Our first time in Scotland didn’t disappoint. We were greeted by scenery that would make even the most poker-faced person to secretly go: “Oh wow, look at that!”. It came as quickly as the Scottish boarder itself and it was just the beginning of it.
Bam, we’re in Scotland. Bam, everything suddenly looks spectacular.
Our only small regret is that we didn’t go as far north as we should have. Edinburgh, Glasgow and Lake Lomond were our main destinations and apart from Glasgow, everything was great: open roads, dramatic clouds, hills on both sides and my partner next to me. In fact, it wasn’t great, it was more than that – it was damn near perfect!
Our very first (and quite disappointing) experience in Glasgow
If you have followed us from the start or in the recent weeks, you may know that we didn’t really stay in Glasgow for too long – we only spent the night there. Those had to be the most disappointing four or five hours of the whole journey, mainly because of two reasons.
Firstly, the city itself didn’t show its most glamorous side to us. We saw drunks and young homeless people on the streets, security guards were stationed at the entrance of every place that was still open, even McDonalds and the little corner shops. Maybe it was the day or the hour (8pm on a Friday evening before the long bank holiday weekend) or maybe we just got unlucky.
Secondly, we stayed in a hotel that really should have known better! It was the Marriott Glasgow – 13 floors high, located close to the central train station and next to the M8 Motorway that runs through whole city.
Meet Marriott Glasgow – the hotel that didn’t meet our expectations
Upon entering the building, we were greeted with a lovely scent in the reception area, which, whilst reminding us of something from the early 90’s, was exceptionally well kept and felt rather luxurious. The staff that greeted us were quite friendly and helpful.
Until now, everything really did look promising and rather sweet.
Unfortunately, this is where the experience started to go downhill. We were handed our door cards and directed straight to the elevators to take us to our room which was up on the eight floor.
To start with, the elevator looked ancient – it took some time for us to get to our floor and it looked like it was last replaced 20 years ago. You may argue that this is a first world problem and just a minor thing, but I’d argument that it’s certainly not what one would expect from a luxury brand which is known worldwide.
As soon as we got out on our floor, we stepped on a carpet which, once again, felt like something from 90’s. It was clean though, so we have to give credit to the cleaning staff here, but it was certainly showing its age. Let me be frank, the overall interior design wasn’t something an international person would expect from a four-star hotel.
Then, probably, the biggest disappointment – our room! Again, it was very clean as far as dust and tidiness goes, but it felt exceptionally old! It just didn’t meet our expectations in any way (not that we had any except for having a nice first-time experience at a Marriott).
What’s more, the room didn’t feel different than any of the two or three-star hotels we’ve stayed in so far in the UK (like Holiday Inn or Premier Inn). And even though we got the room on a big discount, it was still double what we would have paid at a hotel with less stars.
How does Marriott Glasgow stack up to Marriott’s brand values?
In fact, this hotel experience was so far off that I did something I’ve ever hardly done outside my work as a business consultant. I went online to find Marriott’s corporate values, mission and vision, because, although we had never stayed in a Marriott hotel before, we clearly had a very different idea of what it should be like.
Soon enough I found the five Marriott’s core values and they are as follows (with my comments on what the reality looked like for Marriott Glasgow below):
- “We Put People First”
This is probably true. The staff was really helpful and felt like they do get a good work-life balance as far as my body language reading skills go. Score: 9/10.
- “We Pursue Excellence”
This definitely didn’t feel true. Whilst staff did appear to be helpful, there really was nothing exceptional or more excellent than any other hotel we have stayed in, nothing worse either. Score: 5/10.
- “We Embrace Change”
When I first saw this core value, I couldn’t help myself, but smirk a little. Really? The last time something had changed in our room or the hotel was probably when the service guy decided put a wooden door where, likely, a fridge resided some 10 years ago. Score: 1/10.
- “We Act with integrity”
Although Marriott claims that ethics are a big part of their corporate culture, it certainly didn’t show when we stayed in the hotel. We’ve found that brands like Radisson, Premiere Inn, Holiday Inn and Jurys Inn show it more, even if that is not the case behind the curtains. Their price list for TV packages was honest, but it was damn easy to subscribe to them. Score: 5/10.
- “We Serve Our World”
I can’t comment on this point much. From my experience, when a brand has a value of this sort, it is usually easily seen – be it in posters, charity shout-outs or fundraising boxes, but we didn’t really notice any of that. Then again, we were quite put off by the experience so I’ll be kind and assume that they do this and we just missed it with our eyes. It’s a modest score because it should have been more apparent since it is a core value. Score: 7/10.
This brings the total score for this particular Marriott hotel to 27/50 and that certainly isn’t a score I’d expect to give to a four-star hotel, but that’s just how it works out…. and that’s me using their core values as a measure of the reality. Such a shame!
Was it at all worth it?
The price for the room was relatively fair if we take the 50% discount into account. I’d be even more disappointed if we paid the full price for the experience we had.
I was personally so disheartened with the hotel in general that I wondered if there were others who thought the same by looking at reviews. The majority of guests award a higher score than I do, mainly due to the food service, be it dinner or breakfast. That’s actually something we didn’t try as we wanted to experience the local area (funny to think of it but most places were closed and we ended up buying food from the nearby grocery store).
It’s possible that the food could have saved the hotel, or maybe most guests don’t even bother with leaving a review. Most reviews about the hotel still touch upon the age of the appliances and the décor, all in great need to be updated soon.
There is just one last thing I want to point out: when we (myself and Veronika) travel in Europe, individually or together, we tend to stay in a variety of hotels. From the experience point of view, every three and four-star hotel (also a few two-star hotels) in continental Europe feel much more upmarket and welcoming. And this isn’t just comparison with the Marriott Glasgow, but with every single sub five-star hotel in the UK we’ve come across so far. Not going to lie – there isn’t anything exciting about UK hotels, but that’s a review for another day.