AC Hotel Spartanburg — Hotel in Spartanburg

As a local, I wanted to check out the new hotel that I've watched go up for over a year.  It's a very impressive looking hotel from the outside, one of the three tallest buildings in all of downtown.  The top is lit up at night, which looks inviting.  There are a number of bars and restaurants within easy walking distance.  Spartanburg has definitely made great strides in the 15+ years that I have lived here.  That's still a ways to go, but there's a lot of momentum.

There's sufficient parking behind the building, and it's free, one of the nice things about Spartanburg.  The inside is sleek, and has a very modern, European feel.  Two front end check in areas.  I was warmly greeted, checked in quickly, and told about the bar and the breakfast area.  The elevators are right across from the front desk so they are easy to find.

To say this hotel was clean is pretty much a given, as I'm writing this review only 3 days after their grand opening.  The rooms are not huge, but they make excellent use of space.  The TV is hung on the wall, there's a small refrigerator on the room, benches for storage or seating, a couch, and plenty of outlets.  The outlets also have USB ports, which is great.  The biggest negative is lack of drawers, and the small closet. You'll need to live out of your suitcase here. It's not a problem for me, but might be for others.

The bathroom is very well laid out. It's a shower only, no tub. There's not a lot of privacy, either. The sliding door to the bathroom is frosted and has no lock. You can easily have a conversation with someone in the bathroom. The shower doors are clear. This is fine for secure couples but might not be best with small children in the room.

The only thing that's not clean are the outside of the windows.  I guess I understand that, there is lots of construction going on in Spartanburg these days, so it would be hard to be kept clean.  But that is only on the outside.  I'm not going to deduct a star for the outside of the windows.

After eating elsewhere andice skating on the square, we decided to try out the bar.  It was a little after 10pm, and it was quite crowded, but with open seats for us to sit.  They have wines posted with six and nine ounce pour rates, plus the bottle.  They had a few signature cocktails, two were gin.  The bartenders were efficient and handled the bar crowd well.  They also had a small plate menu.  We had the meat and cheese board, prosciutto, manchego, crispy bread and kalamata olives.  For the price, the portion was fair, and it tasted good.

There was one pool table of to the side of the bar area, and there were too many people around it for playing to be a lot of fun, but people were nice and would move enough for you to make your shot.

Sadly, the rooftop bar area isn't ready for business yet, and won't be until January.  We look forward to getting it out, however.

The bed was comfortable and made for a good night's sleep. From a noise perspective, I was pleasantly surprised.  The hotel is right next to the railroad crossing.  They put in the silent train crossing because the noise would have been too much.  I could hear the train off on the distance as it passed other streets, but it was low enough to not disturb.  There is a single serving coffee maker in the room, which had only one regular coffee and one decaf, with two creamers in total. If you need your coffee before heading out, you might want to check your stock before heading to bed.

We didn't try the breakfast with other great places to go around town, but given Marriott's quality standards, I'd venture a guess to say it would be good also.  My understanding is that it's an European style buffet for $15, not bad for hotel breakfast buffet pricing.

So, this review is overwhelmingly positive.  The staff seemed to be well prepared, and there were no hiccups due to being new that I observed. I look forward to coming back when the...

A Lufthansa lounge in Frankfurt airport has a giant glass wall and a row of 747s just outside. You don't hear the planes because the building's architects had high standards.

In contrast, this hotel offers an expensive small room with traffic sounds, trains, hallway noises, and drainpipe noises in the walls. The construction design and materials transmits too much sound + vibration.

Room design could be by Mike Myers' character Dieter from SNL's "Sprockets": Trendy decor but overwhelmingly dark. No splash of color, no hotel/area information in the room, nothing to read at all. Trendy imported soaps, but no big dispensers in the shower. Trendy electrical outlets look cool but can't fit two plugs at one time. Trendy wall finishings, but listen to your upstairs neighbor water running down the pipes. Trendy walk-in shower but water splashes on outside floor. Trendy glass door to bathroom gives little privacy. Trendy flat sink: too shallow. Trendy shower fixtures but caps on soap tray falling off, loose nuts/bolts. Loctite, anyone? Blackout shade frames aren’t sealed to windows and the glass corners aren’t masked, so there's way too much light. But, hey, there's a trendy gigantic TV.

If Mike Myers' Dieter designed the bedroom, maybe he joined with Halloween's Michael Myers to do the lobby, where trendy furniture placed in militaristic (or institutional?) rows creates a terrifyingly exposed feeling no matter where you sit, including breakfast area. Nowhere cozy to talk, nowhere to hide. Lobby computers have no privacy whatsoever. Lobby is a giant chamber with no sound deadening. Trendy house rules: music too loud, lobby + halls absurdly cold, and if you want a soda at breakfast they'll tell you to go buy one at the trendy check-in podium. Breakfast chairs don’t work with table height, and a long couch is jarringly mismatched with a short coffee table. Trendy plates for food from the sparsely supplied, oddly arranged, overpriced breakfast "buffet". Kitchen door slams but nobody fixes it.

Speaking of doors, the double doors onto Main St are too narrow + have too much resistance to open easily, so you'll be in trouble if Michael Myers steps out of the elevator. Stairs to the street "borrow" a good chunk of the public sidewalk. Running the other way leads you to an uncovered parking lot with tight spaces.

Plusses: good location, clean, very nice staff + nice view from...

Since the limit is 2500 characters, and the review I left for the hotel staff wont fit, I will give you the cliff's notes. For reference, I stay over 75 nights per year at Marriott properties and feel I have a pretty good gauge for reference. I typically stay at the full service Marriott , but wanted to try the new hotel.

My first experience with this hotel was walking into the lobby and getting in line to check in. There were about three people in front of me, but it was Monday afternoon so I didn’t think anything of it. When it was my turn I stepped to the counter and said hello. The lady at the front desk looked right passed me to the customer behind me and started helping her.

The lounge food menu is worthless if you’re actually hungry, but given the proximity to other places it didn’t bother me much. I ordered the meatballs, and they were cold, The service was also poor. There were multiple occasions over the course of my visits where the staff were talking among themselves, while customers needed service.

I understand that the idea is a “European continental style”, but it is also pretty worthless. Having been to Europe many times, the AC Spartanburg’s version is bested by most bargain brand offerings. I had to wait for food to be refilled every day because my selection was empty. The meat and cheese selections are as basic as you can possibly get and none of the options were impressive.

The walls in this hotel are paper thin. Each night I could hear the complete conversations of the people on both sides of me, but also could hear the communication devices of the hotels staff every time they walked passed my door. Wednesday morning at 7am I could clearly and annoyingly hear a saw running on the floor above me. Thursday morning I was also able to hear loud hammering from the floor above.

Finally, on Thursday my room was not cleaned. Not even touched by housekeeping and I never ever put the “come back later” sign on my door. Once I was back from work, housekeeping knocked on my door at 6:30 pm trying to service it.

There is some serious work that needs to be done at this hotel if you want it to be considered “luxury”. I will never, ever stay at this hotel again. Additionally, I will educate my fellow employees about the condition and operation of this hotel. I will urge them not to stay there and to never send a customer there. I have never been more disappointed in a hotel...