Residence Inn Milwaukee North/Glendale

After reading all the great reviews, I expected this hotel to be nice and comfortable with great customer service. It was completely the opposite! Service, check in was easy but staff was not very friendly. The room was clean and appears to be recently remodeled with several flaws. Bathroom toilet is crooked and wiggly and appears to be leaking from the bottom. Shower is open and extremely weird because the shower faucet is opposite the shower so you have to walk over to adjust the temperature, wait 2 minutes for the water to make its way to the other side. Microwave was dirty and had not been cleaned in weeks. Windows are paper thin and the sound of the freeway which passes right next to the hotel was extremely loud that I did not sleep at all the first night. After this, I asked to be moved to another room opposite the freeway and was told by Anthony at the front desk --who even rolled his eyes after I made the request-- that there were no other rooms. I then asked to speak with the manager about this and was told there was no manager today and had to wait until tomorrow to speak with someone in charge. I then told them this was not acceptable and they should call someone. Finally Anthony agreed to call a Mr. Jordan who has much more common business sense. After I explained my situation to Mr. Jordan he had Anthony switch my rooms. Anthony, of course, took his sweet time (3 hours after promising 1 hour) to let me know when the room was ready. I wish I would have read a review about the freeway noise but I didn't see one. If you have issues with noise, please be aware.

Pros: Good location with easy access to downtown Milwaukee, nearby grocery stores, restaurants, and retailers. Area felt fairly safe. Building felt somewhat newer, although there were a few examples of shoddy workmanship and poor maintenance in our room. Staff was mostly friendly. Hotel was quiet thanks to a strict no party, no noise after 10pm policy. Cons: Housekeeping. Virtually non-existent. We stayed for 7 nights. We were told to expect housekeeping service after every 2 nights. This alone is a bit of an annoyance for me, as I'm paying full price for the room every night, it's not like I get a discount for every 2 nights I stay. If a different person stayed in this room every night, the room would receive housekeeping every day. But I digress. We did not receive any housekeeping service after night 2 as promised (actually I take that back, someone stopped in our room to clean our ice bucket and replace our dishwasher detergent. Literally nothing else). We went down to the front desk to mention this to the front desk worker and to request replacements of amenities such as coffee, towels, dishwasher detergent, and toilet paper. We were told to stop at the front desk in the morning and request service that day, which we did. We briefly returned to our room at 1pm that next day to find that nothing was done. I stopped by the front desk again to confirm that our room was still scheduled to receive service and I was informed (by the same front desk worker I talked to that morning) that the housekeeping staff was getting ready to go home and that I wasn't scheduled to receive service until the following day (after our 4th night). After expressing frustration at the situation, I insisted that they come up to our room to empty our overflowing trash cans and replace towels and other amenities. To my surprise, they actually did (and did a full clean of the room), despite forgetting to refill coffee and toilet paper. But this would be the last time for the rest of our stay that anything significant happened. After nights 4 and 5, nobody visited our room to do anything. It became a running joke for our family to guess whether anything had been done on the way up to our room in the evening. After night 5, I was finally able to speak to the housekeeping supervisor, who was very apologetic for the situation and assured me that our room would be serviced the next day. To her credit, the trash was taken out and some of our towels replaced the next day, but literally nothing else was done. So all in all, on our 7 night stay, we received 1 mostly-full servicing of our room after practically begging the front desk twice, and two other below-bare-minimum effort refresh visits. We never put up the do not disturb tag, we never declined service, our room was completely vacant during most housekeeping hours, and there was nothing in our room that might have dissuaded a housekeeper from entering. Managers were never available during the hours that we were at the hotel, so I wasn't able to discuss this issue with them. I'm really not unreasonable with expectations when it comes to housekeeping. I don't need a full clean done and my sheets replaced and bed made every day. But I do expect to not have overflowing trash cans. I expect to not have to go down to the front desk every day to ask for coffee and toilet paper. I expect the housekeeping staff to be capable of spending literally 5 minutes to empty trash cans and restock a couple of things from their cart every day or two. Unfortunately those expectations weren't met on this trip.

We had the best stay here - and mainly because of the staff - there were so, so kind and accommodating! Our room was perfect - clean, spacious, comfy - and the full kitchen was the biggest plus! Having the option to basically cook while there, especially with 4 young children, was great. That too, it was very family/kid friendly, in a good location within walking distance to so many things, but short drives to where we wanted to visit in Milwaukee. The main room was great, with a lot of seating and the complimentary breakfast also great! We will definitely stay here again.

I really wanted to enjoy this property, and by all means the staff did try to make it as good as possible. However there are some serious staffing and management issues that need to be addressed. Additionally there needs to be more accountability in terms of them be forthcoming regarding their current issues. • No internet during the entirety of my stay - Apparently it had gone out over the weekend and could not be fixed. This was not communicated to me in anyway and caused me massive issues considering I was there on a business trip. • Lack of organization and follow up - Multiple times I would request something over the phone or in person and would be told I would get a follow up. None of that ever happened though. • I was without a bathtub drain plug the entire stay despite asking 3 separate days for it. So I was unable to take a bath. • I requested towels on multiple occasions and each time I was told that either they were not ready or they had no one to bring them up to my room. • I waiting over an hour past my checkin time for a room to be available for me. Which granted I was given a free room upgrade which I appreciated. However having to wait in the lobby for “just 5 more minutes” for an hour got very tiresome. • Front desk was very often unattended at night. Meaning I was unable to purchase anything or follow up on any requests. • There was additional issues regarding incorrect booking dates and lack of communication as well.

I am a traveling chef and I have been coming to this location for a year and a half and skeet Stevenson from day 1 made me feel welcome and have worked with me with any issues or problems or questions I had. I have been to 8 Marriott in 4 states and he is by far the best front desk attendant I have ever met. Even the staff on all shifts are amazing and remember old faces. It is really good to see a crew that really enjoys to do their job and make people who stay there feel like family.