The rooms are very nice - bed extremely comfortable. Breakfast in their restaurant (which you pay) is excellent - ate there two days in a row. Very nice selection. Two items that warrant a 4 instead of 5 - the Internet was very spotty over the weekend. Second and more importantly - other nice hotels will offer coffee in the lobby during breakfast hours - this is not the case. Need to add this feature. The nightly rate of the hotel warrants this. Having a keurig in the room does not match fresh coffee in the lobby with coffee cream.
The hotel is in a quiet area, and is the closest of the chain hotels to the University of Massachusetts T.H. Chan Medical School. The hotel is relatively new and the staff is excellent. But be aware, the Residence Inn Worcester houses both homeless parents with their children, and refugees. This puts quite a burden on the cleaning and the breakfast staffs. Rooms are cleaned only upon request and guests must take out their own trash. The business center's lone computer is occupied most of the day. Of course, the State of Massachusetts doesn't pay anything close to rack rate for these guests, so others effectively subsidize the less fortunate. Just consider it good karma.
Carpets and bedding musty and lumpy, broken lamps, worn furniture -- everything in the room seemed 30 years old and unloved. Tiny cramped bathroom, with minitub, soap and shampoo in refillable pump bottles mounted on shower wall as at a gym, that pull off and fall into tub when you try to use them (and hardly seems sanitary that every guest has their hands all over them). Below freezing cold outside but a/c was blasting frigid air, controls and on/off switch on a/c-heating unit not functioning, wall temperature control box not operable by guest. The room seemed like housekeeping had not been in it since several months before in summer -- how else would nobody have noticed the a/c blasting frigid air before February? Ended up trying to block the icy blast from the a/c blower by covering vent with towels, bedspread, but not successful. Jacuzzi spa was completely drained and bone dry -- with strips of moldy duct tape stretch across it like a giant asterisk -- that duct tape looked pretty old and discolored, as if placed there a long time before: ”Oh, we're waiting for a part,” says the desk. Right. Pool looked fine but was closed: ”Oh we're down for maintenance.” ”Oh we're waiting for the inspector.” When paid-in-advance customer opines they chose the hotel for pool and jacuzzi, is told by desk, ”We'll refund one night from your bill.” A total lie. Despicable: charging for facilities and services they've no intention of providing, lying to customer re refund just to stop them from demanding what they paid for. This place effectively has no pool and no jacuzzi, and negligent maintenance altogether. Oh and the ”breakfast available” will set you back about $20 per person with tax. They display bottles of water prominently in the room, but fine print on the label warns they are only ”free” if you first pay a hefty rewards program membership fee. $50 per night ”incidentals fee” swiped from your credit card on check-in, I guess in case you drink of the forbidden water. I cannot comprehend the level of pettiness in the corporate boardroom when policies creating this nickel-and-dimey guest-hostile operation were decided. It is beyond cheap, it is beyond a clip joint: it is fraud. Was in town for events, so no time or energy for the distraction of acting as unpaid consultant to this absolute disaster of a company -- incompetence plus bad attitude all around -- the antithesis of hospitality. Must to avoid.