As part of a personal trip to the wedding of friends near Lyon, we stayed at the Marriott, the hotel I usually stay at. If the experience was quite good at the beginning, it got worse as my stay went on…
Booking
I booked this room almost 6 months before my arrival on the Marriott Bonvoy website, at a price of 89€ per night, a real bargain.
Arrival
Two days before my arrival, I receive a notification that I can check-in, which I do.
On the day of my arrival, I notice that I have been upgraded to an executive room on the app, and then receive a notification that my room is ready.
I arrive at the hotel by rental car from Saint-Exupéry airport. The doorman takes charge of the car in valet immediately, and we head to check-in.
The receptionist welcomes us and introduces us to the Platinum benefits. Immediately, he looked at the available suites and found one with a view of the Rhône. Great !
However, I don’t understand why I have to give my credit card again (plus I used the wrong card…).
Room
The assigned suite is located on the 8th and top floor of the property. Unfortunately, the door between the bedroom and the lounge is locked, and the porter will have to come and open it.
The decoration is modern, but uninspired. Above all, the lounge area is a converted bedroom and the final look is not the happiest. Compared to the Executive rooms, the balcony which is very pleasant is missing.
When you enter the room, the most striking thing is the cold. It is, at most, 16 degrees in the room… Thank the planet when it’s 35 degrees outside!
The bathroom is very dated (dating back to when the hotel was a Hilton), but well maintained.
This is not the case in the entrance hall, where the imitation parquet flooring is warped.
The bed is very comfortable and I will sleep like a baby.
On the other hand, the fact that you can’t open the windows doesn’t help the feeling of dampness you may have.
The lounge area is uninspired, as I said, and has its own bathroom (proof that it used to be a bedroom).
Finally, the video tour:
Hotel facilities
The hotel has a fitness room, on the first floor, which I did not try. Negative point: no swimming pool (surprising for such a large and rather new hotel), no spa, and especially the Executive lounge is now permanently closed.
Platinum guests now get free breakfast, a free minibar and a drink at the bar every night, but this lounge was very pleasant, with its terrace overlooking the city.
Catering
The food in this hotel is quite good at meal times. The Italian restaurant, Zucca, does the job and does it well.
We enjoyed our lunch on the terrace.
However, the breakfast is of very average quality. The buffet is not very varied, and the ingredients are poor. It’s the last straw in Lyon, the French capital of gastronomy, damn it!
Nevertheless, it is possible to order eggs which are rather well cooked (proof that it is the quality of the products that is the problem, not the cooking).
Departure
We had a few problems during this stay, which were not necessarily well managed (to say the least).
First of all, the problem of the temperature of the room, which we solved on our own by deactivating the air conditioning, which de facto deactivates the ventilation (very bad point).
Then, on the second day, the hotel car park was full. As we returned to the hotel in the middle of the night, the doorman was particularly unpleasant, and nothing was done to make things right. We had to park in the public car park, at a cost of 28€ per day (iso 17€ at the hotel) and therefore carry all our luggage to the car park the next day. When I complained to the receptionist, she said there was nothing she could do…
At the very least, the hotel should have covered the price difference. The best part: when we returned to the room, it had not been cleaned. So I call the reception, who tells me that it’s not possible to have housekeeping in the middle of the night (I suspected that), and asks them to add this to the list of problems to be reported to their manager who was to call me the next morning.
The next morning, obviously, no news from the manager, and I don’t have time to take care of it, wishing to take a walk in Lyon before leaving.
On departure, it is only because the receptionist cannot print the bill that the manager comes out of her den to deal with the problem. She asks me if my stay went well, and this is the only window I have to explain my worries. She listens and says “I’ll give you free parking for the first night”. How generous… This barely covers the cost of public parking.
What a disappointing experience!
Bottom line
I had never been upgraded at the Marriott Lyon but I had never had such a catastrophic experience. So I think I won’t be coming back. I will go to the Intercontinental Lyon which has just opened.
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