I would stay here again if I was in the area and this was the most convenient choice, but… They are currently being refurbished. We were put into the newly re-done building (they were just finishing up the ground floor). The front desk warned us there might be some paint smell. That was true when we first entered the building, but our room itself had no odor. And, of course, everything looks great as a result of new paint, new carpet, etc. However, the changes appear to be only cosmetic:
• The first day I took a shower, I had to stand ankle deep in water the whole time as the tub drained quite slowly. On the positive side, when I called the front desk to have the issue resolved, they sent someone out within about 10 minutes. He was able to fix the problem in another 10 minutes, and the drain worked fine the rest of the time we were there.
• The stairs are uneven, with various dips that are hidden beneath the new, patterned carpet. To be fair, I also noticed this at other Fairfield Inns we have stayed in recently, but one might hope that renovations would include resolving something like that.
• The task lighting above the desk worked the first time we used it. The second time it flicked and then didn’t come on. About 15 minutes later, all of a sudden, I noticed the bulbs were now lit. No idea why that happened.
• The desk has two parts, one nested underneath the other to be pulled out. The part that moves has no wheels and is on carpet, so the only way to get it out is to drag this big heavy piece of furniture across the carpet. Then, of course, it was quite difficult to get it back underneath since pushing across carpet is even harder than pulling.
• The thermostat is on the wall right next to the desk—nestled between the wall and the side of the desk itself, with just enough room to stick your hand in there to push buttons but not enough room to actually see clearly what you are doing.
• The bathroom has only two towel bars—one directly above the toilet and so only usable with a hand towel (unless you want your bath towel draped over the toilet tank—seems unsanitary) and one too short for a single bath towel, let alone two. We ended up hanging towels to dry in the closet where they had to drape against the edges of a wire shelving unit, but that seemed cleaner than draping them against the toilet.
And, for more general commentary on the hotel:
Noise: The room/building were very quiet. We never heard any outdoor noise, nor any noise from neighbors.
Temperature: The heating and cooling was okay. We didn’t notice any obnoxious noises during the day, but the first night I was awakened three separate times by a pulsing sound I couldn’t identify. Almost sounded like some sort of emergency noise except not blaringly loud. It turned out to be the cooling unit. After noticing it in the night and identifying the cause, I could hear it in the day as well.
Breakfast: Breakfast was typical Marriott. Scrambled eggs (a step above the powdered kind, though), sausages, some sort of breakfast sandwich, hard boiled eggs, waffles, bagels, cold cereal, oatmeal, yogurt, etc. Oddly, the coffee/tea is out in the lobby and not in the breakfast area.
Location: The hotel is near a number of restaurants, convenient to several northern Georgia sites, and relatively convenient to Atlanta attractions if you don’t mind driving into the city.
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