Aloft Charlotte City Center: Forget It ASAP

A new domestic U.S. trip to Charlotte, the economic capital of North Carolina, for a work seminar with my leadership team.

A look back at a truly awful hotel stay.

Booking

I booked through the Marriott Bonvoy app, using an AAA rate for a King Suite at nearly $300 per night, all-in.

Unfortunately, it was the only hotel available in the area at a reasonable rate and compliant with my company’s travel policy.

Arrival

I completed online check-in 48 hours before arrival via the app.

I specified an arrival time after 8:00 p.m. and requested a 4:00 p.m. late check-out.

I arrived around 9:30 p.m.

The atmosphere was quite strange, with some sketchy-looking people hanging around the front desk and a security guard—not exactly reassuring.

After a few minutes of waiting, the receptionist completed the check-in formalities and handed me the key to my suite on the 15th (and top) floor.

I headed up, but immediately found a room in dreadful condition—both in terms of maintenance and cleanliness—plus an unbearable air-freshener smell and a powerful ozone odor extractor running (which is normally not supposed to be used while someone is in the room). I’ll skip over the “accessible room” aspect that I personally dislike, and I went straight back down to the front desk to request another room. I was then assigned a standard room, but was promised both a refund and a substantial number of points as compensation. I quickly made my way to the new room.

Room

My room was located on the 15th floor.

The entry opens directly onto the bathroom area, with an open sink facing the main room, opposite a wardrobe space that also includes a safe and a coffee machine. A sliding door separates the toilet and the shower.

Past the wardrobe is the bedroom, with an uncomfortable king-size bed facing a nicely sized TV, with a desk on one side and the air-conditioning unit on the other.

Overall, the room was poorly maintained, and the soundproofing was completely unacceptable—both from outside and from inside the hotel. Sleep was light and required using my AirPods.

Housekeeping was not done after the first night of my stay, with no particular explanation.

Finally, the virtual tour:

Hotel Amenities

The hotel has a fitness room located on the 6th floor.

It’s sparsely equipped, but it was sufficient for the two morning workouts during my stay.

Food & Beverage

The hotel has a bar near the lobby. That said, the vibe was gloomy and the breakfast offering was extremely poor. I ended up going to Starbucks instead.

Service

Utterly terrible.

Departure

Check-out was very straightforward, since it was done through the Marriott Bonvoy app. However, I heard nothing about the (even partial) refund or the points promised at check-in due to the downgrade. I’ll have to follow up afterwards with my Marriott Ambassador.