Residence Inn by Marriott West Orange — Hotel in West Orange

I do NOT recommend staying here.

So, I booked here for several reasons for our trip to NYC. First off, It's the weekend of New Years and my husband and I decided to bring 3 of our kids ages 22, 21 and 7 and one of our grandkids, age 5 to New York City to do some Christmas season bucket list stuff. Booking here was important for me for several reasons. Even though it's not as close as I had planned on being to NYC, it was still a reasonable distance for driving. It had a pool, which was a priority for me for the young ones. And then it had several other perks I found appealing, free parking, breakfast, kitchens, and conjoined rooms was a definite perk.

After driving 10 hours to get here, my husband goes in, registers and we unload to our rooms, ready for some dinner and some swimming! Well, our room had a view of the pool area and my 22 y/o daughter says to us, ummmm, the pool is half drained. I said, what? Are you serious? And sure enough, it was. So, I tell me my husband to go to tye check-in desk and see what is going on and if they have more than one pool, and if not, can they give us a discount for the inconvenience as this was the #1 reason for booking. I mean, after all, we are paying over $2,000.00 for a 4 day trip here. Well, they tell him no other pools, and no, they wouldn't do anything for the inconvenience to us, OTHER THAN not charge us any fees if we wanted to cancel and go somewhere else. So, my husband says, let me go talk to my wife. He returned and told me of their "offer". I said, well Ok, let's see what if there are any other hotels that have a functional pool AND can accommodate 4 adults and 2 children, the weekend of New Years Eve. So us 4 adults start looking around to see if we should cancel or just stay, when we get a call at 5:23 from the front desk asking if we'd decided on if we were staying or not. My husband tells them that we are trying to figure something out and asked how long we had to decide. We obviously know that they wouldn't allow us to hang out for hours in their property, but the front desk proceeds to say, until 5:30.... I'm sorry, what? I have 7 minutes to try and find accommodations for my family of 6 the weekend of new year's? Do you have any idea how difficult that is? And of course, I'd like to have all of the accommodations that I'm paying for. This wasn't something that could be done in 7 minutes. So, I go to the front desk to speak to Melissa, the manager to see if we could come to an agreement of some kind. I feel that 7 minutes was very unreasonable, and that the best they could do was not charge me any fees if I decided to cancel? I just drove 10 hours to get here. She offered to call the Courtyard Marriott for me to see if they had any rooms available, and they did. Two regular king rooms, with a pool however, no other amenities. At that point I did take the reservation at the Courtyard as I felt completely disregarded after explaining to her that I'd like to just stay here if she could offer me SOMETHING for the inconvenience as I didn't want to have to reload all of our belongings and transfer to a whole different hotel after a 10 hour drive here. Melissa said there was nothing else she could do for me. I'd have taken a free pizza or $10 off of my bill but NOPE. She didn't want my money or my business. Shame. So, we packed up and left.

I do not recommend staying here. This wasn't all of the conversation that was had between us, but she made it clear that she didn't care.

I hate leaving bad reviews but, I travel A LOT and I depend on reviews when making decisions about my travel. I'm beyond disappointed between my interaction with this hotel and it really put a big stressor on my experience here starting off. Melissa didn't care. I don't recommend staying anywhere that doesn't care about your trip, or your hard earned money.

Don't stay here. The rooms were big and it would have been really nice to have the extra space for my family. The kitchen and cabinets are dated and weren't...

I had hoped to stay at this Residence Inn for an extended period since it’s conveniently located near where I was conducting business. However, after spending four nights here Monday through Friday, I will not be returning.

At check-in, I was given an upgraded suite, which was spacious and included a nearly full kitchen, a comfortable living area, and a large bedroom. While the rooms appear to have been refreshed recently, key areas—particularly the bathroom and kitchen—are still quite dated and showing significant wear.

My main issue was that my suite had an adjoining door to the neighboring room—intended for guests booking multiple rooms together. Because of this door, there was virtually no sound isolation. I could hear everything happening next door as if it were in my own room. Unfortunately, a very loud family was staying beside me. On the first night, two people were shouting back and forth about missing food between 10:30 and 11:00 pm. I contacted the front desk supervisor, and the only solution offered was to call the room (which went unanswered) and send someone by. By then, the yelling had already stopped. I was also uncomfortable with this approach, as it made it clear to the neighbors that I had complained.

On the third day, more yelling and crying disrupted my attempts to work from my room. Even normal sounds—like dishes clanking, casual conversation, and floors creaking—were loud enough to be clearly heard through the door. When I brought this up with a staff member named David, he said the best he could do was contact the guests if the noise continued past 10 pm. He also remarked that what I was experiencing was “just part of hotel life.” I’ve stayed in Marriott hotels for nearly 80 nights over the past six months, and I can confidently say this is not typical. At no point was I offered a quieter room, even though I confirmed that not all rooms have adjoining doors. The front desk supervisor did reach out and offer 2000 points for my inconvenience the day before I checked out, but apparently it was still not an option to change rooms for my final night.

Housekeeping was another letdown. I understood that service should be every other day, but my room was not attended to until the fourth day. Upon asking David how often housekeeping should be coming through, he avoided answering the question. After returning Wednesday afternoon to find no housekeeping had come, I submitted a request via the Bonvoy app around 5 pm. I received a response saying someone would come shortly. When I returned after 8 pm, the trash and dirty towels were still there. I followed up again and finally received a reply 20 minutes later. This should not have been such a struggle for something so basic. On Thursday, housekeeping did come, but they knocked over all the toiletries sitting on my bathroom counter as well as the water bottle on my desk and didn’t pick anything up.

Overall, this property seems to be slipping in both service and upkeep. Staff appeared untrained in customer service and lacked empathy for guest concerns. The hotel is aging quickly and needs significant improvements to justify the prices being charged. Sadly, this stay did not live up to the standards I’ve come to expect...

Extremely Disappointing Stay – Poor Experience and Broken Promises

I’m a Marriott Bonvoy Platinum member and used 147,000 points to book a 5-night stay in a one-bedroom suite at this property, expecting the level of service and comfort that Marriott promises its loyal members. Unfortunately, what I encountered was a series of issues that were never adequately addressed.

The first room—a one-bedroom suite that I had originally booked—had a very loud HVAC unit that made it impossible to rest. I was moved the next day to what was described as an upgraded two-bedroom suite, but this was actually a handicapped-accessible room. While technically larger, it was not a meaningful upgrade, especially given that the layout was awkward, the shower heads were unusually low, and overall, it was not suitable for someone without special needs.

The worst part came the night before our scheduled checkout, when we were informed at the last minute that the hotel would be without running water from 8 PM to 2 AM due to scheduled maintenance. This was never disclosed at booking or check-in, and had we stayed, we would not have been able to shower, use the restroom, or access basic hygiene. I asked to be moved to another Marriott property and was told that wasn’t possible. Instead, I was encouraged to check out early (and we did check out around 11am the day before we were meant to checkout) and book elsewhere, with the explicit promise from the manager on-duty that 34,000 points would be returned to my account for the 5th night I was not able to stay, and that I had already paid for. If the manager on-duty's promises are meaningless, how is this Marriott property with such a significant disruption not have the general manager available and working the day this water maintenance was disclosed to deal with the situation? Did they not expect guests to have an issue with the water completely shut-off; especially guests who have early morning travel and don't have the luxury to just "wing" it without water? Maybe this would be OK for someone who intended on outdoors camping, but this is otherwise completely unacceptable for a family with young kids.

That promise was never honored. The general manager later claimed the last night was "free" and that nothing more could be done—despite the fact that the second night, not the fifth, was marked as free in the rate breakdown.

Additionally, the included breakfast was very underwhelming, with poor variety and below-average quality. We ended up skipping it entirely for two of the mornings and choosing to eat elsewhere.

After numerous follow-ups, I was offered 10,000 points, which does not come close to making up for the night I lost (even if I prorate the 147k points, it would still be 29.4k points), the inadequate room conditions, or the broken commitment from staff.

This experience has seriously undermined my trust in both this property and the Marriott brand. I will not be returning to this location, and I strongly urge others to reconsider before booking here.

And yes, I fully expect the hotel will respond to this review with a generic apology and a misleading excuse. Don’t fall for it—it’s the same scripted PR they’ve used throughout this...