Fairfield Inn & Suites Merrillville

Great breakfast!

Absolutely nothing about this experience did I like or enjoy

The location was good. Easy access to I-65.

Good

Good parking

My room was canceled 15min before arrival after I drove 5hr to the hotel and had to scramble to find a hotel at a CHOICE BRAND instead. Never trying one of yours again!!

AC worked. Bed itself was comfortable

did not stay

Would love to tell you about my stay. The property is held together mainly with duck tape hopes and dreams. The only working ice machine was on the first floor. The elevator safety handle was falling off. The fitness room was out of order. The laundry room was out of order. We were at the front desk several times do to our key card not working. Thats after we had to change rooms because the first room the beds were so broken down they messed my back up. Last night my son feel on the floor leaving the bathroom by the pool. He hit his head pretty hard. There was not an incident report field out. They did not notify us as well. I didnt find out till this morning when he told me. Your pool does not have a proper locking safety feature. The list goes on and on. I asked for a refund and was denied one beforei even brought my luggage in I had just left the room. It shouldn't have been an issue with the conditions on the hotel. The very early morning front desk gentle man was very rude. It was a bad experience all the way around.

People hanging around the parking lot, smoking cigarettes, eating food, meandering, made me feel really uncomfortable before I even made it inside. Two different cars where people were just sitting inside with the car running and smoking. Not exactly the thing I like to see as a female traveling alone.
As I walk in, the lobby smells like cigarette smoke and is warm & humid. Even though I checked in in advance on the app, they did not have my room keys or room ready. I still had to check in at the front desk and give all of my information, phone number, credit card, which is weird because when you check in on the app that is not normally required. You are just handed your room keys after they confirm your identity.
I get to my first room, and upon walking in I noticed the toilet seat up, black hairs on the toilet seat and black hairs all over the floor in the bathroom. The roll of toilet paper is also dangling almost to the floor. The room also smelled terrible, like dank mold. I immediately walked out back to the front desk to request a different room. The front desk workers were not very friendly or welcoming, and almost seemed annoyed when I asked for another room. She clicked around on the computer for a while and was able to find me another room. Upon arriving in this room, the smell was much better, but it felt so wet and humid in the air. The air in this entire hotel is very moist, to the point where the linens and bedsheets feel wet to the touch. I also found out the carpet feels wet under your feet, so I kept my shoes on the entire time except when sleeping. Every surface in this room just feels grimy and sticky. There are fingerprints and smudges on nearly every light fixture, the remote (which I didn’t even touch because I could see the nasty grime on it). Toothpaste stains on the counter and mirror as if they weren’t even wiped down. There are water stains on the ceiling above the window. For some reason, there are bed skirts on the bed (which are not needed because the wooden frame of the bed goes all the way to the floor as most hotel room beds do these days) which just seems unsanitary in my opinion as they have white stains and tears all over them and are obviously not washed in between guests. They also feel nasty to the touch.

The first towel I grabbed in the bathroom, had a make up stain on it. At this point, I’m expecting nothing less. At least this bathroom didn’t have hair all around. The sheets on the beds were clean. Though the beds were extremely uncomfortable and hard. Let’s just say I really didn’t sleep, thank goodness I was only staying one night.

It just seemed like everywhere you turn there’s another problem. I parked at the end of the building because the main parking lot was full by the time I got here, however, by no surprise, the key card scanner at that entrance was broken with wires, just hanging out of the wall. So then I had to walk all the way around the front of the building. The coffee machine at the breakfast area is broken, so you have to make the coffee in your room.

This hotel should be ashamed to call itself a Fairfield Inn. Mariott should be ashamed to have this in their portfolio. They need to reconsider. I have stayed at over a dozen Fairfield properties and I’ve never seen one in this much need of maintenance and updating.

I haven’t stayed at a hotel this run down in over a decade. As platinum elite (and formerly titanium elite Mariott Bonvoy member up to last year), this is unacceptable. If this was my first experience as a guest at a Fairfield property, I would never come back. I wish I would’ve read reviews on the Mariott app before I booked this stay. I rarely do for stays of 1 night, or stays at Fairfield properties in general because there is usually no issue. And for $140 for the night, that’s a double with this room should cost. I bet the red roof Inn next-door has nicer rooms.

Breakfast was OK. Staff friendly.