Kimpton Marlowe Hotel

Awesome hotel and great location! The hotel and the rooms were super clean and the staff were very friendly! Amenities were great- they offer free kayak/bike rentals, as well as you can check out a vinyl record player to use in room! Right across the water from downtown Boston so very easy to get around

Staff let themselves into the room without prior authorization to leave “favors”. It was discovered later items were missing and addressed with the staff. A real Pearl necklace, shoes and expensive perfume were stolen from our room. Do not leave any expensive personal items behind. As I see it, any instance of unauthorized entry into the room then forfeits their ability to say “it wasn’t us” even without tangible proof. Also, the pull out couch was horrendous i don’t know how they even have the nerve to advertise that as a sleeping accommodation, unless u like springs sticking into you while you rest. Stay here at your own risk. 2 stars only because I hear it’s harder for them to remove. 0 stars.

We had a great weekend at this hotel. Big shout out to MATTHEW and SAM at the front desk and also to the manager.. the lovely TARA :)

Would not recommend. Small rooms. Poor A/C. Zero counter space in the bathroom. Housekeeping never cleaned my room during my stay despite multiple requests and repeated assurances it would be handled. Look elsewhere, particularly if you'd like working A/C.

We stayed at Kimpton Marlow for my wedding weekend, and it was the perfect choice. The service was phenomenal. Morgan, Sara, Gretchen, Irina, and Maria were amazing and made our stay memorable.

Fantastic service, they treated me as if I were a member of the royal family. You can feed a small family with their bagel sandwich. Cocktails are excellent. I'm definitely coming back to this place next time I'm in town.

Excellent place, clean, beautiful and with access to public transport 🚂

Beautiful hotel right on the Charles River. Check in was a breeze and the staff was so hopeful. We took the kayaks out on the Charles and loved it. Such a cool amenity they offer!

EDIT: Tara just contacted me and was absolutely wonderful. The Kimpton gold standard customer service is alive and well. We were assured they’ve got maintenance and housekeeping on it and will fix all the issues I listed immediately so I think it’s safe to say the next review we leave here will be 5 stars. I’m so impressed by them reaching out and addressing issues, I’ve never had a hotel do that in my life. Thank you Tara, we look forward to seeing you again one day! Original Review: I’ll start with the good, because the good does deserve praise. The person checking us in was a delight, I wish I’d written down their name but they had a pride flag on their suit and it made us, two women celebrating their 5th wedding anniversary, feel very safe and welcome. When we got up to the room, they had chocolate covered strawberries in the fridge, a bottle of champagne, and one of the sweetest, most genuinely thoughtful notes on a card we’ve ever gotten when celebrating at a hotel. Thank you Sara, Mike, Sean and Garrett for the kind gesture, it made our anniversary that much more special. Now unfortunately, I have to list the bad. I’ve never left a bad review before, and I never wanted to, but sadly the issues were glaring and (hopefully) easily fixable. Most importantly, when I got into the shower after a long travel day, it reeked of urine so badly I had to jump out before I threw up. I wish I was exaggerating. It smelled like someone peed all over the shower walls and drain. I have never in my 20+ years of staying in hotels of ALL different price points, high and low, experienced such a strong urine odor in a hotel bathroom, let alone in the shower. So that was a pretty terrible start and messed up plans to shower and get ready for our anniversary dinner. Thankfully we were just there for one night before checking in elsewhere. We had already unpacked and laid in the bed so I didn’t ask to switch rooms because I didn’t want it to be a whole thing and we didn’t have much time, but I really, really should have. I’ve showered in public gyms that smelled better. I felt like I needed shower shoes. Now onto the less bad but still annoying. First of all, one of the bedside lamps was completely broken. When a hotel room only has three lamps, one being broken makes it considerably darker. We also seem to have been there during a massive children’s party on the property. There were small kids in baby fedoras absolutely mobbing the halls, running and screaming at the top of their lungs all night and first thing in the morning. Obviously that’s more on the parents than the property, but our room was unfortunately right next to the elevator, and though we planned to sleep in, we were up with the sun and apparently every child in the building. Which was actually a good thing, to try and find some silver lining, because the nightstand outlets were so loose my phone charger fell out in the middle of the night and I woke up to a dead phone. Insanely thin walls/doors, I could hear people talking clearly at the elevator even with the tv on. That was a bummer for what was supposed to be a very romantic stay. My wife used to work at a Kimpton where we live, and I booked this hotel out of all the luxury hotels in Boston because I knew to expect the best. We both left agreeing that except the lovely anniversary gift/note, this location felt more like a low-end Hilton.

My husband and I stayed here about four years ago and had a phenomenal experience. We couldn’t wait to bring our kids back to let them experience Boston and the Kimpton Marlowe too! Unfortunately, today we had the worst check in experience we’ve had at an IHG ever!! Our flight got in earlier than check-in so we stopped in to just drop off our luggage around noon. That experience went very smoothly. I wish I would’ve had the gentleman‘s name that assisted us with that. He was incredibly friendly and tagged all luggage. Wished us a great day in the city! When we arrived back at the hotel tonight at appx 6 PM it was awful! Again, worst check-in we’ve ever had at a IHG. Sam was the most unfriendly guest services host we’ve ever met. No smile, no greeting about any IHG tier level, zero small talk. I told him that we were checking in now and that we had dropped off luggage earlier, I gave him my ID which he put in and then he requested my husband’s ID instead after confirming his name, (I’ve never had that happen at any IHG prior to this though I’m usually the one checking in??) after my husband ‘checked’ in, Sam asked if he could help with anything else, and we again mentioned that we had dropped off our luggage off this afternoon. When Sam brought our stored luggage out, we told him that a backpack he had included was not ours and that we had a backpack missing…he insisted that a backpack was ours! It was indeed not, and my husband’s was still not included with ours. Again, we had all of our luggage tags! It took another employee going in to find our luggage and still us telling them that a backpack was not ours before they took the one back that did not belong to us! No details were given on Kimpton amenities included. Upon our previous stay here, we knew that kayaks and bikes were available, but no mention of that at all tonight. Sam included only a very brief ‘description’ of a $30 charge that we could possibly use at the restaurant or bar and if we did not use it, we’d still be charged??? I’m still unsure of this? There are no coffee makers included in the rooms. After our last stay, I believe this is included in the morning by the lobby. Again, Sam mentioned nothing of this. After our previous stay I believed that there was also a complementary happy hour included. While our missing luggage was being located, I asked another guest services clerk (who was incredibly friendly). She informed me that there was a happy hour between 5-6. Again, none of this was shared with us upon check-in. There was no luggage rack in our room. We did text questioning that and were told that one should be in the closet. The only thing included in our closet was an ironing board. The text was apologetic and housekeeping brought a luggage rack up! Definitely appreciated! The room is incredibly clean, which really is most important to us! Overall, just a completely different start to our day than what we had four years ago.