A reader sent me photos from the room they checked into at the Williamsburg Lodge, part of Marriott’s Autograph Collection at Colonial Williamsburg. His room was selling for over $400 a night.
The property has literally one job, providing a clean hotel room to sleep and shower. This is clearly not something that popped up between room servicings. And aren’t the rooms inspected? Too many hotels see this and do not care.
The guest insisted on speaking to a manager, who was highly confrontational and denied there was any mold in the room – until being shown the photos. At that point, they were offered points and moved to the better property across the street with common ownership.
Marriott in a rush to keep getting bigger has essentially no more standards as long as they get their $$$$ cut
Let the buyer beware folks
Many properties were not well maintained during Covid, some rooms going weeks between cleanings.
With the housekeeping and maintenance staff reduced during that time, and in many cases still not back to where it was (in some hotels, trash cans by the elevator have replaced room cleaning during a stay).
In some hotels, there was no deep cleaning of rooms during the hotel’s ramp back up after Covid.
It is unfortunate but a grocery store stop for cleaners is now routine for me, so that I know that I have a relatively clean room. I have well over 4,000 hotel nights lifetime, and pre-Covid, issues got handled, but hotels got hit so hard, and great habits were broken, and the super chains have still not gotten back to inspections and training that was common pre-Covid.
Asking for a manager – the mark of a Karen!
From comments I see on the Marriott FB pages, this seems to be the Marriott standard.
Before the merger. Sheraton and Marriott were both great chains with standards.
Since then and with the departure of Mr. Marriott, they have totally lost the product focus.
There are still great hotels, but most are not in the US.
What do you expect from a 400 year old hotel..
The franchisees run the company- it’s disappointing to see this company’s decision- all about profit and we do a great job inspite of the guests
Other choices of course
@Retired Gambler… Why would you say that? If your room wasn’t up to standards would you just ignore it and say “oh well”?
Except that’s not mold. It follows the metal, it’s from hard water. It’s iron deposits. Doesn’t look great, but not mold at all.
That’s bad even for Marriott.
Time ti fix them planes before they start falling apart
To Retired Gambler: And what would you have done had this happened to you?
Marriott is not the company they once were.
Who is the company they once were? Mergers. Greed. Unnecessarily long shut down during the Covid. . That’s disgraceful. I worked for the Marriott many years. They had standards. They sold off properties which are Marriott in name only.
Even in hometown Bethesda, I’ve become a complainer when I found the pubic hair rug on a bathroom floor.
This is less on Marriott and more on Colonial Williamsburg Foundation that owns and operates all the hotels on the Colonial Williamsburg property. They have been struggling and cost-cutting for nearly 20 years.
I worked at 3 Marriott branded hotels over the last 3 years and the final one got me to swear off ever working again in the biz, esp a Marriott one. The last one was a brand new RI in St Louis. After 1 year of opening the place, the owners were so against payroll to pay emp to keep it decently clean, it looked like it had been open 2-4 years with unreplaced broken glass, finger prints everywhere, dust, layers of grime, etc . Greedy.
This is worse than the pre-crash “three star” Hotwire hotel that I booked at the last minute in Daytona Beach in 2007-08. Accidentally knocked my wallet behind the TV cabinet, went to retrieve it and noticed an old HBO guide from…1996.
Beyond gross, I checked out immediately.
Why are these reports so bereft of detail? What was the outcome, & what justification/comment did the manager/Marriott offer?
Still blaming it all on Covid…. ….
I’m currently visiting Italy, Florence and Rome. Had/have five star hotels in both location, non-US brands, and both have mold issues in the showers. Not pleasant after spending so much money for five star.
This issue is that properties are independently owned and operated and the hotel brand will not spend money on resources and people to ensure quality of standards. It’s why a 3.5 star to even a 4.5 star property with a well known brand name can be a total sh%thole while a 3 star or even a 2.5 star property can shine. It’s why hotel owners at even upscale properties take in homeless or illegal immigrants because government will pay top rate and the owner doesn’t really care about other guests. A few years back staying the Sheraton at LAX there were people openly smoking pot in the front lobby and when I said something at the front desk they just frowned and said the owner had a contract with LA County to house homeless and if they called the cops they would rarely show up.
This is nothing. I stayed at this exact property back in July 2024 and we had holes in the wall, unpatched, a foot-long stretch of mold in the bathroom ceiling, broken tile pieces in the shower. It was like a roach motel. I messaged the HQ and they comped me $100 for the $300/night room and said “sorry, not sorry”
@Peter Kamerman: It’s actually a 1930s/40s hotel with modern additions from the 1970s and 1980s. Renovated as recently as 2017-2018-2019.
As others have suggested, the problem is Marriott no longer operates the vast majority of its properties. More than 70% of properties across all brands are operated by a franchisee, licensee or by a third-party company for the franchisee or licensee. Within some brands, it’s almost 100% of properties. Marriott is no longer a hotel company. It’s a booking platform. There are still exceptional properties, but you really have to pay attention to ownership and management groups. You tend to see the same problems across all their properties. Aimbridge being perhaps the best (or worst) example.
yep, Marriott corporate will not help you if there is a problem with a hotel stay, citing “they are independently run”. The managers of these independent hotels can abuse that priviledge frequently- Beware of Courtyard Marriott San juan @ Isle Verde AND the attached casino. However, the Marriot in San Jose, Costa rica (Hacienda Belen) is fabulous.
It’s not mold—just unsightly and less than the guest has a right to expect.
FYI btw generally speaking mold grows in places characterized by darkness, lack of air circulation, and constant water. The locations in the photos aren’t dark enough, wet enough, or airless enough to grow mold
@Mike: If it isn’t mold, what is it?