My husband and two children (5 and 2) stayed here from Feb. 16-18, 2007. We've stayed at many CMs in the past and have had generally good experiences. This particular stay had some good and bad points.

Check-in:
Pretty smooth, no line. The clerk was on a personal call during our check-in and continued to chat while she processed our room and payment. Hotel lobby was inviting. There were no available carts to take our luggage to the room - clerk mentioned that the entire hotel only had 2, and both were taken.

Room:
We opted for two doubles. We stayed in room 437, which is midway on the floor - good location away from elevators and ice machines. There was a large spotlight just outside our window which proved a little annoying even with the curtains fully closed. The bathroom was clean and we had plenty of towels, washcloths, soap, etc.

The beds were very uncomfortable. They were both squeaky and lumpy. The pillows were nice (feather) and the sheets were clean.

The walls are exceptionally thin. Upon check-in, we found our neighbors quite busy with their amorous activity. We continued to hear them throughout our stay. As adults we can chuckle, but it's hard to explain the noise to our kids.

The Restaurant:
The menu for dinner was limited and overpriced. They offered no options for kids at all. The breakfast buffet, as menioned by other reviewers, was wonderful. I highly recommend this - the choices were limitless.

The Pool and Workout Room
The pool was small, but very clean. The hotel provided towels. We never found it crowded. It is located just inside the parking deck doors, so everyone passing by can see in. The workout room was also small, but the equipment was clean and functioning.

There is a trolley that runs the loop around the downtown area. It runs until midnight each day. It is free and ran frequently. There are many restaurants (pizza, mexican, pubs, etc. ) within walking distance or on a quick ride on the trolley. The hotel sign and main entrance to the hotel is slightly hidden, so just be sure to keep an eye out for the address.

Our biggest complaint was the employees smoking just outside of the parking deck door. I think hotel regs state that guests/employees who chooseto smoke must do so within a cetain distance from the hotel - this was not the case. We frequently, actually each time we came in and out, had to walk through a cloud of smoke. We simply opted to go in and out of the main entrance rather than the parking deck entrance and this seemed to work better.

Overall, we'd stay here again. Location was safe, clean and convenient. Rooms were large and clean as well.

First of all this hotel is designed so that you don't stay here, it took us 3 trips around the block before we found the entrance to the car park. I had initially booked this stay with my Marriott points, only to find that a previous Marriott I had stayed in two nights before had used the points allocation to pay for that stay. This hotel was totally unhelpful in sorting out this issue, gave me the number for Marriott points to sort it out myself, and then had the cheek to charge me $20 for the call I made in my room! I quickly got them to scrub that of the bill. Don't stay here if you want a selection of good restaurants nearby as it's a student area. Decided to eat in the hotel instead, what a mistake, I would have been better to find a drive-thru. There were two other people in the retaurant and we still waited 30 mins for our first course - although we did get some free drinks.

We were really looking forward to our one night stay here due to all of the positive reviews and the fact that it was fairly new. The rooms to say the least were nasty, smelly, dirty and looked liked they were straight out of some roadside motel from the 70's. Our room looked out over a bunch of concrete on a raised parking lot that did not have room for everybody to park their cars. Getting in and out was a nightmare. We came up some creepy stairway to get to our room which was in a noisy area. Extremely substandard for a Courtyard. Never again!!!

I walked out of my room the first day and there was a sign taped to the door that said, "Caution - Wet Paint on door frame."
Do you think they should let the guests know they are going to paint the door frames in advance? Imagine a woman who only packed one dress and had it streaked with paint.

I went down stairs and could not get back in the room because the security latch closed when I shut the door. It took 30 minutes to get back in my room and the desk clerk and housekeeping thought it was so funny. Well, the clerk showed us how to get in. Those latches are NO security. If a thief opens a door that has one of those latches they will get in!!!

A group of high school or college kids (very drunk) decided to
come back to this hotel at 3:30 AM and cause quite a stir outside in front of the lobby entrance. I bet it woke everyone on that side of the building.

The location is fine, but I would never stay here again.