The name Marriott meant great service and guaranteed great service to me. I now know that this is not the case. Springhill Suites by Marriott did not live up to the standards I have experienced in the past!

First, upon checking into the hotel I found that the staff allowed someone else to check in under my reservation! I knew the person but they were in no way associated with my stay at this hotel. They did not have any of my reservation information – they were just able to talk the staff into giving my room to them. When I approached the staff about this I was literally screamed at by the desk clerk. She told me that I should take it up with the person who checked in under my reservation. Because she was being so loud and rude, I walked out of the lobby embarrassed because of the scene. After we unloaded the cars and parked (which is another story!), I went back to the front desk to talk with the desk staff again about the reservation being given to someone else. Again I was treated rudely by both and who again told me to take it up with the person who had taken my reservation!

Now, the hotel has onsite and offsite parking. I’ll give them that, but let me tell you about the onsite parking. There are only three parking spaces onsite and one of those is handicap parking. That is obviously not enough parking for the number of rooms they have at this hotel! We ended up parking in the offsite parking garage. The hotel charged us $5.00 to park and the garage charged us $5.00 to park! (I had to throw a fit to have one of the charges removed from the room.) Plus the offsite parking garage is two blocks away from the hotel! The parking situation was a pain and, once again, I tried to address this to the front desk staff that became unbearably rude. This person rolled her eyes at me and said that it would be a perfectly safe walk so I had nothing to worry about. Several other things were said to me however, at this point, I gave up trying to speak to the front desk staff.

I found the 800 number for Marriott Hotels and she seemed to only make excuses and blamed the inconveniences on my booking through hotels.com who “didn’t really know about the hotel”. She also said the parking is a “typical” downtown experience – not in any of my experiences. I did expect a hotel of that size to have more than three parking spots! She told me I needed to speak to the hotel manager about the problem, so I did.

After I got off the phone with her, I went to the front desk and asked for the manager. I told her of the problems but received no solutions. She did apologize and told me that the employee had been told not to give reservations to people that did not have the reservation information – great but they weren’t going to do anything to change what had already happened! I told the manager that I had called Marriott’s 800 number to file a complaint with them and her response was, “Why would you call them? They don’t own this hotel.” She explained that they were privately owned and Marriott Hotels had nothing to do with them. I just walked away and ended up sharing the room.

I’m sure you can imagine how I am feeling at this point, I don’t ever want to deal with these people again and I will now have concerns about staying at a Marriott Hotel in fear that they will be “privately owned” as I was told this one was.

I will now list a few facts that could be of help:

1. The breakfast is out of this world! They have a waffle maker, eggs, sausage, cereal, fruit, muffins, etc. You couldn’t ask for anything more.

2. There is only one ice machine and it is on the second floor.

3. Trolley stop just outside the front door on Main St. (It can take you anywhere and it costs $1.00 every time you ride.)

4. There are no bellhops.

5. Rooms are like a studio apt. Beds towards the back of the room with the “den” area and kitchenette in the front. They were also very clean and cool.

If you are going to Memphis, TN you can find a much nicer and friendlier hotel for the same price.