I needed a quick one night stay in Brooklyn last week as I was going to surprise my brother for a big round number birthday. My mom was also coming up from Florida and had dibs on his spare room so I planned to stay at my usual Brooklyn stop, the New York Marriott at The Brooklyn Bridge. When I went to search for that night, I noticed that the Aloft Brooklyn was about 10,000 Marriott points lower. In the end, I used a free night certificate to cover up to 35,000 points plus 12,000 points for a total of 47,000 Marriott Bonvoy points.

The Aloft gets mixed reviews online. It’s next door to the Sheraton. In fact, I was directed to the restaurant at the Sheraton for the Marriott Platinum breakfast benefit at the Aloft. In the end, I skipped breakfast as I decided to see the family early the next morning before I flew home so I won’t be reviewing that aspect of the hotel.

Prior to arrival, I noticed in the Marriott app that I was upgraded to a suite which was a positive development, or so I thought. I arrived with my mom around 4pm (as I was stashing her and her luggage in preparation for surprising my brother at dinner later that evening. I was given the card key for my suite on the 2nd floor.

Well, it turns out it was an accessible suite, but at no point did the app indicate that and neither did the front desk worker who checked me in. I would likely have turned it down in favor of a regular room. The light switches were all about three feet off the ground and the roll-in shower had no door or barrier to stop the water from getting all over the floor. It also didn’t have a regular shower head, just an adjustable wand. Sorry for a bit of a mess in these pictures as I took them the next morning.

On the positive side, despite being on the second floor, the room was quiet all night. There was also a balcony, which from what I can tell, was only one of two in the entire hotel.

Note that this balcony had a huge step up to get on it, which as my mom pointed out, kind of defeated the point for an accessible room made for folks with mobility issues. The sliding door for the bathroom was also very difficult to open even for able-bodied people like me and my mom so I can imagine someone in a wheelchair struggling with it.

There was a standard Aloft closet/coffee/safe area.

Randomly, the minifridge was under the sink. You can also probably see there was quite a bit of wear and tear on most of the finishes in the room including the floors and furniture.

As I mentioned previously, I did not get breakfast in the morning, but I tried the free coffee that was available in the lobby.

I’m not at all a coffee snob, but this tasted so bad I threw it out after one sip.

There are four different Marriott properties within walking distance to my brother’s place: the Marriott, the Sheraton, the Aloft and the Fairfield Inn. I’ve now stayed in three of them and the Sheraton consistently gets the worst reviews of the four so I will avoid that one.

Going forward, I will likely stay at the Marriott as while it’s a large conference hotel and charges a destination fee, the rooms and suites are much nicer than the Aloft and there’s a decent M Club lounge if I’m there on a weekday. Worst case, if the Marriott is sold out or ridiculously overpriced, I’ll stay at the Fairfield Inn which despite having tiny rooms is newer and nicer than the Aloft. I don’t think I’ll stay at the Aloft Brooklyn again.

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