During my stay here at the Marriott Marquis & Marina in San Diego for the IASA convention, I was unfavourably impressed by the slow service. I suspect it may be due to the fact that they have difficulty handling large conventions, although I don't think they would ever admit it. Here are some examples from my two short days:
1) The 'spoon' incident: I ordered takeout from an Indian place nearby but didn't receive any cutlery. I called downstairs and asked if they could please send up a spoon which I thought would do the job. They said they could in 10 minutes. 45 minutes later, with my food cooling significantly, still no spoon! I called downstairs again and was told that someone was on his way and would be there in 10 minutes. 20 minutes later, someone did come with a spoon, but my food was cold. The kicker? 20 minutes later another person came with another spoon which was now useless. I should have just walked two blocks to Starbucks, bought a coffee and got a spoon there.
2) Housekeeping: Having flown in from overseas, I was badly jet lagged in the morning and put out the 'do not disturb' sign until early afternoon. I then called the front desk to let them know I was leaving the room and that I would like someone to come by and clean it. When I came back 1.5 hours later, the room had not been cleaned. I telephoned to ask why. Thus began a 45 minute saga of them sending people up to replace towels and empty rubbish bins. During this period, three different people actually came up to the room effectively to do the same thing - completely redundantly. I felt sorry for them because they were earnestly trying to help; it just seemed the communication had broken down somewhere.
3) Can I help you sir?: Having finally resigned myself to the fact that it was probably better just to walk to the grocery store than to order room service, I went downstairs to ask where I could find the nearest Ralph's. But I couldn't talk to anyone because the people at the bell desk just stood there and stared at me when I walked up to the counter. It was weird. I finally managed to locate the concierge in the large lobby. He was at a computer station in the corner of his large enclosure, carefully trying not to make eye contact with anyone. Awkwardly, I stood there for about a minute before finally blurting out: "Hello! Do you know where I can find a Ralph's?".
When I got back from Ralph's, I called to complain about the service, and this was the most annoying bit: When I tried to explain how poorly things had gone during my stay, describing all of the above incidents, the lady on the phone reverted to the explanation that "We have different departments and we at the 'At Your Service' desk are not in charge of housekeeping or room service. I told her that didn't matter to me. I just wanted to know what was going on. She transferred me to a 'manager' who again offered the explanation that "We don't have any control over what department x or department y does here on the 'At Your Service' line". It was like she worked for some sort of hugely complex bureaucracy with ministries of housekeeping, room service and spoon delivery which - all completely autonomous!
Anyway, my recommendation is to avoid this place unless you plan to spend the entire day outside the hotel golfing or going to Sea World or whatever. Maybe most people do! I probably confused them with my jet lag and erratic hours but come on, a hotel of this size should be able to handle it. Again, I suspect that they were pretty slammed by the convention, although they assured me this was not the case.
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