A couple of weeks ago my wife and I were meant to be going to Birmingham, England for an extended weekend away for a friend’s birthday, but those plans fell through. Around that time, we learned that a friend from New York was over here in the UK for work and that as part of that trip she’d be heading up to Glasgow. That’s only a three hour drive from us, so we decided to make a weekend of it and visit her and her friend up there.
They were staying at the AC Hotel which is one of Marriott’s brands and I had a couple of Marriott 35K free night certificates to burn. Unfortunately that hotel isn’t pet-friendly and we’d have our pup with us, so I booked the Glasgow Marriott Hotel instead as they are pet-friendly.
It ended up being a nice stay overall, even though we didn’t use all of the hotel’s facilities as much as I now wish we could have and despite the bedroom having a few quirks that weren’t ideal. We’ll no doubt return to Glasgow in the future and if we do, there’s a good chance we’ll stay at the Glasgow Marriott again.
Here’s a full review of our stay.
Booking our stay
I booked our stay a week ahead of time seeing as it was a somewhat last minute trip. The award rate was 37,000 points for the Saturday night and 38,000 points for the Sunday night.
As mentioned earlier, I had a couple of Marriott 35K free night certificates available on my account that were from Marriott credit card renewals. I redeemed both of those, as well as a total of 5,000 points to cover the 2,000 and 3,000 point overages respectively.
For comparison, the room rate was $174 per night. If we’d redeemed an average of 37,500 points per night for the stay, that would’ve been a poor redemption value as it would’ve gotten us only 0.46 cents per point of value. While this certainly wasn’t a superb use of a couple of free night certificates value-wise either, we don’t have any other trips planned where we could redeem them before they’re due to expire, so I was happy for them to not go to waste, especially considering the annual fees on the credit cards where they were from being only ~$99.
When booking our stay, I’d had a couple of Nightly Upgrade Awards still available on my account from my Choice Benefits selection after earning 50 elite night credits last year. Seeing as we were staying for two nights, that would’ve been an ideal time to try to redeem them. When trying to apply them though, there was only one room type available which wasn’t much of an upgrade from the Deluxe King room we’d already booked. I therefore decided to save those Nightly Upgrade Awards just in case we end up having an unexpected stay of one or two nights before the end of the year.
Check-in & elite benefits
We’d stopped outside of Edinburgh on our way up for a fun activity (I’ll be writing more about what we did in and around Glasgow in a future post), so we didn’t arrive until about 4:30pm. There wasn’t a line at the front desk and we were checked in by a very friendly agent called Kate.
I have Marriott Bonvoy Platinum status, so she confirmed that we’d have lounge access, along with complimentary breakfast in their main restaurant called Cast Iron Grill. In addition to that, as a welcome amenity I could choose between 1,000 bonus points or a $10 (or maybe it was £10) food and beverage credit; I chose the free points.
Kate also asked if we’d like to take advantage of the guaranteed 4pm late checkout that Platinum members and above are eligible for. We weren’t sure what time we’d be leaving on the Monday, so we accepted it just in case it proved to be useful.
After registering our car for their parking lot at the front desk (guests get a lower rate—more about that in the parking section later), we got our keys to room 1021 and headed up in the elevator.
Deluxe King room
Our Deluxe King room had a little more square footage than I was expecting. When entering the room, the open closet was on the left, the bathroom on the right, and the bedroom straight ahead.
The king bed was nice and comfortable and the blackout curtains worked pretty well. For it having so much square footage, it was a little surprising that there was only a solitary seat on the far side, along with a small table. Even stranger, considering that table would double up as a desk for anyone wanting to work in the room, there were no power outlets along that wall. The nearest outlets were beneath the TV and next to the bed, so I had to move the table and chair in order to plug in my laptop to be able to get some work done; that’s not a huge issue, but it would’ve been nice to have at least one set of outlets on that side of the room.
The table had a welcome note and a bag of tasty chocolate chip mini shortbread cookies.
The table also had a QR code you can scan to check the room service menu. That also allows you to place an order online, rather than having to call down to the restaurant.
Back by the closet was a mini fridge and coffee maker. Another surprising aspect about the room was that there wasn’t an electric kettle which is almost unheard of in hotel rooms in the UK. While you can use the coffee maker to dispense hot water, it carries a faint coffee flavor when doing that to make a cup of tea which isn’t ideal.
The mini fridge contained a couple of complimentary cartons of water.
The closet featured a luggage rack, an iron, and an ironing board.
The bathroom had a good-sized walk-in shower with large bottles of wall-mounted toiletries. The water pressure of the shower was OK, but nothing special.
Many hotels in the UK don’t provide washcloths, so I was pleased when noticing that the Glasgow Marriott does have them for guests.
While it’s not the most scenic view in Scotland, the view from our room wasn’t bad as city hotels go.
Executive lounge
The Glasgow Marriott’s executive lounge is open from 6am through midnight each day, with hot and cold food being served daily from 5:30pm-8pm, and complimentary beer and wine being served from 5:30pm-9:30pm.
The lounge isn’t massive, but there was enough seating in there when we visited both evenings (there are a few other tables not pictured behind where I was standing).
Throughout the day there’s a coffee and tea maker available, a water dispenser (that dispenses both still and sparkling water), soft drinks, and various little snacks.
The selection of food in the evening wasn’t bad, with a couple of hot options (one meat-based and one vegetarian), several sandwich/canape bites, cold cuts, salad items, bite-sized desserts, and more.
Breakfast in Cast Iron Grill
Breakfast is available in Cast Iron Grill restaurant from 6:30am-10:30am on weekdays and 7am-11am at the weekend.
It’s buffet-style, with a decent selection of food available. In addition to the standard British hot breakfast fare of sausage, bacon, baked beans, scrambled eggs, grilled tomatoes, mushrooms, hash browns, etc., there were Scottish additions like black pudding, haggis, and potato scones. There was also an omelet station available.
There were also cold cuts, cereal, fruit, breads and pastries, dried fruit, and more.
Amenities
The Glasgow Marriott has a well-equipped fitness room with lots of cardio equipment and weights. There was more to the fitness room than just the photo below, but there were a couple of people working out at the time and so I didn’t get photos of the rest of the room.
Opposite that room was an exercise room with lots of empty space for activities like yoga. There were also a couple of Peloton-style bikes and weights available, as well as a punching bag.
The hotel also has a large swimming pool that’s a good size for doing laps and is heated very nicely, as well as a sauna and steam room. There was a family in the pool when I went to take photos, so I wasn’t able to get a shot of that, but you can view photos of the pool on the hotel’s website here.
The fitness center/health club also has a spa available. You can view treatments and prices here.
In addition to the Cast Iron Grill restaurant, the hotel has a bar called Brew Bar.
Parking
There’s parking around the perimeter of the hotel, as well as a larger parking lot at the side of the hotel towards the back.
There are a number of electric vehicle charging stations available if needed.
If you’re staying at the hotel, you can register your car when checking in to pay a reduced rate of £12 (~$16) per night with in and out privileges; otherwise it costs £20 (~$26.65) per night if using the Evology parking app.
Pet policy
The Glasgow Marriott Hotel is a pet-friendly hotel and you’re allowed up to two dogs per room. The pet fee is £30 (~$40) which is pretty good seeing as that’s charged on a per-stay basis rather than per night.
The hotel’s website stated that you need to book a pet-friendly room rate when booking, but it wasn’t possible for me to do that seeing as we were booking an award stay. I therefore called ahead of time to verify that we could bring our dog with us and they confirmed that was OK.
One of the nice things about this property is that there was a decent amount of grass right outside the entrance—something that’s not always common with hotels in a city center.
Location
The Glasgow Marriott is in a decent location for exploring the city. It’s right next to Anderston train station if you’ll be arriving by train, while only being a 15 minute drive from Glasgow airport. You can also take a ~30 minute bus ride from the airport to Glasgow Bothwell Street, then it’s less than a ten minute walk to the hotel from there. It’s also only a ten minute walk to Glasgow Central train station.
Much of downtown Glasgow is walkable in 10-20 minutes, including sites like the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Gallery of Modern Art, and more.
Be aware that Glasgow is more hilly than you might expect, so a walk that doesn’t look like a long distance on Google Maps might be a little more strenuous than anticipated.
A little further afield, Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park is a 30-45 minute drive northwest of the city, Falkirk is 45 minutes to the northeast, and Edinburgh is just over an hour’s drive away to the east.
Service
We didn’t have many interactions with staff during our stay, but Kate at the front desk was extremely friendly, as was the person working at the restaurant entrance for breakfast.
There was a slightly negative experience though. We’d arranged a 4pm late checkout when initially checking in. On the day we checked out there was a very quiet knock on our door (so quiet that our dog didn’t bark like she normally would), no one called out “housekeeping”, but the door opened almost immediately after the knock. They quickly realized we were still in the room and closed the door, but it certainly didn’t provide great privacy. My wife was in the shower at the time, so thankfully she hadn’t walked out a couple of minutes earlier than she did.
Internet
I had to get our Last Chance Deals post prepared the evening we arrived and didn’t have any problem with internet connectivity (which was free).
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Room size – The Deluxe King room we booked had a good amount of square footage which is handy if you’re traveling with several suitcases.
- Lounge – There was a decent enough selection of food and drinks in the evening and it’s always great that even Marriott Platinum members get complimentary access rather than it only being a benefit for Titanium and Ambassador elite status members. Having it be open from 6am through midnight is also helpful if you want/need somewhere to work early in the morning or late at night.
- Location – It’s in a good location in the city center.
- Fitness club – The fitness and exercise rooms are well-equipped and the swimming pool was both heated warmly and a good size.
Cons
- No upgrade – The hotel didn’t give us an upgrade proactively, although I didn’t ask for one either. When trying to use Nightly Upgrade Awards ahead of time, only one room type was listed as being upgradeable, even though larger/better room types were bookable for cash on the website.
- Shower – I would’ve preferred to have had better water pressure.
- Bedroom design – It would’ve been good to have had better seating options than just one chair in our room. I also would’ve liked more prevalent power outlets and an electric kettle rather than just a coffee maker.
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Thanks for the review! Ugh, Marriott has so many fooled. It’s great, when travelling on other people’s money, but not good enough for my own funds.
If you prefer better water pressure, might I recommend the Kimpton Blythswood Square Hotel & Spa, which often can be booked using IHG points (and 40K certificates, etc.)
I’d actually looked at that one as it’s also bookable through Amex’s The Hotel Collection and so we could’ve used the $300 hotel credits from Platinum/Business Platinum cards. IIRC, I didn’t end up booking it as the cash rate was particularly high for our weekend, but it does look like a nice property, plus it’s pet-friendly with no pet fee.
If you want water pressure get a pair of channel lock pliers and something like a skinny screwdriver or something else to punch out the water regulator in the shower head. I’ve made the showers much better in many hotel rooms
Black Pudding is not exclusively Scottish. You’ll find different styles in England and Ireland as well.
The shower is cringe with the half glass that soaks the bathroom floor but otherwise the hotel seems rather decent.
Yeah, I’m not a huge fan of the partial doors that are so common in UK showers. FWIW though, the not amazing water pressure of the shower meant that getting water on the floor was never a danger.
Off-topic: I’ve seen them in multiple places in continental Europe too. Always wondered why that particular “design choice” was so popular — i can’t see any advantages to it, except the lower cost of the smaller door.
I’m surprised this is a Marriott still. I say that because most of the original 1980s and 1990s Marriotts (as in the Marriott brand, not the chain) in the UK, at least outside London, were converted to Delta.
The breakfast buffet is average at best by UK standards.
I’m also surprised by how much this Marriott looks like any 1980s hotel in a comparable US city like Kansas City or Detroit. Sometimes the Marriotts in Europe are more refined or a little more upscale than a Marriott in the USA. But this hotel could be the Marriott in Romulus by the Detroit airport.
i cringe when I see tongs on top of food.