Courtyard by Marriott Lake George — Hotel in Town of Lake George

Do yourselves a favor and don’t ever stay at this hotel! We checked in rather late on Monday, and although I chose, and paid for a room with 2 King beds, we were told that there were none available upon check in. I didn’t even argue about it because it was so late by the time we got there. We were sent up to our room on the 3rd floor…as soon as we got off the elevator on the 3rd floor we were literally slapped in the face by what smelled like cat urine…we continued to walk to our room and when we opened the door, the smell in the room was even worse than the smell in the hallway. We immediately went back downstairs to request a new room. We explain to the guy at the front desk what the problem was and he just blank stares at us as if his brain is loading on dial up internet. He types some stuff into the computer and grabs us a new set of keys…still not saying basically anything at all. Hands us a new set of keys and we just go on our way. Now we’re sent to the second floor…room 215…my family goes into the room ahead of me while I grab all of the bags from the car. I go upstairs and my wife tells me that there is blood on one of the beds. She calls downstairs to the same front desk person, explains the blood…and crickets…again loading on dial up…finally after about a full minute of silence he says “do you mind if I come take a look?” … so he does…looks at it up close and says “looks like makeup to me” …. How one confuses makeup and drops of bright red blood are beyond me, but that is neither here nor there. He then says “would you like me to change that out?” …… no, we are just gonna cuddle up with someone else’s blood, no big deal….like wtaf! Fast forward the blood sheets get changed, we’re so tired at this point, we have 2 toddlers with us that also need to get to bed. As we’re setting up our stuff I notice random strands of hair that don’t belong to us, which we ignore for the most part bc I understand that no cleaner can be perfect. We finally go to get into bed and I see a fly on the wall…kill it…move on. We go to sleep, at least try to because we just feel skeeved at this point honestly. I’m feeling like things are crawling on me, ive convinced myself that im probably going to get eaten alive by bed bugs so no part of me can get comfortable. Eventually I finally fall asleep. We sleep in a bit the next day after a very long night. My 1 year old was in her pack and play and wanted out by a certain time to which I obliged and put her into the floor to walk around, against our better judgement. As she’s walking around following her big sister, I see that she steps on something on the ground…I go to look to see what it is, it seems to be a crumb of some sort. As I look closer, I see that it is face a piece of food, which we did not bring into the room because we hadn’t eaten anything in the room. I turn on my flashlight in the area and see 100’s of ants alllllllll overrrrrrr the floor!!! I look all around the room and they are not only on the crumb, they are EVERYWHERE!!!! We immediately call the front desk and they are very apologetic for once, get us a new room 2 doors down into room 217. So now we spend almost the entire morning moving AGAIN for the 3rd time. I had to inspect every corner of the new room before I even brought our stuff in because I didn’t want to have anymore surprises. I didn’t find anything super concerning aside from the lack of a good cleaning. Again random hairs in places, but at least no bugs that I could see. We finally get settled, again….and to to breakfast down the street. Our family just couldn’t shake the anger and disgust from the night before and that morning, so after breakfast we went to a place across from the Marriott to see if they had any vacancies. Luckily for us, they had 1 available room. So we just booked it and moved our stuff again for a 4th and final time, and we are so glad we did. Staying in a motel on the lake side was way more comfortable and clean compared to what we experienced at the Marriott....

Rogue Housekeeping

The hotel is experiencing an influx of trainees, however our experiences with the housekeeping on the property were unacceptable and well below Marriott standards.

Upon checking in we were given room 202 which was written on the key card envelope. Upon reaching the room the key card did not work. Another trip down to the front desk to find we were actually in room 204

As Bonvoy Titanium members we were also upgraded to a water view balcony suite, however this was not noted on check-in but a nice surprise.

On the second day we requested housekeeping to occur when we were out of the room in the morning. However on arrival back in the suite at 1:30 pm the room was as we left it.

Contacting the front desk we were told someone would be there shortly and the housekeeping manager had been informed.

By 3:00 PM with no shampoo or coffee and no toilet paper or clean water glasses to drink from we again called down to the front desk who again reiterated the housekeeping manager had again promised someone would be there within five minutes.

We waited with crossed legs and no showers until 4:30 PM when we called and requested the manager speak with us. The manager screened the calls and informed us through the front desk that the housekeeping manager had assured us the someone was on the way and would all be sorted by 5:00pm before staffs went home.

With no toilet paper and staying in an expensive suite we were left with no choice but to use the hotel facilities while again waiting for housekeeping.

At 5:20 PM we had enough and called to speak with the manager about releasing us from our final night as we were packing to move to another property.

The manager seemed shocked that housekeeping had gone home and not serviced the room. She promised to come and see us immediately.

The manager then proceeded to apologetically clean the room herself, make the bed, replenish the shampoo, toilet paper and clean glasses and then informed us that we were not entitled to housekeeping daily and this was written on a card in the room.

We did find a sheet in the room with a paragraph on housekeeping every second day – Are guests expected to read every piece of info in the room?

The front desk made no mention of housekeeping protocols either or we would have put out the card first thing in the morning.

Apparently no one at the hotel front desk that we spoke with is aware of this policy either.

More troubling is the fact that when the manager asked housekeeping to service the room they ignored her command and took the rogue route of going home leaving guests with out the very basic necessities!

That is...

While I’m not normally one to write a bad review for a business, I can’t ignore what happened with my stay this past weekend at the Courtyard Lake George. To make a long story short, I booked a reservation using the Marriott app as I always do. Evidently the credit card I had on file had expired, but the reservation processed and confirmed anyway, with no indication that there was an issue. Fast forward to the day before I was due to check in, and the hotel sent an email stating that the card was invalid and asked that I call in a new card. As soon as I saw the email (the following day) I called to provide a new card. I was then told that my reservation had been cancelled and that the hotel had already resold my room and would not honor my reservation. They did say we could check in, but would only be able to stay one night (rather than two). Given that we were already on the way, we had no choice but to continue on and hope we could reason with the hotel in person. Sadly, this was misguided hope. After speaking with the front desk and then a shift manager (the GM declined to come out of her office), pleading with them and explaining the situation, they would not budge in their denial to honor our reservation and accommodate us. We were instructed to leave the property and given no additional assistance or accommodation. It seems unfathomable to me that a hotel would simply send a last-minute email, barely wait any time for a response, make no effort to reach out by phone and summarily cancel a reservation. I’ve been loyal to Marriott since the Starwood merger, and loyal to SPG for a decade before that. My loyalty status hasn’t dropped below gold, and up until the pandemic was platinum. This apparently was of little consequence and had no bearing on stopping this hotel from kicking us out on the street. Moreover, the hotel provided us with exactly ZERO compensation for the tremendous disrespect and inconvenience – they would not even cover the difference in the room rate for the last-minute reservation we were forced to make at a hotel down the street. I’ve been traveling on business for nearly 20 years and I’ve never experienced such utter callousness and discourtesy from a hotel - certainly not from a brand with a reputation like Marriott’s - certainly not towards a loyal traveler – and certainly not to a family traveling with a child. So, was I dissatisfied with my stay? I’d say shocked beyond words would be a better...