Fairfield by Marriott Hotels in St. Charles

This was easily the worst hotel experience I have ever had. For context, I have Marriott & Hilton status, travel extensively for work and personal, and regularly stay at a mix of budget hotels and luxury hotels. I've stayed at other Fairfield Inns, and generally like the un-fussy design, reliable wi-fi, and free breakfast. I booked this hotel as a last minute mini-getaway with my boyfriend to use my Bonus Award night from my credit card. We got to the hotel around 6p and noticed that the grounds looked over-gown and untended. When we checked into our room (105), the room smelled a bit stale, there were water stains on the bedroom ceiling and mildew in the bathroom ceiling, but we decided to ignore it since it was just for the night. We went out to dinner and got back around 9pm and tried to watch TV, but it wasn't working. When we called the front desk, he tried to fix it, but ultimately gave us a new room. We moved to our second room (136) and the internet to the TV still didn't work but we managed to get some cable channels working. After about 20 minutes, we got a tornado warning on our phones and it started to pour outside. We quickly noticed the ledge above window in the room was leaking, so my boyfriend grabbed a couple towels to soak up the water. The towels were drenched in minutes, at which point he went back to the front desk to tell the attendant about the issue. The attendant muttered in disbelief, so he came to the room to check and once he saw the leaking told us, ”you cannot stay here it is risky. I will get you another room.” At this point, we pack up and head to the lobby where the systems have all reset because of a power surge. There are other guests huddled in the stairwell due to the tornado warning. After approx 15-20 minutes, the system is working again and we are given a key to our third room of the evening (104). The first thing we do in this room is check the windows, and sure enough, the windows are also leaking. We immediately go back to the front desk to tell the attendant and he says to us ”Many of the rooms are leaking, please stay in your room.” We went very quickly from ”you can't stay in a room with a leaking window because of safety” to ”everyone is complaining, so deal with it.” We ultimately left the hotel in the middle of a severe thunderstorm and tornado warning because staying in the room was unsafe. I'm never staying at a Fairfield Inn ever again.