Salt Lake City Marriott at City Creek Hotel Review

You can’t go wrong with a Marriott. Right? RIGHT?? RIGHT??

WRONG.

You ever want to go back to the ’80s? I’ll admit it, on some days, I wouldn’t mind being whisked away to 1988, playing with my Barbie and Rockers dolls, listening to Debbie Gibson and sporting a trendy side ponytail. But when I’m staying at a hotel, I’d rather be in current times. But if you like 1980s-era hotels, the Salt Lake City Marriott at City Creek will be right up your alley!

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links where I might earn a small commission at no cost to you. This keeps my website up and running! This is not a sponsored post.

Now, I’ll warn you – I’m going to be really tough on this hotel. Why, you ask? Because it’s a pricey, business traveler orientated Marriott in a major US city downtown, that nickels and dimes you for everything and hasn’t been updated in decades. I’ll also say that when I stayed here, I did not have high tier status with Marriott as I do now. However, as of May 2022, the lounge is still closed for some god knows what reason, so I probably would end up with the same opinion as when I originally stayed here. So let’s get to it!

I stayed at the Marriott City Creek for five nights in summer (a Sunday through Friday stay), on a work trip, so this wasn’t a hotel I picked by choice, rather, it picked me.

Salt Lake City Marriott City Creek Location

This hotel is located in downtown Salt Lake City Utah, and is close to the convention center, Temple Square and the City Creek Mall – all are within walking distance. So the location of this hotel is great.

Lobby, Check-in and Parking

The lobby is very nice and modern – it’s pretty typical of what you’d find at a business travel-centric hotel in a major US city. But don’t let the modern lobby fool you into thinking the rooms will be from this decade! But we’ll get to that in a bit.

Read more: Enjoy my hotel reviews? Here is a list of all the hotel reviews on this site!

There is a full service Starbucks in the lobby, along with a restaurant called Salt Stone.

Parking will run you $20/day and both self-parking and valet are available. I will say that there are other hotels in downtown Salt Lake City – nice hotels – that offer free parking.

Fitness Center and Pool Area:

The fitness center and pool area are located in the same area – here is the entrance to these amenities:

Fitness Center is much nicer than a normal hotel. 3 ellipticals, 2 bikes, and 5 treadmills — all relatively new equipment – and there is a separate weight room. But it was very, very busy, even at 5am!

Pool/hot tub area is really nice. It’s partially outdoor and has a nice, relaxing atmosphere. Plenty of seating and tons of towels. There’s also a locker room with showers and a sauna (that actually works).

During the day, this is a really nice, quiet spot, so I brought my laptop down here a few times to get some work done for a change of scenery. I sat at the tables below:

The downside to all this is the hot tub. Boy howdy, that fucker needs cleaning. The hot tub starts off looking nice and clean – and dare I say, inviting?!

But run the jets for a few minutes and this mess shows up.

Oh hey, they included a little friend:

Jesus batshit christ – what the fuck is all this? I mean, you know that this is all made up of dead skin cells. *shudder*

Rooms at the Marriott at City Creek

Rooms at this hotel are typically over $250/night, which is completely ridiculous for what you get.

These rooms are terribly outdated and are probably the ugliest, most outdated rooms I’ve stayed in, dare-I-say, YEARS. This hotel would be great if it were 1988 and Who’s the Boss was still in its prime.

Judging by the decor in the rooms and the floors itself, this place hasn’t been updated in decades! The rooms are tiny (I’ve stayed in hotels in NYC that were larger) and the bathroom is uncomfortably small.

Not only are they outdated but they’re just plain wore out, beat up and left to rot on the vine. I’ve stayed in cheap roadside motels that pay much better attention to detail than here. The bathroom door has chipped paint and splinters halfway up the door. The tile in the bathroom shower looks straight out of the ’80s with stains and cracks everywhere.

Not only that, the water temperature is terrible. It goes from freezing cold to scalding hot. That, or it takes 20 minutes for the water to warm up. Calling the front desk was no help at all, as they just simply told us we had to run the water and wait it out until it gets warm. How is this acceptable???

And not only that, I had left my bag of toiletries on the counter. I was using a reusable Lululemon bag in which to hold them. The housekeeper took it upon herself to toss the bag and its entire contents out during one of our room cleanings. There went over $100 in makeup and other toiletries, prompting me to run to Target to replace some of them. (The hotel did compensate me for those items, so that was nice, but it was still irritating. If you’re familiar with the Lululemon bags, they do not look like trash bags in the least – plus it was sitting on the bathroom counter).

Breakfast:

There is no free breakfast here, which is to be expected because this is a Marriott “flagship” brand hotel. They never offer free breakfast because they cater to business travelers on a per diem so they can get away with it. Just don’t stay here if you’re traveling for leisure because other places (like the Homewood Suites just a few blocks away – I’ve stayed there before, it’s great!) give you free breakfast and dinner appetizers — not to mention much nicer rooms at a cheaper price.

Marriott Salt Lake City – City Creek – Final Thoughts

You know what this hotel needs? A bulldozer.

Take a look at Trip Advisor if you don’t believe me – this hotel has had issues for years and there is no renovation in sight.

This hotel gets away with not fixing anything and only stays in business because companies keep booking their employees to stay here because it’s right across from the convention center. I am one of those people (so I didn’t pay for this stay, thank goodness) but COME ON.

The best part about the hotel was this cute cookie that they were handing out:

However, if you, for some reason, have some sort of weird desire to stay here, you can book this hotel here. I won’t judge. Well, maybe a little. This place sucks.