaces, and industrial buildings around. A shopping mall is on the other side of the freeway, but a walk there can be perilous (one has to cross several wide freeway exits and entrances, and nobody cleans show on walkways on those streets). A drive to the mall, if one wants to go shopping, is easy and quick. There is a Costco in the proximity (a couple of miles, tops). The hotel has an adjacent parking garage (which I think may be shared with half-empty office building next door). It nicely protects from ice, rain, and snow. The garage (despite what I read in some reviews) is not secure - everyone can walk into it and everyone can drive out of it. Garage clearance is 7'2" - fine for most SUVs with roof boxes, but I can see some vehicles which require high overhead clearance needing parking outside of the garage (which is also available). There is a well equipped laundry room, which we used, and a fitness room and a pool (which we did not use). Electronic key was a little sluggish at times, and, even though the staff assured me that it was enabled for garage entrance, it did not work there (I tried only one of the two entrances) - so I used the regular rf-ID key more than I anticipated - which is fine. Rooms have small refrigerators, which are quite tiny even by the hotel standards. Microwave was handy to have, especially on X-mas day when everything around is closed - we stocked on frozen microwaveable meals to survive a holiday which tends to turn into a challenge of sorts if you are at a hotel for Christmas. The hotel staff is nice. Roughly 40% of the staff wear masks - a step up compared to the totally mask-less disaster which we experienced during our stay in Idaho, but less than what we would expect. If you are in a hospitality business, safety of guests should be a top priority, and requirements for employees should match not just local requirements but the tightest requirements across the country to make visitors from all parts of the U.S. comfortable - regardless of whether the guests wear or not wear masks. The hotel has some work to do in this area, especially during omicron surge. Also, there is no hot water and tea available in the lobby, and I do not think that tea was even offered in the coffee maker set. This obviously is a downside if you are on vacation. Plan accordingly - if you like hot tea or hot chocolate, bring your own. Aside from these observations, it was a pleasant stay which we enjoyed. Extra space in the room is a huge benefit when you arrive with ski clothes and stay for longer...

We made the decision to pay a lot MORE to stay at Embassy Suites because we are familiar with the evening appetizer reception and breakfast in the mornings - win win (light dinner and breakfast)... most of the Embassy Suites we've stayed at in the past have offered a great assortment of light refreshments (ie vegetable trays, popcorn, pretzels, cheese, crackers, chips, salsa, cookies, etc) that you could make a light dinner with the offering - I know this may sound snobbish - but if I'm paying next to $200/night - instead of $120 at a nearby hotel that offers a full cook to order breakfast too - the evening reception needs to make up for some of that in my mind. Here's why I'll make sure the next Embassy Suites is NOT under the same management: plainly it was because the evening "reception" served just macaroni salad that had clearly been out too long and sliced pineapple - yes we were able to get a beverage - but the food offering was truly pathetic. (We should have saved the $80+ gone elsewhere and spent that on a nice dinner out.) When I asked - I was told that the "new management" didn't want to provide anything other than the pre-made (think cafeteria style) pasta salad from the buckets and the fruit. The single line for the beverages was also a joke - only one person serving and a line of 20+ individuals stayed constant - many of us in line were assuming there was a different area for food that people were waiting in the long line for - but no go. Seems the management was hoping people would stick around and pay $20+ for a sandwich from their in house restaurant. (We did that too - the only highlight - beers at the bar were reasonably priced - and the side salad that came with the sandwich was quite large - the sante fe chicken sandwich however - zero seasoning on the chicken - we opened it up and checked... the chicken was completely bland - the "pepper" had no flavor either. We ended up eating the chicken just for the protein along with the salad - but should have driven to a fast food joint / gone elsewhere for better entree at that price. The facility itself appeared to be clean - except for some odd brown stuff on the curtains in our room that I did not want to investigate further. The keurig in the room was fine - but the only kcups they provided were green tea and decaf coffee. The coffee in the morning was only in the breakfast area - so you had to wait for that to open before you could access any java.... most hotels have that more readily available to guests. The non-optional parking fee ($10) is a joke for fully unsecured parking. I can understand a parking fee when in an impacted area (ie downtown) - but being surrounded by empty buildings and so much wide open vacant space, it just didn't make sense. They say it's for "maintaining" it - however, walking to our car in the morning, the front drive was sprayed in someones vomit - throughout the lot... one would think they'd have "maintained" that hosed down - but it was in multiple spots between the door of the hotel and our vehicle and we could see evidence of more on our way out of the lot as well. Long story short - we won't stay at a hotel under this management again - seems they're wanting to cut corners on what Embassy Suites is known for across...

I'll start with the positive- the hotel itself is relatively new so there's minimal wear and tear. The breakfast had some great options, as to be expected with embassy suites. The staff was friendly, though inattentive (more below), and the room was quiet and spacious. Now for the negative- I honestly couldn't decide between 2 or 3 starts but given that corporate at least tried to make it right, I'm giving 3. Let me start with check-in- I did check in on the app and very strategically chose my preferred room. When we arrived, we were told parking is $10 a day. This seems ridiculous considering it's not like you're downtown or something. We got our keys and took the elevator up to our room, only to discover that they had switched our room to the second floor without telling us. So we went back down to the second floor and opened the door to discover a blocked view. So back to the desk to get the original room we reserved, which wasn't ready yet. So we lugged our bags back to the car and came back later. Happy hour was a bit of a joke- goldfish, some fruit, and a sugary pasta salad. Drinks were tiny. The next day, we were gone for 4-5 hours. When we returned, housekeeping had not come by. And no, I did not have do not disturb on the door. Okay, fine. I didn't ask for housekeeping and not all hotels service every day. So I called the desk and asked for towels and let them know when we would be out for the next day and can they please make sure and service the room. The next day, after being gone another 4-5 hours, the room was still dirty. Now, it's worth mentioning that the trash cans, of which there are two, are the size of a soda can. So by day 3, there was a significant pile of trash. I called to ask for them to please come take out trash and they said they would be up shortly. We waited two hours but they never came. So I messaged in the app to again ask for the trash to be taken out. They said they took care of it, but I bet you can guess what happened next. That's right, we arrived back 3 hours later and the pile of trash remained. After calling down to the desk (no answer) and chat messaging (no answer), I finally walked down to the front desk to ask for a trash bag. After some searching, they were able to locate a giant outdoor black trash bag. So that sat in the dining room floor for the remainder of the stay and we just reused the towels from the previous 3 days for showers. Corporate did at least give us a one night stay worth of points, which was at least a good gesture and was...