JW Marriott Indianapolis

Reviews 3

JA

Jacob Brady

My wife and I booked a room for an overnight getaway while her mother watched our two children. we booked the romance package in a corner room on a Saturday night. Overall, very nice business-traveler oriented hotel with a few hiccups that the management can and should fix, and a few nice things to mention as well. Hiccups: 1. Concierge. While polite and eager, the concierge was staffed by college students doing a part-time job, not a dedicated staff I expect from hotels of this caliber (and price). One example of this inexperience is that the concierge really struggled to get us a table for dinner and was only able to get us a table in the bar area of the third restaurant they tried. an additional hiccup from the concierge came when I called and told them I was coming from Bloomington, we discussed the travel time, etc but the guy failed to mention that the Colts had a home game and recommend I take a route around the stadium. admittedly these are both things I could have handled myself, but I expect hotel concierge at this type of hotel to be good at this. 2. Housekeeping. The romance package includes 1:00pm checkout so you can have a nice relaxing morning, and we certainly hoped to sleep in much later than our three year old typically allows. When housekeeping tried to enter the room at 8:00am our hopes of a lazy morning were disrupted, and totally destroyed when they came back at 10:00am. I get it that the hotel has to turnover a lot of rooms after a home football game and before business travelers arrive sunday evening, this is a pretty disappointing blunder from this hotel. 3. Dish TV. After we had dinner in the bar area of a local restaurant my wife and I thought we might watch the end of the Colts game in our room, but no, this hotel (or chain) uses Dish and doesnt carry CBS. After our 8:00am wakeup (thanks a lot, housekeeping) we thought we might watch the Sunday morning show, again a failure since Dish doesnt carry that channel. The management should pressure Dish or switch carriers to keep customers satisfied, I mean its CBS, not one of the obscure cable channel like ESPN 8 College Classics that plays classic football games from the 70s. The Good. 1. The Building. The view is fantastic, and the corner room is worth it. The room is large, the view is great, and surprisingly well air conditioned considering the wall of glass that gets direct afternoon sun. The bathroom is basic but nice enough. The rest is pretty bland corporate hotel décor, but if you want boutique book at 21c or another boutique chain, not Marriott. 2. Location. The hotel is an easy 15 minute stroll to plenty of great restaurants like The Capital Grille, St. Elmos, and Ruths Chris (all are 0.4mi from the hotel). Mass Ave is an additional 10 minute walk and has great restaurants like The Eagle and Rathskeller. The zoo is an easy walk if you have kids, Lucas Oil field is an easy walk as well. The walk to Lucas Oil goes through some sketchy areas, but on game day there is enough car and foot traffic, as well as police presence to feel safe. 3. Staff. While the concierge is unexperienced and the front desk guy had to ask for help when checking us in (he did have a trainee badge over his name tag), they were polite, eager, and happy to help. I gave three stars because the hiccups are so simple to fix. if you want a predictably nice hotel with a great view in a great location, this is for you.

IA

Ian Boyland

My son and I stayed there for the B1G 10 Championship game in December 2015. The place is awesome. The staff is incredible. We had a problem at check in as we were being hosted by a 3rd party. That 3rd party messed up our reservation. The employee at the counter kept apologizing for the mistake (that wasnt theirs). They brought us complimentary beverages as we waited for it to be straightened out. They even had a supervisor come over and offer more apologies. It had nothing to do with them! We had a problem with the iron in our room that was obviously related to the last guests. I think they poured coffee in it. Seriously. Anyway, there is no way the hotel could have known about it. The first thing they asked was if there was any damage to the item as they would clean or replace it. There was no damage so they insisted on giving us some coupons for the Starbucks in the hotel for our trouble when they replaced the iron within minutes of my call. I told them that wasnt necessary (and pointed out the irony of their offer) but we gladly accepted them after they insisted. We had a problem with our TV since they have state of the art smart TVs and I was too dumb to figure it out. I called for help. Within minutes an "engineer" was there to fix it and again insisted on giving us something for our trouble either a movie or free wifi. We had plans for our entire 2 day trip so we didnt have use for either so I finally put my foot down and refused their gift to fix a problem that was not of their making :-) The rooms were great. I seriously thought about taking one of the pillows with me because they were so comfortable. But I couldnt take something from a company that was so accommodating. Wait...errr...I mean I would never do something like that. We had drinks and apps in the lobby bar and everything was great. Service and quality of food. We didnt eat in the restaurant or the other bar since our benefactors were treating us to everything around town (Dr. Pepper is best host ever!), but what I saw of them lends me to believe they would have been great too. Everything there is fancy. Event the ice machines are fancy. They are built into dark wood cabinets. The fact that someone is reviewing how nice the ice machines are tells you all you need to know. If they pay attention to the friggin ice machines you know they are taking care of everything else! If I had one complaint it was that you have about 1.2 seconds to put your card in the slot inside the elevator to push a floor button. Twice we ended up going down when we wanted to go up because of it.Another time there were a lot of folks in the elevator going to different floors and the panel timed out and we needed to stick the card in again before we had everyones button pushed and someones floor got passed. If you guys read these reviews you might want to address that. Not a big deal at all, but a bit annoying and we heard other guests commenting on it too. I would definitely stay there again. You here me Dr. Pepper? I would definitely stay there again! Oh I forgot to mention that like everything in downtown Indy it is near everything. The Canal Walk and a park and the river are right behind it. Great place to sight see from.

SA

Sarah Stierch

I came to visit friends and family in Indianapolis. JW Marriott opened right when I was moving away from Indy, so I decided to stay. Little did I know I had booked my trip during a major college sports event. When I arrived at the hotel it was late and everyone was attentive. The staff was lovely and very friendly through most of my four night stay. However, the swarm of families and children at the hotel made this feel more like a Holiday Inn than a JW Marriott. And the staff - again, very friendly (except one seemingly grumpy young woman who made me a cappuccino in the beautiful lobby bar) - seemed overwhelmed. I hate when I walk into a hotel and there are tons of people and tons of luggage being "held" in the lobby, and thats what this place was for the majority of the weekend. liked: -awesome shower -nice views (I had a corner room on the 27th view that overlooked the river, nice sunset) -lovely staff -two bar options and lots of seating (and types of seating, couches, booths, stools, etc) -free bottled water in your room -delicious chicken fingers from the sports bar, ha! dislikes: -no mini bar. Big hotel, I get that the capacity for a mini bar isnt high, but, I like the convenience. -no spa (I had to go to the Conrad) -I had an appointment and called to have my car pulled around. The valets pulled my car around, and I sat in my car for 5-7 minutes waiting because they lost my keys. !?!?! -too many TVs. Ive never been in a building with so many TVs. -cleaning services were just "OK" Id often find things unattended that I would expect cleaned. I even tip, and was surprised by this. I was not provided complimentary water on my last night stay. -I also had to request a robe. I had accidentally left mine on the floor my first night, and they must have collected it with my towels, but I had to request a robe, it was never replenished. -having to pay for internet in your room. this is the 21st century, lets fix that. or, at least give club members free internet. -a staff member told me that they were giving discounts to people for the sports event, so everyone and their mother was staying here. It felt more like a Holiday Inn Holidome than a high end hotel. I figure though, that if I came any other time, and not during an unexpected sporting event, I probably would have felt the type of experience I expect out of the higher end Marriott label. I was told by a staff member that this was the largest of all the JWs until the Dubai location was built - and that makes sense, its a massive place. Sadly I did not take advantage of the pool or work out area, the swarm of children made it particularly unappealing. But, Im a single woman traveler who likes her peace and quiet, and generally finds it at luxury hotels like this. So, note to self: next time I visit Indy look at the city event schedule and book accordingly.

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