The Nines Portland

First off, the Nines is an oasis in Portland. Quiet, clean, and safe. The only place to stay if you’re looking for a sophisticated and upscale stay. For some context: I earned lifetime titanium with Starwood, so i spent years accustomed to great and thoughtful service. Since the acquisition and rebranding, hospitality has unfortunately slipped a bit, and special treatment and acknowledgment of loyalty has become more and more rare. This weekend took me back to those ‘good old days’ where people took ownership to make guests feel special and cared for. Nicole, and the staff, were exceptional as hosts, and went above and beyond to make our stay memorable. So grateful for these gestures, they mean a lot, and keep guests like me coming back and continuing to see hotels as a leisurely escape from the day to day. Read less

While every aspect of my stay at The Nines in Portland has been over the top, I have to say the absolute sense of urgency created by Billy, the front desk concierge, not to let magical moments get lost by a lack effort is definitely worth spending the time to write a review about. On several occasions during my stay Billy litterly bolted from the front desk to make my requests appear out of what seemed thin air. Some of my requests could have been answered by "check at the bar" responses. Billy not only made things happen, he personally made things happen FAST! Thank you Billy! Read less

Great city location that was within walking distance of many of the places I wanted to go to. The rose garden was a short uber ride away. Check in: fairly busy at the time I arrived but this hotel has staff from other roles step in to help at the front desk which made a considerable difference to the wait. Bonvoy recognition: A lovely one bedroom suite was arranged for my stay and the breakfast was wonderful. Breakfast service was very good and the staff handled special requests with aplomb. Room: Spacious suite with atrium view - I didn't need external views and was content with a darkened room because I was traveling from a different time zone so it was in fact beneficial to help me get to sleep earlier. The bed and linens were very comfortable and I slept extremely well which is rare for me when in a different time zone and/or unfamiliar surroundings. Departure: Outdoor rooftop seats filled up fast on a Thursday at opening time. Food was consistently enjoyable - not out of this world but certainly adequate. Service was good. Room service: I wish it was available for more of the day to help with body clocks in different time zones but that is my only downside. The people taking the orders were consistently delightful and food was enjoyable. It arrived promptly and dishes were always taken away after I called for retrieval. Concierge: I used the Concierge service for my Portland trip more than is typical and Louise was an absolute delight - very helpful and a kind woman. One thing the property was missing that I would have taken advantage of was a spa. Perhaps the hotel could consider having massage treatments on order and having a guest room with massage beds dedicated for this purpose if a proper spa cannot be accommodated. Thank you for the great stay, especially to Louise. Read less

The main purpose of going to Portland in the first place was flying there so we could drive down to Bandon Dunes so my husband could play 3 courses on his bucket list. This trip has been stalled for three years but we are finally getting there, or so we hope. Now that he is nearing retirement and also has well over four weeks of vacation this year to use, we decided to add two nights in Portland instead of just going directly from plane to rental car. Yes, we were well aware of the anarchists and we also had lost our first choice hotel...The Porter Portland. I had done extensive research two years ago when we started this journey and then received an email a few months ago that the Porter was not up and running yet. We are members of Hilton Honors and also Marriott, so I decided to try for a Marriott property. I'll be honest, I've been rather beaten down by this golf trip...trying to make sure my husband gets to his dream course and so I just decided to go for a five star hotel this time. The website for The Nines looked fantastic. Other Marriott properties in Portland seemed to all have problems, mostly in bad parts of town or the moment you walked out the door you were accosted by the homeless. The Nines seemed to be the best of the bunch. So....I made the reservation for two nights. We worked backwards from the golf tee times and long drive and checked in on July 4. The young man checking us in was quite nice. Again, I had made this reservation in a rush. Looking at my paperwork I see that I had picked "king bed atrium view superior room" and the price was $791.20 for two nights. When we were in front of the young man I forgot all this. He asked us if we wanted to face the atrium or the city. We decided on something...I can't even remember now. He also told us at a certain time in the afternoon (4 or 5--can't remember) there was complimentary wine and cheese right behind him in the lobby. That was a nice touch. We went to the room. Oh dear, it was an accessible room. Bathroom massive with tons of grab bars. We do hate that. Back to the lobby. The young man studied his floor plan and moved us two rooms away, different view. By now we don't even care about a view, we want away of a depressing bathroom. What can I say about the room? This is a classic case of decorators taking over and function falling to last place. In front of the windows there was this useless daybed like massive piece of light blue suede covered furniture that was of zero use. We opened out our suitcases on it. This was a 9 night trip so we had two big suitcases. I don't remember any drawers of any substance in the room, for clothes. In the bathroom, the plastic looking dangling things around the light fixtures....the back sides of them were heavily encrusted with thick white dust. There was not one realistic hook in the bathroom suitable for a wet towel or wash cloth. The wallpaper looked to be real paper, I hated to put a damp washcloth on those short stubby hooks. Here they are, encouraging you to re-use towels and washcloths and nowhere to drape them out flat to dry between uses. And no decent hook-shaped hooks to hang a hanger to spritz wrinkled clothing out of suitcases. We were starving and it was about 2 pm. We went down and asked the valet man about a place for a very quick small snack since the wine and cheese event would be starting in a couple of hours. He suggested about 3 places a few blocks away. We walked to the first two and they were closed. The third, open but the big windows were pulled open and it was hot. Too hot. As soon as we were seated and the lady walked off, we got up and left. We wanted a/c. We walked back to the hotel and went into the restaurant behind the front desk. It was about 15 minutes now until the wine and cheese. I asked the bartender something and he said the restaurant part was closed because they had no staff and everybody would have to sit out in the lobby part--upholstered couches and chairs. He was mixing drinks for other people. We went and sat down. Another couple we had spoken to earlier who was excited about the wine and cheese showed back up at the top of the appointed hour. They walked up to the bartender and we saw them talking. Then we saw them turn and leave. That was odd. We found out why soon....no staff. No wine and cheese. I believe the lady ordered a glass of wine and they left with it. What can you do now but order food and drink, yet are forced to sit in lobby chairs and couches and try to juggle it off of tiny round tables, or do like other people, a family....little children eating with plates on the upholstered couch? Pretty soon a lady from the front desk came looking for somebody by name, going to each group and giving a last name. She had a bill in her hand. We wondered if that was the charge for the glass of wine. I am sure that original couple was incensed. They certainly looked it. Let's face it, five stars and the services are rapidly diminishing. I would imagine the lady with the glass of wine felt she was OWED that glass of wine. Yes, the bed slept well and yes we got room service coffee after supper every night because everybody in town shut down about 8 pm. We ate at two Portland restaurants I did research on and both were well staffed. The best was Jake's Famous Crawfish. It was amazing! I don't have any desire to go back to Portland. I never want to go to The Nines again. We asked a lady the last day in the bar about the lack of servers on July 4 and she said they were having trouble getting staffing. Jake's certainly didn't have any trouble on July 4. How about paying people a little more to encourage them to work? I wonder how Jake's got the people to work? I know one thing, I learned a lesson....avoid The Nines or be prepared for the treatment which we received. Read less

It's been over a decade since we've stayed here but from the second we arrived, we were so thankful we chose the Nines for our little anniversary getaway! Not only is the hotel arguably the most beautiful choice in all of Portland, the customer service blew us away. Starting with the amazing valet team, and then to our front desk experience. Just at the mention of it being our anniversary, Joseph, our front desk agent, went above and beyond to make sure that our getaway/celebration was exactly what we needed. We felt so very taken care of, and he was so wonderful to work with. The room was absolutely perfect for us- with gorgeous views of the city. It was perfectly clean and comfortable, and the bed was amazing- we slept SO soundly. We are so thankful for this time we had here- we can't wait to come back and stay again! Thank you Joseph for making this such a fabulous experience! :) Read less