The Alida, Savannah, a Tribute Portfolio Hotel

We stayed at Alida with my family around Christmas holidays for one night. Being Titanium with Marriott, I used points for free nights, otherwise, it is too pricey. This is pretty cool and interesting place, enjoyed tasteful decorations and attractive common areas. The service is generally friendly and cheerful, but slightly uneven. Location is quite convenient, riverfront, next to JW Marriott. Quite exciting Rooftop bar with the great views, cozy and positive vibes. Rooms were spacious, with two king beds, and nice bathrooms, minimalistic and spotlessly clean. We didn't like the design, it was sort of silly location for the closet, and it caused inconvenience (there were 3 of us). Breakfast and coffee were vastly overpriced, we had complimentary breakfast for 2 people included, but it was $50 brunch per person otherwise. I opted to skip it, it didn't look like the kind of food I would enjoy anyway. Espresso drinks were not great and very expensive. Still, a quite nice place. Solid 4 stars, but definitely not 5 star experience.

Good looking hotel, but, very disappointed at the hotel not getting a few basics right for business travelers. Getting a quick hot shower in the morning was a challenge. They don’t seem to have a big enough boiler/heater or storage. It does get warm if you wait enough. But doesn’t last long. The rooms don’t come with ironing boards and irons (but this is a quick fix, their service is great bringing it to the room). No water bottles in the room, they do have empty bottles that you can fill downstairs at the water station. Marriott disappointed me here with the basics. How can you have a 4 star hotel without a good boiler? Service was great, ambience was great but need the basic functionally too.

The hotel is lovely and the location is amazing. Our room was wonderful and there was obviously a lot of thought put into the layout. That said, the front desk experience was poor and not welcoming in the least. We arrived after "Happy Hour" began and there sat pre-poured glasses of sparkling wine in the back of the front desk that was not offered; no customer had access unless they asked. After settling into my room I came back to the lobby to explore and had to ask for a glass and a cookie. The cookie was delicious but the wine was flat and warm. My suggestion would be to leave it in the bottle on ice and make it accessible and warmly offered. Either do it right or don't do it at all. I'm also confused about the $18 coupon we were given which I was told to use because it's part of the service charge. It is also restricted to the lobby bar even though there is a beautiful rooftop bar; this makes no sense. And lastly, the valet situation is very odd (inconvenient, expensive, and sloppy) but the valets themselves are very nice and go out of their way to work with what they have. This is a beautiful boutique hotel but someone needs to step back and decide the end-goal of some of the amenities and on the initial front desk experience.

The hotel is super nice. The location in Savannah is superb, right downtown in the middle of the old district. Tons of very nice dining and shopping options. The rooms are very nice and the bathrooms super cosy. Only room in the us where I had nice water pressure and cold as well as warm water in the shower. The restaurants and bars in the hotel are very nice. Especially the cabanna at the pool and the rooftop bar. However the staff does seem to be not very attentive and distant. I am not sure they try to be super professional or whatever that is. They were not unfriendly but they are also not very welcoming. Check in process was super quick but I would expect a more friendly and helpful staff at the front desk in such an establishment. I am a status member with Marriott and asked to extend my late checkout for an extra hour (the hotel was obviously running slow) and was denied without any discussion and offered at an extra 40 dollars per hour. You get an 18 dollar voucher for the location fee they charge (30$), you actually get two vouchers for each day. The second one you can’t really use as the only bar that accepts the voucher opens at 5pm and checkout for non status owners is 11am.

The hotel lobby is so festive and cozy. Love the holiday decor. The curated shop in the lobby has some wonderful items. Check-in was quick and we enjoyed our upgraded suite. Large room with a cute welcome area/mini bar. The closet is good sized with a steamer in the room. The bathroom was good sized and nice spacious shower. Thank you for having full sized toiletries and they smell great. The bed was very comfortable with large windows in the room. Lots of storage space in the room (though oddly no luggage rack). Plugs on both sides of the bed are convenient. Breakfast (in Rhett) was quite delicious. Great cappuccinos and the menu had many good options. The avocado toast and chicken and waffles were standouts. Service was friendly and helpful. The rooftop bar is so cute. Not sure what it looks like the rest of the year, but for the holidays has a gondola, yurts, and "snow" every six minutes. Fun cocktails and some tasty sounding food. Definitely worth a visit. Hotel is very near the water (and a Christmas market in Dec). Lots of bars and restaurants very close. The hotel has cute bikes that we didn’t use but would with better weather. The only thing that could be improved is the luggage storage. Having the valet do it means there isn’t someone there when they are getting cars. Minor issue though. I would definitely stay here again.

It seems like the little touches were given big focus at this property and it made all of the difference. It feels like a small boutique hotel with lots of charm, but offers all of the amenities of a large property. The location is great - we walked everywhere from here easily. The staff was noticeably friendly, from the servers at the rooftop bar to the restaurant, the front desk and even management. We loved the water nook and are now thinking we need sparkling water on tap at home:). We enjoyed the use of a suite upgrade to stay in the Designer Suite. We didn't have time to use the bikes but loved that they were offered - next time! The gym was great and we used it daily but it was never too crowded - all of the equipment you could want and space to use it. The pool was great and I actually liked that it was shallow - zero entry and then depth of only 3ft at max and included a ledge for sitting at the end. Seemed ideal for adults enjoying a drink and cooling off, but maybe families would also appreciate the minimal depth - I appreciated the adult atmosphere of it! The restaurant in the hotel has a great breakfast and it's served late into the day which is wonderful if you're not wanting to get up early on vacation. The property has a great location just off the riverfront with lots of shops along the water to walk to or pop over to the city market area. We easily walked everything from this property - the Olde Pink House, Forsyth Park, a tour, etc.

TLDR: great location, nice (but not spectacular) property, room issues, extra fees. Hotel is trying to be higher-end than it is. Would not stay there again. Nice property at a great location, but a few items soured the experience. First off, they charge a pretty significant resort fee (which is a particular pet peeve of mine) and although they provide an $18 drink credit, it's tough to use. The TV in our room has several areas with dead and permanently purple pixels, not drastic but definitely noticeable. Our shower had a leak which flooded the bathroom every time we used it. I mentioned the room issues at checkout and the response was pretty dismissive. Our biggest issue, however, was that we booked the Alida for New Year's with the plan that we would spend New Year's Eve at their rooftop bar with a great view of the fireworks. Turns out that doing so required a separate ticket (~$100/person). This was not mentioned when I booked the hotel through the Marriott app, nor was it mentioned by any of the hotel staff we had discussed it with earlier in the day. Not a huge deal since the hotel is on the water and we just walked down a few blocks to watch the fireworks, but I wish that the additional fee to use a hotel amenity would have been disclosed earlier in the process. I don't think they sold out the even because when we went up at 9PM to try and hang out at the bar, we were told that they had several tickets still available, and it seemed like "several" might have been a dozen or more.