Pier 5 Hotel - Baltimore, USA     

loved the hotel and the guest experience. The hotel was very clean and I met the GM (John)and Director of Operations(Chris) If you get a chance please meet them and ask them for a tour. The restaunts were supurb and the location to the Harborside are at your back door. Our children loved the different rooms and compared this to a Disney vacation. This will be our new home away from home.

I'm a management consultant and do a ton of travelling for business. We usually stay in 4 star hotels and I don't consider myself abnormally picky about hotels. I simply expect a clean, comfortable, quiet room with a good bed and internet access for the 4-star price point. A client arranged for us to stay for a few nights at the Pier V hotel last week and, in all candor, I was pretty disappointed. The Good: The location is great and very convenient to the inner harbor and downtown areas. McCormick & Schmicks and a Ruths Chris steakhouse are on the property. No issues with getting a bite to eat or a drink. There is a Panera about 2 blocks away and has great Breakfast and Lunch options. The Bad: The rooms, although painted and decorated in a funky modern motif, were crappy. I had a stack of dirty room service dishes outside my door for an entire day. The wooden furniture in my room was really beaten up. The carpet was stained and torn in a couple of places. The tile floors in the bathroom were dirty and the grout in the shower was mildewy. The pillows on the bed were worn out and, after a few hours, felt like I was sleeping on a bag of rocks. $30/night for "valet" service parking your car in a pay lot next to the hotel... both times I needed my car, I had to go searching for the parking attendant as he did not answer the phone and was not at the front door. Most troubling, however, was the noise and lack of privacy between rooms. The lock-off doors between rooms allowed for a TON of noise to permeate between the rooms. To put it plainly, you can hear **everything** that is going on in the room next to yours. On the first night, I endured 3 1/2 hours of banter between a drunken couple who came in at 1:00am. The following night, I was serenaded by a tuneful snorer and phlem clearer! Needless to say, I hardly slept either night and could not wait to get to out of there. Bottom Line: Great location if you are needing to be in the Inner Harbor area. For the price, you can find much better accomodation elsewhere.