Residence Inn Charlotte Lake Norman

Prior to this stay, we have found Residence Inns to be well managed and the staff good. However, upon entering this location, the Reception staff did not greet us at all. They asked for ID and proceeded to check us in. We asked where would make the best sense to park relative to the location of the room. She suggested the far side of the building. In fact, our room was quite close to Reception! The room was ok, although somewhat worn. Breakfast was abysmal. There was no fresh fruit. The orange juice machine was down. Although there were many 'toppings', when I questioned what they were for, I was told they were out of oatmeal but I could put them on my eggs if I wanted. Really!?! Nuts and chocolate chips on eggs? I don't think so. As we were eating breakfast one morning, another guest approached Reception with concerns about the condition of her room. The staff just blankly looked at her. We had chosen this property because of the poor reviews on other Marriott properties in the area. We won't be returning to this one.

What a sad place this hotel has become. This location is the perfect spot for my family to gather and we like the two-bedroom units that feature a full kitchen and living room. We've been staying at this hotel for years so we've seen it go slowly downhill. This year was particularly bad, Room 208 was missing the living room chair, which despite being listed as a feature on their website, the front desk claimed they'd never seen one, the four-person dining table has been replaced with a two-person and the dishwasher didn't work. The staff managed to get the dishwasher working and the four-person table swapped in on day two of our stay. The room also gave us a great view of the sad state of the pool area. Most of the deck chairs are broken and haphazardly stacked up in a corner and the hot tub has been filled in with concrete. I'm not sure how much longer this place can maintain it's Marriott branding at this pace.

It’s not enough to say it’s “dated” because the root of the problem is that housekeeping and maintenance must be seriously understaffed, overworked and improperly trained and poorly supervised…….management has lost control of this facility and it is going downhill fast. The place needs a complete deep overhaul if it expects to maintain a Marriott nameplate. It was obvious our room was not cleaned….used hairy towels, used bedding/ sheets, no toilet paper. Our families other room had vomit in the bath tub!!! Neither room tubs drained while showering. Hvac unit was extremely loud. Hallways reeked of cigarettes and filthy, stained carpets. You walk away from this place saying “yuck”! On the bright side, the breakfast and associated staff was excellent!

For starters, it is difficult to find the front entrance as it is actually facing the main road as in on the main road with a small pull off for un/loading. Next, the rooms are very dated: small TVs (pretty sure they are 32ish inches), cable is basic with no guide option (was at another city’s residence Inn last week and they had on demand options for free and smart TVs), no smart ports for charging (I was banking on smart ports and didn’t have my “block” charging ports) and that is just the rooms. The gym had half of the weights missing and no water station (call me crazy, but I like water to drink while I work out). Breakfast was ok as best.

Passing through on our way to Hilton Head. Spent an evening at this hotel. We used our annual free night. Upon check in, the hotel was unable to give us our keys (only mobile keys). This is tough when you’re traveling with a family. Nonetheless, our first assigned room was not clean (see pictures). We immediately requested a different room. Our second room was much better. Beds were fine. There was no bedding for the sofa bed so we needed to ask for it. Overall, the hotel is very dated and our stay accomplished what we needed.

I'm writing this review to keep anyone else from the horrible experience my wife and I had staying here. Our first visit was about 5 years ago and the property was in steep decline then. The only reason we came back this time was because it was convenient to the location we were visiting and I used points to stay for free. That was the only positive thing about the experience. You know the place is way past it's prime when you walk into the room and find popcorn ceilings. As the pictures will show, there was a gross stain of some sort on the bathroom carpet in front of the sink. At first we thought it was paint but a wet wash rag cleaned the mess up. Apparently it was (toothpaste?) that housekeeping just vacuumed over and didn't even try to clean it up. Gross stains on the entry door and bathroom door as shown in the pictures. The heat didn't work. We had to turn both burners of the stove on in order to warm the room. We found a used Q-tip on the floor. The internet is the cheapest the franchisee can find. It's so slow and unreliable, we had to use the hotspots on our phones. That's all for now because we're checking out and never returning. This is a good location for construction workers and migrant farm workers, not for families and certainly not for business travelers. RUN!! (Unfortunately, this site doesn't give the option of attaching photo's but they are gross)