Review: Marriott St. Louis Airport – Convenient and Comfortable

In a nutshell: Great location, comfortable rooms, friendly staff, and good value make the Marriott St. Louis Airport an easy choice for next time we visit Missouri. The exterior doesn’t look like much, and there are some service gaps, but everything else overcame the handful of negatives. 

Airport hotels are the worst. When all you need is a bed for a quick overnight, it grates on me to shell out much, in either cash or points. I often opt for the cheapest option or use free night certificates for airport stays. I will say, however, that the Marriott St. Louis Airport recently made for an above-average airport stay.

Booking

I’d suffered from analysis paralysis booking an option on the front end of the trip, not liking any of the options I saw. But for our final night before heading back to California, the Marriott St. Louis Airport was asking just 16,000 Bonvoy points. This made it an easy choice. The flexible member rate for one night at time of booking was $147 before taxes, which yielded about 1.0 cent per Marriot Bonvoy point.

Great? No. Solid? Yes. I generally peg Bonvoy points at 0.8-0.9 cents each, so I was fine getting this value. I know you can get well in excess of 1.0 cent per point in value, but this has rarely been my experience. I was simply happy to not be spending a ton of points for an airport hotel.

Arrival and First Impressions

The Marriott St. Louis Airport doesn’t look like much from the outside. It’s an old concrete tower that looks more like a tired Holiday Inn or Crowne Plaza. But the interior is actually quite nice. The hotel has a good sized lobby area that seamlessly transitions into the bar and restaurant area beyond.

The front desk was our introduction to one of the several friendly staff we’d encounter at the Marriott St. Louis Airport. One of their trainees has the same unique first name as my youngest child. My son instantly noticed and commented on it. Not missing a beat, he got a “What? Really? Have a KitKat bar” in response. My kids heart was won. But so much for holding the throttle on their sugar intake.

Our room was in the east tower. This requires a walk down the long hall at the front of the hotel. There is another set of doors closer to the tower, which is nice. We were in and out multiple times, checking in, dropping our bags, and then heading down the street to return the rental car down.

Our room was close to the elevator. This isn’t a preference of mine, but I didn’t notice any additional noise. The hotel was plenty quiet for an airport property.

Standard King Room

Traveling with two kids can make room type decisions difficult. A setup with two queen beds and a couch/sleeper sofa (looking at you, Hyatt Place) is the most ideal. Next up is a king room with a comfortable enough couch to sleep on, which is what I settled for at the Marriott St. Louis Airport.

The desk area is nice, but in an awkward spot if someone else wants to watch TV.

The couch is not a sleeper sofa. However, it was large enough to accommodate either of my kids, and my youngest slept on it. He slept well. I also slept well since I didn’t have a 7-year-old thrashing about next to me the whole night.

The room has a coffee maker and mini fridge. KitKat not included unless the front desk thinks you’re special.

The hotel has clearly remodeled for our modern era, offering plugs below the lamp in the alarm clock. The alarm clock cube and nightstands were rather dusty.

I always wonder if these things are actually connected when installed. The power plugs here worked, but I always give any wall-mounted HDMI port the side eye. The two times I’ve tried these at any hotel, they haven’t worked. We didn’t test the one here.

The bathroom was cleaned well, better than the nightstands. It offers only a shower, which I prefer to a bathtub-shower setup.

Can’t beat a parking garage view! Actually, you do have a view of the end of the runway. The boys caught a few planes taking off.

I was happy with the room. Not a ton of space, but it was comfortable and exactly what we needed for an airport overnight.

Hotel Lounge Evening Spread: Dinner Fail

Marriott Platinum may not offer a lot in terms of their Choice Benefits, but it does offer hotel lounge access. I put it to use when I can. It’s a rare occurrence. I only earned Platinum due to holding both personal and business Marriott cards and managing to eke out the remaining nights.

The Marriott St. Louis Airport does offer a lounge and it was open during our stay. It is located on the top floor of the east tower, which made it super convenient for us just a couple floors below.

The space is nice. I’d certainly work from here, if needed, rather than my hotel room. There were only a handful of people in the lounge at the tail end of the evening drinks and hors d’oeuvres spread.

You can also enjoy airport views at one end of the lounge. If only it was right over the terminal.

The Marriott St. Louis Airport lounge food was a disappointment. I’d banked on this being our dinner, trying to save a few bucks. but mini egg rolls and sweet chili sauce doesn’t equate to dinner. This was the only option. Even worse, the dozen or so egg rolls were the very last remaining dinner food the lounge had to offer for the evening spread, per the single staff working it.

She was apologetic, though. At least there was dessert. We ate what was left while she cut up a caramel apple pie. I drew the line here. We’d have apple pie, but the KitKat would have to wait until tomorrow’s flight.

In terms of drinks, the Marriott lounge offers a decent bar selection. Alcoholic drinks are not complimentary, though. You have to fill out a card and total whatever you consume.

Lounge Breakfast

Breakfast in the lounge was a much better experience. The spread included bacon, eggs, bagels, pastries, oatmeal, cereal, yogurt, and a great fruit selection. Beverages included juice, coffee, water, and sodas.

Marriott St. Louis Airport Restaurant

The hotel offers a full service restaurant and bar adjacent to the lobby. We ordered and appetizer and salad as a final bite to eat for the day. My main gripe was the length of time it took to connect to the restaurant by phone, and then the request to come down and order in person. Once I got downstairs, the staff were friendly, but super busy. They seemed shorthanded. Our food was ready in 15 minutes, though, which was fine by me.

In addition to the restaurant, there is a market open during the mornings that serves Starbucks coffee and pastries if you’re on the go and don’t have time to enjoy a sit-down breakfast.

Pool

The boys loved the indoor-outdoor pool at Marriott St. Louis Airport. It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen one of these. We played for a half hour, as I’d promised many hours earlier that they’d get some pool time. It was a pleasant evening after a warm Missouri day, so we stayed as late as I dared. The kids would have swam until 10:00 PM if I’d let them, not caring about our 5:45 wakeup tomorrow.

Other Marriott St. Louis Airport Amenities

Adjacent to the pool area is a courtyard that has several corn hole games. The weather was lovely, and I wished we didn’t have an early flight the next day. The boys and I could have enjoyed a whole lot more time relaxing on our final night.

Adjacent to the pool is the hotel fitness center. I didn’t have time to work out. I’ve gotten into a decent routine at home, but traveling always throws things off, unfortunately.

The Marriott St. Louis Airport operates a shuttle to both STL terminals that runs every 20 minutes, and the airport proximity is excellent. We were at Terminal 2 in just a couple minutes. Our driver was excellent, one of the most helpful shuttle drivers I’ve encountered.

Final Thoughts

Given how well I slept, the staff, service, hotel amenities, award value, and airport proximity, I’d rank our stay at the Marriott St. Louis Airport as one of my better airport hotel stays. Sure, it’s no Grand Hyatt at SFO and it isn’t much to look at on the outside. The lounge evening reception was also a disappointment.

However, I’d be more than happy staying here again, and we likely will next time we visit family in the state, especially if the price stays in the 15,000-18,000 points range.