Marriott’s new Stay Well concept should be the industry standard, not an upgrade

They’d recently rolled out their new Stay Well room concept, a Deepak Chopra-endorsed upgrade that promises to nurture your emotional and physical needs with aromatherapy, circadian lighting, air purification and more. Fancy. We at the Agenda had just decided to pull the trigger on our Raleigh expansion which would include heavy hotel travel for me for the foreseeable future. Intense.

Prior to diving in to my weekly Raleigh travel routine, I crammed in one quick overnight stay at the Charlotte Marriott Center City to see what all this renovation fuss was about.

Let’s begin by pointing out that my travel accommodation selection style could best be described as… cheap.

I’ve slept in hammocks in rural Nicaragua and hostels all over Europe. When it comes to American hotel travel, my loyalty lies with whoever has the cheapest rate and least likelihood of harboring serial killers. If it’s safe enough, clean enough and cheap enough, I’m in. The bar is not that high.

A hotel room is a hotel room until, of course, you’ve stayed in a nice one.

While I’m certainly no expert on luxury travel accommodations, I know an upgrade when I see one thanks to a lifetime of stays in “good enough” hotels.

At the surface, Marriott’s Stay Well room looks like just about any other hotel out there – a bed, a bathroom, a closet – but when you dive into all the subtle upgrades they’ve added, you start to realize you’ve basically been sleeping in hotel filth all this time.

The first thing that hit me when I walked in the room was the smell. But in a good way.

Instead of smelling like stale air conditioning and strangers, this room was filled with a pleasant scent being pumped out by an aromatherapy diffuser near the window. I don’t know what it was or what mood it was supposed to trigger in me but I cranked it to high and left it on for the duration of my 12-hour stay.

They’ve also got a fancy air purification system in the room that removes pollen, mold spores and other pollutants and allergens from the air.

Another huge departure from my usual hotel experience is that the Stay Well room wasn’t carpeted.

Is anything more horrifying than hotel room carpet? The answer to that question is: “Yes, hotel room remote controls are equally horrifying petri dishes of filth.” But fret not because Marriott’s Stay Well rooms are carpet-free and the remotes are disinfected after each stay. Praise be.

If you’ve never once thought about the lighting options in your hotel room, it’s probably because you were at a place that only offered two: (1) on and (2) off.

Meanwhile, Marriott’s Stay Well room features circadian lighting options in the shower, in the main room and also on the alarm clock, which can be programmed to wake you up with the simulated light of dawn instead of an aggressive buzzer.

Perhaps the fanciest lighting element of all though is a motion-detected long wave night light that switches on when your feet swing by to hit the ground next to the bed. No more fumbling your way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

And here all this time I’ve just been flipping one light switch on and off like a chump.

In the bathroom you’ll find a water filtration system, fancy little soaps and a vitamin C-infused shower head.

They say the vitamin C infusion neutralizes chlorine in the water and is better for your hair, skin and nails. More important than all of these things combined… there’s a glass shower door. Nothing is more traumatizing than the bone-chilling brush of a dirty hotel shower curtain against your naked body.

And the Stay Well features don’t end there.

They use mattress and pillow encasements that cut down on allergen build up. Fancy sheets allegedly keep your skin hydrated. And you can access guided meditations led by Deepak Chopra and online programs from the Cleveland Wellness Clinic.

I thought these trendy new-age features would feel like an over-the-top gimmick but I walked away (and into weeks on weeks of visits to “regular” hotel rooms) with the realization that this focus on sanitation, sanity and comfort should really just be the industry standard, not an upgrade.

Stay Well rooms have been rolled out at seven Marriott properties, including here in Uptown Charlotte. You can find them all here.