citizenM | Booking Hotel Rooms 12+

Everything about this place was amazing. It was close to all of our events and very modern. It had a whole vibe from the cleanliness to the common areas and flexible seating to the food and the drinks. It was my husband’s birthday and when we walked in the room there were treats and a voucher for two drinks on them. Everything in the room is basically controlled by an iPad and was so easy to use. It even had setting for moods in the room. So cool. Our particular room was spacious and plenty of room. The blackout curtains helped us sleep in the am (because we never get to sleep in). Love this place and will be back. Hopefully visit other ones too.

I haven’t seen the room yet, but the app experience is garbage. Every check-in step timed out (I guess) and ended with an error that the app could not recover from. After force quitting and relaunching, I could go another step. After my first payment step failed, I checked my credit card and saw that an authorization for the full amount had indeed gone through. I naively gave that step a second chance, and it then showed as paid, let me pick a room, and showed me a barcode to use at checkin. Cool! But not so fast. I left the app to see if my card was authorized a second time (it was, so now two authorizations for the full amount are pending), and when I came back to the app, it again tells me I haven’t paid. That barcode is nowhere to be found. Maybe the desk staff can sort this out when I reach the hotel, but the app is a cruel joke. I get so tired of companies under-investing in app QA and leaving the entire paying public to be their beta testers…

The ability for a completely independent check-in process is incredibly cool. I had everything sorted before we arrived to the hotel… all I had to do was pick up a key card and hold it to the back of my phone for it to be programmed and able to open our room door. That's so futuristic and amazing to me. What a cool brand they've built and such an immaculately designed app to complement the overall experience. I've never seen a hotel app that's so sleek and minimalist in terms of bloatware but also perfectly functional and innovative at the same time. Truly well done to the software engineering team -- amazing work!