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Clueless New Year ~ and ~ Pay extra for parking!

The New Years Eve party was terrible. The band and the two stand up comedians were terrific, the food was pretty good (food has never been that good at any of these events and you hardly expect it to be). Though in spite of the excellent entertainment, whoever planned the event was a complete idiot. There were no party hats, no New Years Eve noise poppers, no confetti, no balloons, no New Years Eve banners and the worst was the timing for the countdown, the lighting and the late start for the dancing. Imagine 500 people still sitting in there chairs and counting down just anxious for the whole damn thing to be over; instead of “Old Anxine” their singing "Thank God its Over". It was quite literally that bad. Oh, you can say that life is what you make it and we did make the best of it and proceeded out to dance… to the just opened dance floor… fifteen minutes after midnight. And not to forget… the entire time the lights were up so bright you could effortlessly read a book. Even the waiters and the bartender were apologetic… after all, ninety percent of the people in the place were commenting on how ridiculously STUPID it was to co-ordinate things so POORLY. It was like attending a fully lit conference with a band and stand up comedians… to bad… considering the caliber of entertainment. Hat’s off to the band… and comedians! As far as the hotel, be prepared to pay $10 per night extra for parking. They began this practice back in February 2008. All I can say about that is… WTH! The front desk compared it to paying for parking in areas like downtown San Francisco… WTH! I can understand parking considerations in any downtown district but San Ramon is hardly a comparison. I did ask for the parking to be validated considering that our stay was for three nights… sorry… “No can do”… hotel policy. I politely stayed on that evening and cancelled my stay the following morning… We gladly went home early; though I did notice that they removed the parking charges from the final bill. I would like to commend the staff for being courteous and professional the entire time. I actually felt sorry for them for having to tolerate such inept management. P.S. … this is the only negative review I have ever written… and I do like Marriott hotels… they're always nice...