Marriott Hotel, Glasgow

The Marriot Hotel, Glasgow.
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I booked this hotel for a two night stay starting on the 18th of August 2006. We needed somewhere to stay as we were attending the Ciao Glasgow meet, which incidentally was absolutely brilliant.

As we are rather fond of our local Marriot Hotel, we decided as a late Anniversary present, to treat ourselves to a visit to the Glasgow Marriot. We weren't ...
...which took about 3 and a half hours and we had directions for the hotel from Maporama.com. The last direction was to take the Clydebank/S.E.C.C. Exit 19 off the M8 heading Southbound, take the ramp 290 m and turn left and there we were. No driving into or through Glasgow's' main streets, I was so relieved as I don't know Glasgow at all and was dreading navigating our way to the hotel. So there you go easy as that! And on the way back out all we had ... more

The Marriot Hotel, Glasgow.
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I booked this hotel for a two night stay starting on the 18th of August 2006. We needed somewhere to stay as we were attending the Ciao Glasgow meet, which incidentally was absolutely brilliant.

As we are rather fond of our local Marriot Hotel, we decided as a late Anniversary present, to treat ourselves to a visit to the Glasgow Marriot. We weren't disappointed.

We drove to Glasgow from Inverness, which took about 3 and a half hours and we had directions for the hotel from Maporama.com. The last direction was to take the Clydebank/S.E.C.C. Exit 19 off the M8 heading Southbound, take the ramp 290 m and turn left and there we were. No driving into or through Glasgow's' main streets, I was so relieved as I don't know Glasgow at all and was dreading navigating our way to the hotel. So there you go easy as that! And on the way back out all we had to do was turn right out of the hotel and turn right back onto the M8 and Woo Hoo on the road to Home.

I booked our stay online through a link from a hotels website. Please be aware that some of these websites state that the parking at the Marriot is free and when you book your reservation your confirmation states that the parking is £3.00 per 24 hours. I think this is a total rip off, if you are actually patronising the hotel, why should you have to pay to park there?

The Glasgow Marriot is a four star Hotel with 13 floors, 4 suites, 13 meeting rooms and 843 sq m of total meeting space. The entrance to the hotel is a grand lobby with marble flooring and a dark wood reception desk. The reception desk is to the right and a concierge stands at the end of the reception desk to greet you.

To the left is a sunken bar/Lounge area with a grand piano, which was played in the evenings with an array of gentle background music; most relaxing. Unfortunately for us, we never got to experience this particular bar as we were far too busy going out and about and meeting with other Ciao member in various pubs. A hard life I know.

The Website for this Marriot describes the Hotel as perfectly in tune with this cosmopolitan city, it boasts a contemporary feel with its luxury designer-style bedrooms and state of the art leisure complex. An easy stroll from the main shopping area, the hotel puts you right at the heart of the city. Refuel at lunchtime at their Chats Café Bar - American style dining with a range of mouth-watering burgers and other stateside favourites. (Eh I thought I'd gone to Glasgow not America!)
Or enjoy dinner in our contemporary Mediterrano restaurant; the perfect ending to an action packed day in Glasgow.

This Hotel is near the SECC Centre, The Science Centre, Historic Tall Ships and the Willow Tree Tearooms, designed by Charles Rennie Macintosh (Not my cup of tea if you pardon the pun).

Smoking is not permitted in this Hotel due to recent Scottish Laws about smoking in Public Places, although they do have designated smoking rooms, Phew!

It is a short walk (5 mins in High Heels) to Glasgow Central Station; the nearest tube is St Enoch's which is 0.5 miles away. And I did spot under the M8 Bridge right next to the hotel a station called Anderston Station, I looked this up on the web and it is a rail station, just one stop down from Central Station, now that could be handy if you book this hotel and are travelling by train, no need to get a taxi or "lug" your bags up the road. It's right next to the hotel.

Okay, Okay, I'll get on with it, we booked in via a receptionist from somewhere in the world where they teach English to make it sound like gobbledygook. Poor Woman, wonder what she made of me, saying "Pardon", "Pardon", "Excuse me", "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that" I gave up in the end and just nodded my head and smiled till she gave me the room key and I did catch "Do you want one Key or Two" I say "One Please", Hubby Says "Two", I look at him and he says "in case you lock me out like last time". Okay fair enough, we'll have two keys.

Our room was on the 10th floor and it had an, ahemm, lovely view of the M8 to the left and the Holiday Inn to the right, the hotel car park below and another tall hotel straight across from us. It was fine though as we were so high up and the hotels were a short distance away I didn't feel hemmed in or overlooked by them.

The room was tastefully decorated in neutral colours; it was spacious and well laid out, with a King Size bed with six large feather pillows on it, sheer luxury. The linen was white and clean and crisp. There was a dressing table with internet access, a standard lamp, coffee table and an armchair. The usual television unit and a fridge, coffee making facilities, trouser press, ironing board, iron. Telephone, wardrobe with doors, these seem to be becoming quite scarce in Hotels these days. The doors were mirrored, which is always handy and there was an additional long mirror on the wall next to the trouser press.

The bathroom was spacious, predominately cream in colour and CLEAN, Yahoo, struck it gold, a clean bath, toilet and sink, plenty of spare toilet rolls, soft white towels, face cloths and very very nice freebies, sorry toiletries, which even came with their own little linen bag to snaffle them away in, sorry, put the empties in and take home with you. Seriously they were lovely toiletries, oh wait I'll go and get them; I brought the empties home in their little bag for the purpose of the review. ☺

They really are rather lovely, they are all aromatherapy products with Lemongrass Essence, (my favourite aromatherapy smell), made Expressly for Marriot; there is a 45ml bottle of Gentle Cleansing Shampoo, a 45 ml bottle of Gentle Soothing Bath Gel, a 45 ml bottle of Ultra Moisturising Lotion, a facial soap bar, a shower cap and finally a Gentle Moisturing Bath Soap.
They have a gentle aroma of Lemongrass, not too overpowering and very nice to use.

The room was air-conditioned, well actually we thought that it wasn't, it was an extremely hot and humid evening and we assumed the unit on the wall was air-conditioning, but we couldn't get it to work and there were no instructions for use in the Hotel Manual on the coffee table. We opened the window as much as we could to get a breeze in which wasn't so bad, as we were on the 10th floor there was access to outside free flowing air, albeit through a very small gap, which of course is regulation safety opening limits in Hotel windows.

We were in a bit of rush to get ready and go out so we didn't ask at reception about the air-conditioning till we arrived back at the hotel after Midnight. The concierge informed us that it was indeed air conditioning, but obviously at that late hour, he couldn't arrange to have it fixed, he offered us a fan and we were very happy with this. He said he would bring it up to the room and he did, about five seconds after we got there. Excellent service.

I didn't sleep much that night, but then I never do the first night anywhere other than my own bed. It was quite noisy with the window open as the M8 is only a stone's throw away, but as there was so much traffic it wasn't a zoom, zoom, keep you awake noise, it was more like a constant white noise. When the room had cooled down considerably, I was able to shut the double glazing and the fan kept us cool for the rest of the night.

Another thing about this particular room was that the fridge wasn't working, no big deal to us as we weren't going to sample the goods inside, we had brought our own wine with us. But saying that there was no-where to keep my extra milk cool either. The note inside the fridge does state that you shouldn't put anything in there as it affects the weight balances and may result in you being charged for goods that you never had.

When we got up the next morning and our fellow Ciaors were out shopping and availing themselves of Glasgow's delights, one of which included a sheep handbag, (I thought it was rather lovely myself), anyway we spent the morning going down to reception to tell them about the broken air-conditioning unit and the non-working fridge.

The Receptionist was extremely helpful, apologetic and asked if we were in our room that day, we explained that as we were meeting people, we would be in and out all day. To which she replied, "Well in that case, we'll just put you in a brand new room instead". Very nice apart from the fact that I had unpacked and put everything away nicely. Oh well, so off we went, gathered everything up and switched to another room on the same floor.

This room was the same, just the other way round if you know what I mean. And there they were again, those lovely little aromatherapy bottles. 

It was nice to try a second room to see if the standards were the same, well they were; it was equally clean and smelt lovely, the windows were cleaner in this room and the view slightly different. But the air-conditioner worked and we spent a very pleasant cool second evening in the Glasgow Marriot.

Oh and by the way, both rooms had hairdryers, in fact the first room had two, one in the bedroom and one in the bathroom, the bathrooms also had this nifty little magnifying mirror that extended from the wall for shaving purposes or make-up purposes, myself, I prefer to be a little distance from the mirror for a better outlook.

There are complimentary services for the rooms, such as newspaper deliveries or newspaper in lobby and your usual food service.

The Restaurant "The Mediterrano" is open for breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. We only had breakfast at the hotel, which was included in the price. It was a largish dining area, with three sections, one at floor level, one elevated to the right and one level down a few steps to the left.
It was rather nice as there were quite a few tables for just two. Breakfast was wonderful, whatever you can think of in a self service breakfast was there, piping hot and in abundance, this of course included Fresh Fruit Juices, Toast, "The Full English" and lots of other things like Croissants and buns and cakes and food too numerous to mention, in fact it's the best Hotel breakfast selection I have ever seen.

In addition, the minute something ran out, it was replaced within seconds. Outstanding service, and there was a lovely lady who served us tea and coffee and toast at the table, I left her a tip for being so nice to us.

I can't comment on Chats Café Bar as we didn't partake.

The Hotel has the usual Marriot Leisure complex, which includes a swimming pool, gym, and a Spa with a Health and Beauty Salon. Again we didn't partake so can't comment, but if they are anything like our local Marriot, I imagine they would be quite nice.

Our stay at this Hotel was unusual in the fact, that we didn't actually spend much time there, normally when we go to an hotel we would sit in the lounge in the evenings or eat there, but as we were so busy, we didn't get time to do this.

We booked this online with the Marriot at a cost of £80.00 per night, this included Breakfast.

The Hotel has a lovely relaxing atmosphere and is obviously a favourite with the locals as we saw at least three wedding parties in the two days we were there.

If I were to have any complaints about the hotel it would be these, when I booked online, the link that sent me to the Marriot Website said that the parking was free.

When we booked, we didn't get our confirmation until I phoned three days before we were due to arrive and the confirmation stated that the car parking was £3.00 per 24 hours.

One of my biggest gripes is this, the car parking for the hotel is at the rear of the hotel, with no rear entrance, you have to park your car and lug all your stuff right rounds to the front entrance,
in our case in the rain, not too pleasant as I'd brought far too much stuff and it was hard to carry.

Would I stay here again, yes I most certainly would and I'm hoping it will be the next time I get to meet all those wonderful people who turned up for the Glasgow Ciao meet 2006. Thanks to you all for such a wonderful time.

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© Sheena 2006

 

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