A Wren Says

This is going to be a quick review of Cambria, a newer hotel in Manchester, Connecticut and part of Choice hotels. The property is located in the Evergreen Walk area. That means you have just a short walk to an outdoor shopping mall with restaurants, and my favorite, a Ben and Jerry’s. The location is prime because of that convenience and proximity to the Bradley airport and Hartford. As great as all of that is, if you are staying at a hotel, you likely want it to be good for more than just the location. You want to have a good stay. I will focus my review on just that.

The place looks great. The newness of the place shows. Everything is well taken care of. There was a large sitting area and coffee makers and a restaurant, but I did not try them.

In my room I had a comfortable bed facing the window. The view was not great, but it offered a lot of natural light. I have to say I appreciated the wall paper as it added a creative touch without the need to curate a collection of paintings.

The bathroom was a bathroom. I did find it interesting that they included a black towel specifically designated for makeup.

The television swiveled so you could angle it towards the window bench or the bed, depending on where you wanted to sit.

The room included a mini fridge, microwave, and a coffee maker.

The hotel had a pretty decent gym setup which had an interior facing window, looking right into the pool area. Personally it did feel a little awkward because there were people using the pool as I was working out. I didn’t want to seem like I was staring in there. It also didn’t help that the glute-ham developer had an unfortunate angle, perhaps to return the staring favor.

The room itself was not a problem at all. As it was decorated and organized, I would have no problem returning. My problem was the noise.

This might be unfair and a nonstandard circumstance, but there was a group next to me that was extremely loud. I stayed there three nights. The group was loud the first two nights late into the early morning. I am glad I was not in the area to give a important presentation, because I would not have been able to do well on the little sleep I got. I could also hear the sound of them playing in the hallway, but also generally people in the hallway were a noise disturbance. It is hard to tell if this was a situation where the walls were way too thin or the people were all just that loud.

When I went to ask about earplugs, there were none at the front desk. Maybe I should have reported the group, but I am only just now getting to the point where I am starting to speak up about issues. So that will fall under hindsight bias.

The hotel was also sending text messages throughout my trip to ask how my stay was going. When I wrote back that I did not in fact sleep well because my neighbors were loud, the messages stopped. I never got another message. No response to my message. Not even an automated message hoping things were going well. Just silence. Maybe my complaint broke the system.

I will say that was frustrating because it seemed like the text messages were used to appear more customer focused, but at the end of the day they never intended to use that system to improve service. Again, this could just be an oversight that I should give them the benefit of the doubt for, but I’m not sure. It seemed generally that the staff there was not ready and willing to respond to me. They were not actively greeting guests as they entered and were not quick to answer questions. I didn’t need to be waited on, but I didn’t want to feel like I was an inconvenience for asking questions.

Generally, I think the property itself is nice, but I have questions about the service and sound proofing. If I were to stay there again, I would be sure to pack earplugs and a noise machine and the willingness to be ignored.