Courtyard by Marriott Columbia Downtown at USC 630 Assembly Street, Columbia, SC 29201

"So, I ended up coming over for breakfast with some friends of mine that were staying at the hotel. First impression was really good. I liked the ambiance and friendliness of the staff. I liked the rooms. However, breakfast was a disaster. My friends had a complimentary breakfast, and my son and I had an incredibly expensive breakfast. The food all came out at different times and one of my friends burrito was served cold. I forgot what the prices were, but I want to say for a small, not good cup of coffee was $6 each and the food was so overpriced. We paid it, but was at least expecting good service. They forgot one of our food and had to go heat it in the microwave. My friend didn't even complain about his ice cold burrito. This is a nice hotel, but I could not recommend the food or food service at all."

"Staff is top notch, but, shocking for Marriott, there are 0 toiletry items in room and no glasses for drinking or gargling. Even had to request a do not disturb sign. Another oddity, trash can liners are draped on the side of the cans (in room) and not actually placed in properly. Asked a maid about it and its intentional on part of hotel. Currently undergoing a much-needed reno 12/23. A surprising bright spot was breakfast at cafe in lobby served up by a cheerful cook. Possibly the best omelet ever, and dinner was quite good too. They also have limited Starbs."

"We stayed at this Hotel Friday-Sunday and it was fabulous!! Jami Parker (Sales Coordinator) here was so nice and accommodating. We were having an unfortunate problem with another local Hotel so I called Courtyard and hit the lottery with Jamie. She really turned a bad day into a great day! We couldn’t have asked for a better stay! It’s too bad more people couldn’t have the customer service skills she has. Such a great place and great location to stay! Thank you to the staff and especially for Jamie for all you did to make our stay enjoyable! We will definitely be back!!"

"October 15, 2023 my daughter, her husband and my granddaughter stayed at the Courtyard Columbia Downtown at USC. I had made a reservation for them for one night using 41,000 of my Marriott points. Today, my daughter told me that upon their late check in, their bed did not have sheets on it and the comforter had a blood colored stain. She called downstairs three times before anyone responded and sent someone up to their room to rectify the situation. When my daughter checked out, the person at the front desk how was their stay. They were surprised that no one knew about what happened and retold the bad experience. The front desk person was shocked and said that points would be returned/credited for that stay. I called this morning and talked to a nice young lady at the front desk. I told her what happened and explained that I booked the reservation for my daughter and her family because I wanted them to stay at a good hotel while in Columbia. I expressed my surprise at: the totally unacceptable condition of the Marriott hotel room, the lack of appropriate response and urgency to getting the problem corrected and the lack of documentation of the problem in the hotel system. After a few minutes, she told me that, yes, they were crediting back points to my account and that if I did not get an email to that effect that I could check my points online. I ask, how many points were going to be credited back to my account and she said 3,000 points. I guess 3,000 points is something. I did call back and asked to talk to the manager about the situation. He told me he was aware of the situation because he was at the desk when my daughter checked out. He was very apologetic, mentioned the 3,000 point credit and that they would work with their staff through additional training to hopefully prevent situations like this from happening again."

"This is the 2nd time I stayed here and I don't know if it was this bad the last time or I just had so much going on that I didn't notice. The 1st room I was assigned was next to the elevator so at night I could hear the squeaks and noise from the elevator moving. Thankfully the staff was very kind and moved me to another room the 2nd night. This was a bigger, nicer room and further away from the elevator. The last morning I was there the fire alarm went off. At first I waited to see if it was just an accident or if there was a true emergency. When I finally got downstairs and outside there were 6 people outside, 2 maintenance workers and 4 guests. This was around 10am so you would imagine more people were in and around the hotel. We remained outside as the fire department arrived. The maintenance workers spoke to them and the fire department drove off. They never said a word to us. We finally went inside where guest were sitting in the lobby and other workers were behind the desk. The lack of coordination and communication in an emergency was wild to me. All in all not terrible but could use some updates. For example, the TVs don't have the streaming option available. The bathrooms are small and outdated, but well maintained."