Review: Boston Marriott Newton

Certainly one of your more random reviews, but I'm assuming you had to be in the Newton area for something... otherwise I've heard decent things about The Liberty if you need to use BonVoy.

@ pstm91 -- Indeed, in this case we needed to be in Newton, hence the choice of hotels. A couple of Boston hotel reviews will be coming up shortly.

My guess is it is where Miles was born.

I heard they have good hospitals In That area

That hallway & in-room carpet. Ugh. Between that and the popcorn ceiling, the rooms look like Holiday Inn or one of the many 2-star Marriott properties (Fairfield Inn?). Marriott is dooming their business model by not having real, differentiating brand standards for their 3 & 4 star hotel brands

"some kind of veggies (in some cases with cheese)"

Not sure what they call it in Mass., but in Pennsylvania that's known as crudité.

This is 5 minutes from my parents house lmao and I think part of my bar mitzvah was here. Definitely not a good hotel for doing anything in downtown Boston.

I also been told Pennsylvania is weird in that they crudité with salsa and guacamole.

I don't know why you're calling this a "standard" Marriott. Marriott is the flagship brand of Marriott International. This particular property is owned by Chesapeake Lodging and operated by TPG Hotels & Resorts. It is pretty much your standard 1980s suburban or corporate office park Marriott that was probably built because of one or two big corporate clients back in the day. These days, these properties are generally relatively cheap in terms of rates. They've also suffered pretty significantly with remote work as those offices are never coming back like before. It's good to see a property not cheat on the breakfast buffet. I wouldn't say that most domestic Marriott lounges have an honor bar. Those things have been on the way out for a while now. It's interesting that the M Club concept wasn't put in when the hotel was renovated in 2017 as it's my understanding that every new or newly renovated Marriott since about 2015 or 2016 has a M Club. That tells me the corporate client that drives a lot of traffic to this property wants a club lounge but there is otherwise no market demand to have a lounge open on weekends. By contrast, M Club was supposed to give owners a way to monetize lounges by selling access to non-elites and also reduce F&B costs since M Club lounges have premium food and drinks but are largely self-serve and unstaffed. For example, many of the M Clubs have a self-serve wine machine that charges your guest room with the swipe of a credit card. I'm also intrigued to see that the owner wasn't required to replace the circa 2006 nightstands and headboard behind the behind. Those pieces of furniture are going on 17 years now.

Most Fairfield Inn properties these days are nicer than Sheraton, Marriott, and Courtyard. The only problem is no bar and the breakfast has been significantly reduced. The gyms at most new or newly renovated Fairfields are generally Marriott's best, except Westin. I think Holiday Inn Express is the best limited-service brand. If only they had the bistro/bar concept of Courtyard. I would give them 75% of my stays domestically.

TPG Hotels?? Is that a coincidence?

Of no connection to The Points Guy.

That’s what I was thinking.

I drive by this property a few times a month. Hard pass on the hard product. The Newton Marriott always strikes me from the outside as somewhat grim and uninviting, maybe even stuck in the 1970's. Rather surprised the property merited 4 stars, with the outdated furniture and carpeting, ceilling and bath being all sub-par. There's a Westin just up the road in Waltham which seems a little nicer.

Forgot to add that the need to specifically request housekeeping on a daily basis is not exactly stellar customer service.

Hilarious, 4 out of 5 stars.

I find it disappointing that a recently renovated Marriott only has a fixed showerhead without an additional hand-held one.

No surprises there.

Timely review. We are supposed to be in Boston for a couple of nights next month and we have a couple of Bonvoy certificates. This looks like a good option in a pretty decent location for where we plan to go on our day in town. Will have to look at the rates to see if it is better to hold the certificates for another time. Thanks!

As someone who lives about 10-15 minutes from that hotel, I've put up relatives there quite a bit, and I actually have friends who have booked the cheapest rooms on cold days, just to use the pool with their kids. It actually works very well for those kinds of specific needs.

If you were there for a few days I’m sure you went to famous moody st for dining lol .

A touch of history about the hotel. It is on the site of the once-famous Norumbega Amusement Park and the Totem Pole Bandstand, which was built in 1897 and closed in 1964. The hotel was Marriott's eighth hotel, and opened in 1969 as the Marriott Motor Hotel. I worked there in the 70's, and spent a week there (stranded on duty) during the Blizzard of 1978. Originally it had 2 restaurants, a Fairfield family dining, and Sirloin and Saddle Steakhouse, both of which were common brands in early Marriott days.