Renaissance Pittsburgh Hotel

For starters, I’m a lifetime platinum elite Bonvoy member. I have traveled extensively over the last 18 years and have been loyal to the Marriott brand. The Renaissance is an old hotel, but has a charm to it. It’s located in a great area and we had a river view room. The river was frozen and we had an awesome view of PNC and Acrisure. Absolute stunning views. However, the hotel is tired and it appeared to have some construction happening. The problem we had was the AC in the room. When I say our room was warm, that’s an understatement. Throughout the night, I kept getting out of bed to turn down the temperature - turned it all the way down to 60. Nothing worked. The room had to be 85 degrees. My wife and I couldn’t stop drinking water! We couldn’t sleep as we laid in bed sweating. We finally got up and checked out because we couldn’t take it anymore. Such a bummer as we rarely get a night out and a reprieve from our busy life as mom and dad. Like most people, we need those nights away every once in a while! Thankfully I used points for the room, but it felt like a complete waste of 50,000 points. We would have enjoyed our stay significantly more at a Marriott property for half as many points. It ruined our night away. I expected so much more from a Renaissance property.

Pros: It's clean, location. Cons: Everything else, location. Our experience at this hotel seemed to be foreshadowed by the frustration experienced before we even walked in due to attempting to even get to the valet area. It is on a narrow street absolutely crammed with traffic at all times of the day (and even worse, if that is possible, at night.) The valet is severely undermanned and we sat there for a long time without even seeing one employee. Finally, one came and took care of the car in front of us and we again just sat and waited and waited and waited. When the valet finally came over to us, it was getting around the time we had to leave to go to the arena and the valet said he would register us. The Old Lady stayed with the car to have it registered and Grumpy left with the luggage to check-in. By the time he checked in, took the luggage to the room, and returned to the car, the valet was finally returning to register the car. We left and returned later that evening. It was even worse getting to the valet area than it was before. After arriving, once again, there was no valet to be seen. After waiting 15 minutes, we walked into the hotel. Walking around 10 minutes, we finally found a valet. He said there was no way he could valet the car because they were full and it happens all the time. When we explained we had already registered the car early that afternoon, he said he could take the car. Car valeted, we decided to have a drink at their whiskey bar. The bartenders were almost completely incompetent. They had no idea what they had on the shelf and said a lot of what was on the whiskey menu was actually out of stock. One didn't even know the difference between scotch, bourbon, and rye. The whiskey flight that was ordered was delivered with the bartender having no idea what whiskey was in what glass and guessed. When a scotch was ordered by name, we had to point at which one we wanted and direct them to the bottle. Finally back at the room, we found the bathroom sink leaked all over the vanity anytime you turned it on. The room became stifling hot overnight and it was impossible to cool it down. Breakfast was passable. The Old Lady was very unhappy with our stay and after the trip, stated our stay at the Wye Motel in Hollidaysburg was much better than this "autograph" hotel.

It was located right in the heart of Picklesburgh. Clean and comfortable.

The continental breakfast was only for elite members. I Was unaware of this would’ve been nice to have clarification prior to booking.

Fantastic location

Location was perfect, located near restaurants and shopping.

Parking was across the street.

Location to concert venue.

The heating, air conditioning and fan didn’t work in the room. The fact that I called and they were going to have an engineer check our issue the next day. We were gone for the day, when we returned the engineer nor the cleaning lady had been to our room and we had to call and request services.

Breakfast excellent.

Hotel rooms are tired. Bathrooms need upgrading. No restaurant, just a very small bar.