Marriott Jacksonville Downtown

My school was holding a very formal affair down the street and advertised a block of rooms at this hotel for $109 a night. Next time, I will just drive home after the event. Upon check in, we were alarmed to discover we had three choices for parking: $15 to park outside, $12 to park in a parking garage, or $20 to have valet parking. Upon check in, we requested a non-smoking room and inquired about validation of parking. We were brusquely informed that there was no validation of parking, we had to pay the parking fees. Our room was right off the elevators. Upon entering our room, we were hit with an overwhelming smell of cigarette smoke. There were two small blood stains on the carpet right outside of the bathroom door in full view of the hallway light. We contemplated asking for a different room, but after inspecting the beds and finding no stains decided to stay since we were only sleeping there for a brief period of time. We were quick to remove the bed pillows and bed spreads, however, considering the other glaring issues to the room cleanliness. One bed was rock hard, the other bed was so worn that unless a person slept directly in the middle of the bed they were falling out of the bed. As the night wore on, every sound of the elevator was clearly heard through the door. We left early in the morning (5 am) and had to wait 10 minutes for an elevator to reach the 11th floor. The time was so extraordinary that we began calling down to the front desk trying to find out if something was wrong. I strongly suspect that "to save energy/money" the hotel turns off all but one elevator during the overnight hours.



All in all, I spent the next night in a $35/night hotel and the hotel/experience was 100 times better. I would STRONGLY recommend no one stay at this hotel unless you don't care about throwing away money for a bad experience.