This was the pick for my first visit to Scotland and my first AC experience! I was hesitant at first about staying in an AC but had 2x 35k FNA to burn for a 3-night stay and Marriott Glasgow was no longer accepting FNA at the time of booking so here goes.

Address – 260 George Street, Glasgow, G1 1QX United Kingdom. Website.

Contact –Tel: +44 1417260340. Email: acmarriottreservations@rbhmanagement.com.

Location – located somewhat in the city though not near the city centre, the property offers unsheltered access to a smattering of restaurants nearby but didn’t notice any shopping options.

Price – I booked this using 2 reservations:

• 2x 35k FNA booked for a Standard Guest Kind room and applied 2x Nightly Upgrade Award (NUA) for every Suite choice possible.
• 1x GBP185 booked directly for a Superior Guest King Room, Corner Room

Pre-arrival – wrote to the hotel to note that the 2 reservations are one stay but it was never responded to. When online check in opened, I repeated my request and it was then acknowledged. Eventually, my NUA did not clear and was returned to my account.

3 days prior to arrival, I received a template email inviting upgrades – sample of the offers below

Check In – we arrived late at night, almost 10pm, and was immediately attended to. We were informed that we have been upgraded to a Heritage Junior Suite and processed the necessary, including welcome gift selection of points or breakfast (I picked breakfast of course).

We also received a surprise welcome drink voucher good enough for 2x drinks per stay and informed that we have to ‘check out’ and ‘check in’ on the 3rd morning as paperwork for the separate reservations, but they would accord us another welcome drink voucher. Yay.

The lobby did indeed had a ‘new’ feel to it (pictures taken the next day in day time) and was spacious enough for guests to wait around in or simply rest.

Room – We were excited about the Heritage Junior Site (41SqM) and at first glance, the Suite 26 was a nice space for 2pax with luggage, with the room having a clean modern design.

The room contained basic fittings like a coffee table with chairs, a work desk, as well as an open concept wardrobe which I appreciated.

The bathroom was cosy with just a single sink and open concept toilet, but at least a separate shower space. The toiletries was Korres brand which were functional. There was no amenities placed in the bathroom though, not even dental kits which was frustrating when we were trying to wind down after a long drive and late arrival.

However, it was soon after we realized to our horror that the room HAS NO AIRCONDITIONING.

No wonder there was a small Dyson-ish thingy already placed on the work desk, whirring, when we arrived. We fumbled around and managed to open one of the small panel window and got fresh air in but decided to request for a room change as the room was feeling a little stuffy in the summer time.

We tried using the in-room phone and it was not working. So at almost 11pm, we had to go to the front desk to ask if there is another room we can change to as having no ac for 3 nights is a little crazy:

• Front desk explained that the entire Heritage Wing has no air conditioning and they couldn’t do anything to it since it’s a heritage building.
• Only the newer wing’s rooms are equipped with air conditioning but the entire wing is booked out and best they can do is to find us a room in that wing the next day which we accepted.
• When asked why was it not stated anywhere on the website about the entire Heritage Wing having no air-conditioning, staff said the Marriott Bonvoy system only gives them an option to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the air-conditioning question (this I didn’t understand as I’d have thought they can have an announcement on the site about this, or even create an auto message to guests who have bookings to inform in advance this critical fact).
• As service recovery, they offered to bring us another fan unit and comped us another set of drink voucher.

[We eventually got switched to a nice Deluxe Room, Corner, the next day – I was too busy to take pictures again but it looked exactly like the website’s here. I also need to point out that the whole moving room system was that we needed to lug a trolley on our own all the way up to my room, pack all the stuff onto it, roll the whole trolley back down to the front desk, and they’d transfer it to the new room thereafter]

Breakfast – served from 6:30am-10:00am at Breakfast at Hazel, the property’s main restaurant. The space is actually quite nice with plenty of natural lights and feels like cafe which I would enjoy even as a non in-house guest.

Food wise, I found the spread relatively small but has the English breakfast essentials like (haggis anyone?) eggs, beans, mushrooms, carbs etc. The only gripe I had was the lack of fresh veg options, unless you really like cucumbers. And really bad bland watered down coffee BOO.

In addition, the restaurant had this non-disclosed system where you can order eggs made-to-order and barista coffee during breakfast hours at no additional charge – we ordered sunny side ups for all our morning (just order from the staff as if you already know it) but it almost feels like YMMV when it comes to coffee as it was okay on the first morning, told the coffee machine was still ‘heating up’, then 3rd morning was told we can only have the crappy coffee from the buffet.

Facilities – this trip didn’t give me alot of time to check out what else the property offered but we did enjoy our welcome drinks which we were allowed to bring back to our room, although alcoholic drinks cannot be enjoyed in takeaway cups as there was a rule against drinking in public alcohol in Scotland

Also worthy of note is that there is no on-site parking – the nearest is a public multi-storey car park located 3 blocks away where the hotel issues a subsidy for every exit. It’s a non-sheltered 5min walk between the two.

Service – I found this a mixed bag as the arrival experience was marred and the service at Hazel was haphazard but the rest of the front desk was lovely and accommodating.

Check Out – painlessly done in 5mins and off we went to our next spot.

In Summary,

A decently basic option in the city but a little inconvenient if self-drive. I would have preferred the full-service Marriott so perhaps next time!