While I’m still in the midst of my 25 For 25 flights, I’ve wound up having to stay at hotels here and there.
My husband, Joe (he’s the other half of our Your Mileage May Vary travel blog), is the one in charge of hotel reservations in our house. I could do it – I did it myself for years, before we were married – but he’s the travel geek and I’m lazy. So I let him take those reins.
I typically don’t care very much about where we stay. However for the hotels during my “JetBlue junkets,” I do have a couple of requirements:
- They have to have a shuttle bus, and it has to be in service when I need to get to the airport. If I have a 6 am flight, I’m going to want to head out to the airport by or before 4 am. If the shuttle bus only runs from 6 am to midnight, that’s not going to help me.
- They need to be close to the airport. “On property” is even better. (I’m already waking up at ridiculous times; I don’t want to have to sit in a shuttle bus for 30 minutes for a 6 am flight).
Which is how he got me a reservation at the Courtyard Buffalo Airport. Located next door to the airport, and with a 24/7 shuttle, we figured that would work.
Actually, funny story – I arrived at BUF and caught the shuttle to get to the hotel. I’m sitting in the shuttle bus with 3 other people, and we’re almost ready to go, when some airline crew hop onto the bus, too. But it’s not just any crew – it was the crew from MY PLANE that I had just been on. Anyway, I exchanged eye contact with one of the flight attendants and although I smiled politely, you could tell from her sudden “I just sucked on a lemon” face that she was NOT PLEASED to see me (to clarify – I’m about 4’6″ tall and have all gray hair – people remember me). I don’t know why she looked so unhappy to see me; I had been a model passenger – I slept for most of the flight, didn’t ask them for anything, etc. Maybe she thought I was going to start a conversation because we had just been on the same plane together? Nah, not my style…I don’t know them from a hole in the wall. Besides, I’m an introvert.
Anyway, so we get to the hotel and all load out of the shuttle. The driver pulls out all of the luggage and mine came out first. I grabbed my bag, said to all of the FAs, “Have a good evening. Again,” turned around, and went into the hotel to check in. They all said, “Thank you, you too.” Well, except for Ms. Sourpuss.
Anyway, back to the Courtyard.
I checked in and got some food from the bar. Went to my room and got settled. It was going to be a super early morning (3:45 am alarm, anyone?), so I got ready for bed as soon as I was done eating. I went to “my” side of the bed, tried to plug in my phone and noticed there was no USB plug next to the bed. Just one regular plug that was part of the lamp (that wasn’t usable because it was really loose from people using it for years and years).
So I checked the desk.
Also no USB. But I did find a perfectly good phone plug. No phone attached to it, though…just the empty plug. So of course, me being me, I just had to post something about it on Facebook…
There was no USB on or near the rest of the desk, either. Just 2 more (also loose) plugs attached to the lamp.
Anyway, while looking around, I finally found a USB-A plug. Two, actually, as part of the clock. This was on the OTHER side of the bed.
I found it amusing how the USB ports were labeled:
Look at that a little closer:
Did you catch that? USB-A for iPad and iPod/iPhone?
I did a little research. The first iPhone was sold in 2007. The first iPad was sold in 2010, which was also the same year that Qi wireless charging became a “thing.” iPods, meanwhile, were sold from 2001 to 2022.
Oh, and just for skeets and giggles, I also checked when USB-C/thunderbolt connectors were introduced. That happened in 2014 (although they weren’t available to the population at large, on MacBooks, until 2016).
So I’m not exactly sure how old that clock was, but it possibly could be as old as 2010. 15 years. Regardless, it’s kind of an abomination that in the year 2025, a Courtyard by Marriott that charges over $300 per night only has 2 USB ports in the entire room. And if you’re sleeping on the left side of the bed and want to charge something, you’re just out of luck.
Not an outlier
This was, by far, not the first Courtyard by Marriott we’ve stayed at, so I started searching through our reviews of our other Courtyard stays:
- Long Island City, NY (2024)
- Miami, FL (2023)
- New Braunfels, TX (2021)
- New York, NY (2019)
- Alcoa, TN (2018)
We never specifically mentioned the lack of USB plugs, but you can see in some of the photos that one side of the bed pretty much consistently only has a 1 “lamp” plug (and after staying there several times, I can promise you that the plug on the “wrong” side on the New Braunfels location is almost always loose and unusable).
My favorite, though, is the post Joe wrote last year about Courtyard winning the prize for the most outdated technology (because apparently, lack of USB ports is only one of their tech issues).
Meanwhile, heed our warning, travel friends – if you’re staying at a Courtyard by Marriott, bring extension cords. Bring LONG USB cords (USB-A only. Don’t even think about using a USB-C. 2016 technology is entirely too modern for Courtyards). And (still) don’t expect to be wowed by their technology.
Courtyard, it’s time for an update!
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