Recently renovated, the rooms are nice - they put up new wallpaper, replaced the furniture, beds, carpets and televisions. The renovations appear to be ongoing - the lobby had the somewhat dizzying aroma of VOCs this morning. Yuck.

Upsides - Nice rooms, friendly staff, not crowded, lots of chain restaurants and mall stores nearby if that's your thing.

Downsides for me - While the wireless signal is strong and there is an Ethernet jack in the room, they make you go to a login page every time your device connects - for an iPhone or laptop, that's every time you wake it up. The connection speed is throttled to 50 kbps - about half the speed of a low-end DSL connection and only a few percent the speed of a cable modem. C'mon, folks. Get a $150/month Comcast business line, ditch the login page for a signature at checkin and let us have a decent internet connection!

Also, for some odd reason, the new televisions seem to specialize in obscure sports channels at the expense of ones like MSNBC, Comedy Central, and other basic cable channels. I guess the owner likes car racing... So between the throttled internet connection that won't do video and a television that won't do basic cable, you may be a bit wanting for entertainment here.

Not sure why I've avoided this hotel in the past. Perhaps it was the reputation of the city. The hotel is in the middle of renovations. The surprise was the location, depending on traffic its about 20 minute outside of San Francisco. The hotel was very clean, staff professional on top of their game. Rooms were flawless. The hotel is well kept. The only problem, I found the WiFi a bit slow even late at night. The location is across from the mall, theaters and many food options. Grounds were clean. The hotel has a very smallish workout room, however a pass to the 24 Magic Johnson Fitness. This could very well become my favorite Marriott in the East Bay.

we belong to the marriott vacay club in asia, so maybe i got spoiled by the hotels outside of the US. the marriott hotels in thailand are beyond amazing! still, this is a nice looking hotel, the staff were very friendly and i had no complaints about that. the rooms were nice, attractively done if typical for a smallish US hotel room. the beds weren't all that comfy tho, and i was surprised by that. also, the internet was really sluggish, and more importantly, something was interfering with my portable noise maker and causing it to squeal horribly. i was unable to use it. fortunately, the heater/ac unit had a nice white noise making fan setting. i would have been in trouble, otherwise!!
there is renovation being done on the hotel in the lounge area, so no food and plenty of noise! we were up on 5th floor, and could still hear it. i would have hated to be on floors 2 or 3! esp as we stayed 5 days. breakfast. hmmmmm. you know, for the price, i think there could be better options. as i've mentioned in other reviews, i'm gluten free, have no choice. all that seems to be offered anywhere are pastry, waffle sugar bombs. even the yoghurt is not healthy. no eggs or really any protein options. and, the coffee was merely like drinking dirty water. i wonder if they forgot to put the coffee in at all?? not worth the trip down. now that most places have begun putting little pots in the rooms, i travel with the little filters and my own good coffee. they have sugar, creamer and hot chocolate in the lobby, i grab and go each night and have a mocha coffee each morning. so, it works. over all, this was a perfectly acceptable place to stay.

The Courtyard was just as nice as you would expect from Marriott, no surprises there. It was located in an area somewhat isolated from the surrounding neighborhood, so we never saw any issues with the area. There were a number of malls and shopping centers nearby, reflecting what appeared to me to be a normal middle-class variety of customers, with the eclectic mix of races and cultures that you would associate with Berkley. Very convenient to the freeway, but still far enough to avoid any freeway noise.

Parking at the hotel was easy and free. Check-in was efficient, friendly, and fast. The room was clean and modern, with nice white linens and comfy pillows on the bed. The TV was a flat-screen with a fixed aspect ratio which was wrong for just about every show on it, and they had apparently disabled the menu button on the set that allows adjustment, but if that is the worst you can say about a hotel room, you know the place was pretty good in general.

The breakfast was included in the room cost, otherwise it would have been $10.50 per person. This was exactly the same breakfast buffet you would get for free from Hampton Inn or a higher-end Best Western. Definitely not worth $10.50, but convenient and somewhat cheaper when included in the room cost. Next time I will drive the mile to IHOP or Mel's for a better breakfast at a lower price.

We will definitely stay here again next time we are in the area.