The Newport Beach Marriott Bayview in California shut off the toilets in its rooms this week and was sending guests to an outhouse in the parking lot, with water supply to the hotel turned off for repairs.
They provided a letter to guests. Showers weren’t working. A reader shares with me that they did not contact guests in advance of their arrival, and when they pushed they were offered 10,000 Marriott points as compensation (worth ~ $60).
This raises a real question about what guests are do in situations like this. It seems to me that the fundamental proposition offered by a hotel is (1) a clean place to sleep, and (2) the opportunity to shower (and use the toilet). Here, the hotel offered the first but not the second. They failed to deliver the most basic product offered – yet insisted on keeping the full reservation price.
I’m not sure if this is better or worse, though, than when the Renaissance Newark kept the water running despite a Legionella outbreak, just telling customers not to shower (and refusing refunds for customers who ddin’t want to stay there)?
I don’t see how a hotel charges a guest while failing to deliver access to a shower.. or a toilet.. at a full service brand even. A working bathroom is certainly a brand standard element for Marriott, and even if the chain isn’t going to enforce that it’s what the customer believes they’re buying when they make the booking.
I’d certainly dispute the charge with my CC.
Just close the hotel at that point, until the issues are resolved. This isn’t even really about Marriott (unless they wanna actually hold their franchisee accountable, like, *cough* I guess Hilton can…) It also really isn’t about California, or America, or anything else. Fix the problem, then re-open the hotel. Don’t put your failure onto on consumers (or workers), who you’re just screwing over with these faux-solutions. Also, still pay staff to maintain the property throughout, even if it’s at a diminished capacity. Businesses can properly insure themselves for these things; that’s the risk of running a hotel; mitigate your risks.
Marriott. What a sh*t show.
If the hotel can’t provide running water, wouldn’t that be a Health Code violation – requiring the hotel to shut down until water service was restored?
Greedy. The right thing to do would be to not accept reservations for the night before and the day of. That’s ridiculous.
I would have been in immediate contact with the state health department and the Division of Hotels & Restaurants for licensing/health. The call would have been made while standing at the front desk. The next call would be to the television stations the covers the South LA area. Of course, it goes without saying that you should never stay at a Marriott
But the lucky guests get to be part of such an exciting journey with the hotel – a remarkable transformation, no less. The guests should be charged an “Exciting Journey Fee” plus a “Remarkable Transformation Surcharge” for such a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
@Lucky Larry — Hopefully someone thought to try to enforce such codes, laws, rules, norms, etc. None of this seems ‘right.’ Sure, it’s not the worst thing in the world, but, shame on this location for thinking this was ‘okay’ and more shame on the owners for thinking they could get away with it (which they still may, unless the affected people actually ‘do something,’ like, stand-up for themselves, reject these sub-standard conditions, demand better, put in the extra effort to get refunds, charge-backs, etc.)
It sucks that it basically falls back onto the consumer to have to fight, while very few entities or other people are helping them. Thankfully, Gary’s brought a light to this, and also, there should be other hotels in this area, yet, the rates may be less-than-ideal for last-minute stays.
Kinda reminds me of when airlines excessively delay, cancel flights, and leave passengers stranded, then, because we suck, no compensation, just refund or rebooking, or pound sand. Yes, I’m absolutely tying this all back into my push for EU-261 in the US.
It seems that the hotel did the best mitigation that they could do. The timing is after a holiday period. The hours were from 10am to 5pm, which covers the check out time and the check in time and the time between those. Seven hours out of twenty-four with check in at 4pm and check out at noon. Toilets were available but not convenient. At least some of those staying during the entire period would be elsewhere during the day. One thing not discussed was room cleaning for new guests. That could have been a little disruptive but maybe not so much if there were a lot of rooms available. Was $60 in points adequate? Probably not for some but maybe ok for some others who were out during the day and had a way to use the points. Maybe a better way would have been to knock the $60 (or even $50) off of the final bill of those claiming to be inconvenienced. The price of the rooms per day was not discussed but if it was high then the compensation was inadequate.
That this hotel–as a full-service hotel no less–figured they could get away with two full days of no water rather than shut down for those days is truly shocking.
That they offered ~$60 in points per guest is mind boggling. I would think that–at a minimum–offering them to comp the stay or a meaningful (40k?) amount of points would’ve been the least they should do. Especially since they presumably didn’t want this issue elevated to Marriott corporate.
@jns — Wow, nice pro-business sane-wash you got there. If this affected you personally as a guest, wonder how ‘understanding’ you’d be. Read the room, no one thinks they handled this well.
And you will only get half an elite night credit since half the function of the room is not working.
C’mon give em a break. They brought in a Luxury Flush.
Prices at that hotel average $250 per night.
If they want to remain open, they should mark the rate down to $39/night and advertise there is no running water during the day.
What you don’t get to do is charge full freight for a room and take away half of the entire point of a private room. What they’re providing is, in effect, worse than a hostel because you have go outside of the hotel to use the bathroom and obviously showers aren’t an option. Therefore they should charge what a hostel charges.
At the very least they should be warning people who book the reservation that this is the situation. There really is no excuse for that. Trapping people into this environment when they come check in their room and have relatively fewer options for alternate lodging is real close to bait and switch.
If none of that sounds appealing to hotel management, they can always close the property while renovations are underway.
Disgusting behavior. I’d have disputed the entire charge with my credit card before departing the airport to return home.
Ha! Note the photo of the outhouse is branded ” Luxury Flush” Depending on the length of stay and available alternative options, I might chose not to move and then, use powers of persuasion to comp days/hours inconvenienced. But I can be lazy.
You can either give me a full credit AND 10,000 points or I’ll dispute the charge AND write a review online of this hotel.
Your choice, hotel manager
Why do people willingly stay with this POS hotel chain? Why?
@toomanybooks — S&M?
Water is normally considered part of habitability. Health department or code enforcement.
Capital One and a few others offer a “synthetic” card number (I know my Venture X has this feature) where I can set a dollar limit and expiration of my choosing. Going forward, I’m only booking with one of these so I can control any charges that the hotel tries to concoct. Just remember to add it to your digital wallet if you are going to check in at the front desk. Generally speaking, in California a building is not habitable without water and a hotel has 24-72 hours to bring the water back online.
I understand that people like to rage at the hotel and are also anti business but I don’t see it completely that way. I look at as “how much did I pay” and “how much did it inconvenience me” instead of “how much can I get out of the situation.” If I did like I have done many times with checking in in the late afternoon or evening and checking out by 9am or 10am, I would not see a need for compensation unless they tried to add a lot of charges that weren’t on the original quote.
Even if I was in the hotel for several days like I was at Circus Circus in 2024, it wouldn’t have been a problem since I was gone during most of the daytime hours for a trip up to Zion (the final bill was in line with the quoted price on that trip). If I had paid a lot for a suite, I would be more likely to ask for compensation. If I was going to be in the room the entire day, I would also ask for compensation. I prefer compensation be in cash or a discount off of the agreed upon room rate because plan points are like no compensation to me.
A lot of hotel and motel rooms have bathtubs. I wonder if there was one in this case. If so, filling the bathtub with water can help with sanitation water needs. Separate water can be kept for brushing teeth.
I have been backpacking, camping, living out of my car, sleeping on the beach, staying in some pretty iffy hotels and motels, staying at some pretty iffy “resorts”, etc. I can get by almost anywhere. I prefer not to overpay so that may be why I take a more reasonable approach to the water being out during posted times in the middle of the day.
Well, jns, very few people willingly accept what you’re willing to accept. Many of us expect to pay for a hotel room and expect running water for showers and toilet use. Many of us are unwilling to negotiate with a business when that business isn’t providing what was paid for.
You must be very special.
Guessing that the repair was unavoidable and came up suddenly, so closure would have been a far more difficult problem to manage for both the hotel and the guests. Having said that, 10,000 Bonvoy points seems light and probably should have been at least 25% of room rate deduction in cash or 50% in Bonvoy points.
On the other hand, if it was avoidable or did not come up suddenly, this is a nasty thing to do
Guests were generously offered 500 points for the week of inconvenience
I stayed at this particular hotel once about 4 years ago and had a horrible experience (granted not as bad as this story). Even though I’m a Marriott guy I never stayed there again, I find other Marriotts nearby when I’m up there now (hopefully those gusts will do the same)
Marriott was always overvalued IMO. I worked for them for four years. Some of their properties are Marriott in name only now St.Louis Lambert is one of them. BTW they will fee you til youre scorched.
That’s a pretty swank looking outhouse although I’m not sure that it has showers. Another day another Bonvoying story.
Several years ago, five night stay in a suite(upgrade) at. Bellagio in LV. Get a phone call mid-stay that overnight there was a situation that MIGHT have impacted the use of the toilet. Refunded two nights of the five night stay. That’s how to treat customers