Marriott at The University of Dayton
While we were staying in Dayton with Kenzie and Lukey back in June, we stayed at the Marriott Hotel at the University of Dayton. This is a fairly new hotel... actually, I don't think it was there the last time we were in Dayton... so the hotel was clean. In fact, the hotel was bursting at the seams with airshow participants when we arrived and it still seemed well organized and effectively managed. In short, our stay at this hotel was very nice but not without a few little problems as one might expect during a long stay.
We certainly have a few complaints just as we do with every hotel but I think our complaints here were quite minor by comparison. For instance, it seems that all hotels have done away with daily housekeeping service even when all signage in the rooms indicate daily housekeeping service. For instance, they have multiple signs telling you to put dirty towels on the floor of the bathroom if you want them replaced. That would imply that we will have daily housekeeping service. We didn't have daily housekeeping service. Now we had all of our towels on the dirty bathroom floor. I don't even put my own dirty towels on the bathroom floor at home because, well, it is a dirty bathroom floor. I don't even want to touch my socks after walking through any bathroom even my own. I certainly don't want my towels touching a bathroom floor at any time!
So now all our towels were on the bathroom floor and we just got back to the hotel, all sweaty and dying for a shower. Actually, here is another complaint that we seem to have in every hotel. We reserve a room for four people staying in the room yet, when we arrive, there are only three bath towels. Every single time.
Since the pandemic, this is our major complaint at every hotel... we have to continually ask for towels. I don't mind making our own bed every morning and tidying up any messes we made the previous night but the bathroom needs to be restocked daily and garbage needs to be emptied daily. These were certainly our two biggest complaints during our stay here. And, I have no clue why hotels think this is acceptable.
Speaking of towels, I'm reminded of another complaint that every hotel needs to hear... You have a room set up for four occupants yet there is only one single hook in the bathroom! And, there are no places to hang a bath towel near the shower while you are in the shower! What the hell?
Another minor complaint was about the restaurant in this particular hotel. Service in the hotel restaurant was abysmal and the menu was uninspiring. We had just come from The Regency in Cincinnati and the restaurant in that hotel was absolutely outstanding... including the service and the food and the menu and the comfort of the restaurant. The restaurant at the Marriott at UD was more like an extension of the busy lobby with a cheap contemporary cafeteria vibe. Getting service was as slow as molasses in winter. And, the menu was so uninspiring that we only ordered burgers and even that was mediocre at best. Consequently, we only ate here once because we had no desire to go back.
Fortunately, there were plenty of other better places to eat nearby. On another night when we were too exhausted to go out for dinner and would have normally simply ate at the hotel restaurant, we opted for UberEats delivering SmashBurger which was far, far, far better than the burgers in the hotel restaurant. The french fries were far better too!
Here is another sign that the housekeeping staff is undermanned. Every day we had to call the front desk for towels and for the garbage to be taken... every... single... day. Well... on the third day, I recommended we tip the housekeeper when she brings towels to us to see if that changed our daily housekeeping service (it did). When one of the housekeeping staff did arrive with a stack of towels (there were four of us showering everyday because we were sweating profusely all day, every day) and to take our garbage, Sheila handed her a meager $5 or $10 tip in an attempt to get more housekeeping service everyday... this woman was nearly in tears, overly thankful and with her voice emotionally crackling. Clearly... the housekeeping staff is undermanned, overworked, and poorly paid for the work that they are doing. I have a BIG complaint about that. When the staff is unhappy, the guests are unhappy. It's as simple as that. Incidentally, after this incident, we really had no big complaints.
I should point out that we always tip the housekeeping staff at least $5/day no matter where we stay. By not servicing our room, they lose out on daily tips. This emotional reaction by our housekeeper at this hotel after providing a meager tip was very revealing though.
Overall, however, our stay was great and the hotel staff was very accommodating (we've been at far worse hotels with far worse service). We had a room with a balcony overlooking the patio area and the pool as well as the Carillon bell tower at nearby Carillon Park.
The view from our room included a tall flagpole and the Carillon bell tower at Carillon Park...
Waiting for elevators in any hotel gets old quickly. Fortunately, the wait times were only seconds at this hotel. Hotels in Manhattan, on the other hand, can see wait times upwards of five minutes or more with long lines of people waiting! I was always trailing behind the excited grandkids so this was always the view I had when I would finally get to the elevators. Come to think of it, maybe this is why I remember the wait times being so short here... I always arrived at the elevator about ten seconds after the kids who had already pushed the elevator 'down' button!
On our first afternoon in Dayton, we were still pretty wiped out from getting to Dayton after arriving in Cincinnati in the wee hours of the morning, catching only a few hours of sleep in Cincinnati and then driving up to Dayton. After doing some food shopping, we relaxed at the pool...
Here is a short video of this afternoon spent at the pool... Lukey and Kenzie had a good time!
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