Courtyard Abilene

While attending the CALF in Abilene this year we stayed at the Courtyard Abilene by Marriot.

The hotel is in a good area. It is located right by the Mall of Abilene and there are lots of restaurants nearby as well as other hotels. The hotel’s website said that this hotel was recently renovated. I remember staying there maybe two years or three years ago and I remember it being okay.

Well, after this trip I can say that I would not stay here again. The hotel was well kept on the outside and the lobby looked nice. Check-in was fast and the girl at the front desk was nice. The problem was with the room. When I opened the door and walked in, something just felt strange and there was a weird smell. So, just right from the start of walking in the room I started to have a negative impressoin. We only went in for a second just to see the room and then we left. When we came back the second time it was better, I think the smell wasn’t as strong.

We had a King room with a sofabed. Sometimes I like the extra room for the boys to play and you still get a second bed…of course not as comfortable.

What I thought was strange about the design of the room was that it had a long hallway.

I really was not a fan of that long hallway. The next weird thing was that when we opened the mini fridge there was still stuff in there from the last guest. I would think that they would make sure that everything is thrown away before their next guest occupies the room.

The next day when we came back to the hotel after some festival stuff there were a bunch of ants. We had some snacks out (not open) and the ants were crawling all over them and also on the phone book. There were also another few ants on the desk. We’ve always kept snacks with in a hotel room and have never had a problem with ants and I don’t think there should even be any ants at all in the first place. We went down to see if we could switch rooms but we were told that the hotel was completely booked but that they could send maintenance in to spray.

Once the maintenance guy arrived he said that he had sprayed the day before, which was when we checked in. He said the room we were in and the room below had ants and so that is why he needed to spray. I’m guessing that the spray was probably the strange smell when we first walked into the room the day before. The front desk never mentioned that they were having a problem with ants in our room when I asked them to switch. In my opinion they should have maybe not rented out the rooms that had problems with ants until it was all cleared up or at least warned us about it since they knew.

Now moving on to the food at the hotel. The little restaurant they had there was called The Bistro. We only tried breakfast there and didn’t get much really. The boys had cereal. The cereal came with milk and a banana. Then we also got oatmeal which came with pecans, brown sugar, and raisins(?). We also got a side of toast and a smoothie. The hotel also offered free coffee all day long in the lobby. Of course they also had a coffee maker in the rooms or you could purchase coffee.

I can’t really comment on much about the food since most of it wasn’t cooked but the oatmeal was good and the smoothie was pretty good. I probably wouldn’t have ordered another smoothie though, I’m a big fan of smoothies but I didn’t love it.

Well, I think that the last thing I have to say about this hotel was that I think the staff could be friendlier. The hotel didn’t really make you feel welcome like some others do. The one girl that I mentioned in the beginning at the front desk was nice but everyone else could be friendlier I think.

So, as I said I would not stay here again on my next trip to Abilene.