Jim Liverett

Review of Francis Marion Hotel

We had great service from the Bellmen and Engineer...

We had great service from the Bellmen and Engineering staff during a recent conference stay. The front desk staff was apologetic, but not overly helpful in some situations. Yes, it's unusual to get a chance to comment on the Engineering staff, but that was only because we saw them twice during our week-long visit. Both visits were due to the inadequate air conditioning in our room. When we first arrived the room was very warm and humid, due to the chilled water supply being shut off in our cooling unit. Even after that problem was corrected, the unit was completely unable to control the temperature and humidity in our room. Even while running constantly on the lowest setting the room remained at 76 to 80 degrees.
The historic decor is elegant, but it obviously hides a hotel that is in need of some updates to underlying systems. The plumbing is old and sometimes caused the hallway to smell of sewer gases. The bathrooms are so cramped that there is hardly space for one person to get ready and almost no usable counter space. The drawers on the chest in our room constantly opened themselves and required a chair to keep them shut. The television looked great, but the channel guide in the room didn't come close to matching the actual channels. On a positive note, the wi-fi worked great and the beds were fairly comfortable.
The hotel is in a great location for walking to restaurants and shopping in the historic district and free trolley service is available to most other locations. Just a few underlying issues prevent this hotel from achieving the 5 star rating it is capable of.