My family didn't have a good experience at the hotel this weekend. Let's start with what was good first, though, so people who read the reviews don't think this is just a gripe session.
The hotel is very clean, and generally the staff is friendly, especially the girl who was manning the Starbucks counter the evening we were there. She's like a goodwill ambassador for the hotel.
We were having a 13th birthday pool & pizza party for my son there. We reserved 3 rooms, and told them well in advance what we were doing, and at no point were there any negative comments and/or restrictions directed towards us by whoever booked the reservations.
When we arrived at the hotel, the front desk, the clerk advised that she needed a credit card "for incidentals". Not a big deal, some hotels do this, but she then informed us that the hold for each room was going to be $100. Since this amount on 3 rooms would essentially tie up my money ($300) for several days, I expressed that I'd not heard of credit card holds for that amount, and asked for a hotel manager, who of course was unavailable. We then asked to see something in writing that said the CC hold would be $100, and again, the clerk could not provide it. We then called the next closest Courtyard (in Mt Laurel) who informed us that their policy is to put a hold in the amount of $25 on your card, a difference of $75 per room. Clerk at this location told me it was policy, nothing she could do, so I tied up $300 on my card. I had to pick up party food & was gone about an hour, and when I got back the clerk told me there'd been an error, and that she removed the hold. No apology or further explanation..........OOOOOOOOOOOKAY.........
The kids arrived for the party as we sat in the lobby. My ex wife and her significant other, as well as me, and mine. It was a coed party, so the boys would have one room, the girls another, and my ex and her SO, who would supervise overnight. The girls hadn't arrived yet, but the boys wanted to change so they could get ready for the pool, and went upstairs. It was at that point that another woman from the front desk walked over to us and handed us a slip that contained the hotel "rules", and said that the boys couldn't walk the halls without adult supervision, which wasn't the case, since they were heading upstairs to change. SOOOOOOOOO, I headed upstairs to supervise the change, and interestingly enough, not one of them was walking the halls. It's funny how the hotel has THESE rules in writing, but nothing about their credit card hold policies. I suppose that says more about the clientele that typically stays there. More about that in a moment.
We had 2 adjoining rooms, and once we determined that none of the girls were staying overnight (which we expected), we then told the boys that they could take the 2 adjoining rooms, which meant that each kid would have his own bed. They were thrilled. Again, the rooms were clean, and along with talking with them about keeping the room clean, we told them about the grumpy woman at the front desk who gave us the "rules", and we asked them to make sure to keep the noise at a reasonable level. We then sat down with the kids to snack on pizza & wings, as well as chips, pretzels and a few other things before deciding to head down to the pool.
We got down to the pool with the boys, and then the girls, who had arrived late since they had a basketball game they were participating in at their school. It was about 7:15 when we got there. On the way down we also saw a family coming in with several kids who ranged in age from about 4 to 9. The mom seemed like she knew one of the women at the front desk, like perhaps they were friends outside of the hotel.
At any rate, at around 8 pm, the family with the kids (minus the mom, just the "father") also came down to the pool. We mentioned to our boys that since younger kids were there, they might not want to be as active in the pool area (no cannonballs or anything that might hurt the younger kids). While the younger kids were well behaved too, we weren't ready for what happened next.
One of those kids was sitting at the edge of the pool, and all of a sudden, VOMITED right into the pool. Now, they could have turned their head and puked OUTSIDE the pool, but NO, they decided to deposit this right into the water.
We immediately told our kids to get out of the pool. It looked like the pool party portion of my son's party was over at 8:45, thanks to a little boy who chose the wrong direction to vomit in. Interestingly enough, those young kids remained in the pool. In fact, the dad got out of the Jacuzzi, and dove into the big pool where the kid puked as we were leaving.
Since my son's pool party was essentially over, we went back up to the room for cake (accompanied by 4 adults, so as not to incur the wrath of the front desk). I called to let them know that the pool had been vomited in, and suggested that they may want to get someone read more