Crowne Plaza Monroe South Brunswick

Very disappointing. This hotel has a great location, just off the NJ Turnpike with plenty of free parking, a sports bar and grill and conference facilities. Also has an indoor pool with outside seating and patio. But this hotel is in urgent need of an upgrade and a major cleaning and rehab.
Overall, the common areas beyond the first floor are dirty. Windows look like they haven’t been cleaned in years. Carpeting dark and worn. The pool is the absolute worst, in major disrepair and neglect clearly visible. The walls of the pool and poolside have so much «crud» that people have carved their initials into it. Vents are rusted and the wall leading to the patio is crumbing. There is also a damaged door between the pool and the outside seating area. This pool should be closed until cleaned and repaired. Even the outside area has very few chairs and two lounge chairs are visibly broken. Why are they still there?
Now to Yogi’s sports bar and restaurant. At dinner, we waited 50 minutes for food. Waitress claimed only one person was in the kitchen. Came back in the morning at 9 for breakfast and was told restaurant was closing due to staffing. I asked front desk manager for directions to another restaurant and he said no way restaurant would close before 11:00 a.m. He took my order and another 30 minute wait followed for French Toast, only to be told that there was no syrup. In fairness, they comped the food, but I didn’t eat it anyway.
There are only two elevators, one of which was out of order all weekend. Even two elevators isn’t enough for a six story hotel. The rooms are outdated and the furniture is old and chipped. There was mold visible in the bathroom tub. On the plus side, Housekeeping did a good job cleaning the rooms and most of the staff were friendly and trying their best to help the sinking ship. The free wireless Internet had a strong signal and worked well. That’s about all I can say that’s positive. I would not return here unless there is a significant investment in upgrading this facility.
I have stayed at other Crown Plaza hotels before and was very satisfied. This was a major disappointment.

I didn’t think too much of it when this hotel was booked for me prior to my business trip. It was a company preferred hotel, so again, I didn’t think too much of it. But honestly, what is up with the pool area?!?
The ground looks to be covered in a mixture of rust and dirt. It’s absolutely filthy! I’m not sure if they did some sand blasting in here or what, but this should be power washed. PERIOD. My feet were brown when I came out of the pool and I scurried to get my flip flops. The pool itself was fine, but nothing great. Clearly a neglected pool. There’s no reason for the pool to distinctly smell like cat piss. Disgusting.
The gym is very small– it’s more like a basement with random pieces of equipment. It’s deserted.
My room is right off the elevator and I don’t mind that, however, my toilet keeps running water. I tried to play with the clicker myself, but I guess I’ll have to deal with it. Oh, there’s also only one bar of soap to wash your whole body and face. I went to the front desk to ask for another one.
Day 2: Since when I went to the pool yesterday, there were towels, I didn’t bother to bring one with me from the 4^th floor. I go to the pool — no towels. I walk to the front desk and tell the woman behind the counter there’s no towels. She looked at me like an insect. She said in a very uncaring voice, «Oh, I’ll have someone bring them to you.» Thinking she was going to call housekeeping, I stood there waiting. «Are you planning on waiting here?!» That’s what she said to me. When I told her I was planning to, she shooed me away saying someone would replace them. An hour and a half later and nothing. I went back to my room without a towel and drip dried in the elevator. I guess they were planning on making the towels.
I headed to Yogi’s for dinner, which was very underwhelming. The fettuccini Alfredo with shrimps was not worth the price nor the effort. It tasted like nothing at all; very heavy too. I mostly pushed it around my plate. At least the breakfast buffet is half way decent.
Glad to be checking out tomorrow that’s for damn sure!

Do not come to this hotel. There’s a lot of hotels here. Called the whole police station for a crack on a window. Worst costumer service.

Stayed here on a recent business trip.
I walked in with a coworker and immediately thought, wow, what a nice hotel. And the customer service was friendly and made it easy to check in.
In my room there were countless stains on the bedding, couch, toilet, and in the shower. It was absolutely gross. I had leftover candy left over on the dresser from the previous person, I thought that was a nice incentive –_​-​.
I get changed and head down to their gym. They have the worse gym I’ve ever seen in a hotel. 2 treadmills, 1 weight machine, and a floor that hasn’t been cleaned since the place opened. Anyways, I used it and got in the pool.
They maybe trying to compensate for the hotel with the customer service but there customer service is still a solid C regardless. I will never stay here AGAIN. The bed seemed to be a little loose like someone jumped on it a little to much. Anyways, go to Princeton or something, don’t come to this hotel. They suck

This is my first Unilocal review, and I only do so to prevent other guests from being duped by this establishment.
We stayed at the Crowne Plaza for one night on 7÷2÷2015. Our one night stay including room service totaled 253.47. In the morning, we asked for a complimentary late checkout, and the front desk said we could stay in our room an additional hour. We followed the check out directions and were on our way to our next destination. So things seemed great, up to this point our experience was fantastic!
Our credit card however was charged 378.82 and then also again 125.35. One would think the 125.35 was a credit, to resolve the over charge, but instead it was a charge that never posted. Right now we have been over charged 125.35, and when we call to resolve this matter with the hotel, we are transferred to Carol. We spoke with her once, and she abruptly hung up on us and said she would check with housekeeping, because according to them, our account (errantly I should add) shows that we stayed two nights, even though Carol acknowledged this was likely a housekeeping mistake because we had a complimentary late check out. However we did check out, and even have the receipt from the Crowne Plaza and as importantly we were even in Massachusetts the next night. We even have receipts documenting our travel and stay in a different city.
It is 10 days later, and while Carol promised to call back, no action has been taken to resolve our billing issue, and she has not even returned our calls. Every time we call the hotel, we are transferred to her voicemail. When we ask for a direct extension, they say that they don’t have direct extensions, which is a joke.
Save your money and do not stay here, they are thieves and will over charge you without cause.

We got 2 rooms in this «3 ½ star» property. We approached the desk to check in and were told we’d have to wait for the manager to come out because this person was busy right now. A man came out and checked us in. Our rooms were on different floors. The first room was at the end of a hall which smelled the whole way to the room and the hallway had wallpaper peeling, the room had horrible attempts at crown moulding, smelled of a bad air freshener and old smoke, had stained linens and chair. The other room also had the same wallpaper peeling, stains on the linens, chair and sofa. There were 5 trays of leftover room service food right outside the elevator in the vending area and the entire floor smelled of old food. The bathroom was nasty with old peeling wallpaper, a circa 1990s turn dial heat lamp in their attempt to «update» the décor. It was so Nasty and smelly we wouldn’t even take off our shoes or sit on the bed or chairs. I attempted to speak to hotel staff but was routinely told they were busy and couldn’t help me. I called the third party we booked through and they had to call 3 times to get staff that was not «too busy to help right now». Unacceptable!
We left and went elsewhere to a REAL 3 ½ start hotel that really delivers hospitality and upscale style.

Tried to make a reservation at this hotel for july. Talked to a desk clerk named Kim. Found her to be impatient and rather rude. Wouldnt answer my questions and was very condescending. She seems to be bored with her job. I will not be staying at this hotel anytime soon.

I have been here countless times for weddings and other kinds of events and venue is lacking much. It is very small and not a lot of people fit. There are so many other and better places to cater to more people. At the most recent event I went to, people were standing up because there was a lack of room.
Dinner is served outside of the hall since the inside is filled with too many people and chairs all around. I found the plates to be very old and filthy. They have scratches all over them and not all are completely clean.
All in all, this place is a mess. I wouldn’t recommend this place as a venue. There are too many things wrong with it.

A clean if somewhat isolated and depressing hotel… big with the budget conference/​banquet/​events crowd but hardly a destination.
Well maintained but threadbare in places… The beds and bed linens are quite good so if you’re on the pike and need a place to overnight Crown Plaza will do.

Yikes. This place is just plain depressing with a capital D. I did not stay at the hotel, but attended an event with a DJ in one of the banquet rooms. On the plus side, everyone on the staff was friendly and the drinks were cheap (but also small).
If this place hopes to attract a wider, paying audience, they need to step up their game and offer something unique, bring in a little ambiance that exceeds the grocery aisle in Wal-​Mart, and maybe pre-​screen the entertainment if you’re going to charge a $ 10 cover.

I stayed in this hotel for 5 nights from December 7^th — December 12^th 2014. My stay was horrible. I can only hope my experience is the exception to the norm for this hotel
I travelled to NJ for business and my company has an arrangement with the Crowne Plaza. It is one of the two preferred or allowable hotels for reimbursement. Of the two, the Crowne had a better price point which was my reason for choosing it.
I guess you get what you pay for, or in this case, I didn’t get my money’s worth at all. I had a five night stay in the hotel and had to have my room switched twice during my stay.
The first room I had was 504. From the minute I walked into room 504 on December 7, 2014 there were issues. The main light did not illuminate when I flipped the switch, instead there was a low humming noise. In addition, there was a lamp out in the bathroom vanity. I immediately reported this to Mike from the front desk and instead of sending someone to fix the problem he asked me if I wanted him to try to find me an engineer to look at it. As of the next morning, December 8^th, it had not been rectified so I stopped by the front desk again to inform of the issue. The young lady there said she would have an engineer look into it. I headed off to the office and returned some 9 hours later to the room to find that the issue was still there. I alerted the front desk for now the third time.
On December 9^th at around 8PM, I returned to the hotel after dinner with some colleagues. The light in the vanity of room 504 had been adjusted however the main light was still not working. There was a much bigger issue however, there was a foul odor on the entire fifth floor of the hotel. I contacted the front desk and they shared it was due to a problem in a different room on the floor. This smell was overwhelming. After about 15 minutes of the smell of raw sewage, I went down to the front desk and asked if I could have air freshener or spraying in the room because the smell would not dissipate and made my room uninhabitable. The hotel had no air freshener or supplies to cut the odor in the room. I was offered to move to a room on a different floor. I had to pack my stuff from room 504 and trek down to my swapped room without even an offer of assistance from the hotel staff.
The next room I was in was 407. Room 407 did not have the odor of room 504 so I unpacked and went to sleep. When I awoke on the morning of December 10^th, I noticed a stain on the white bedspread that appeared to be blood. I didn’t think much of it and went to work. When arriving back to the room after work, there were no towels in room 407. There was the washcloth that I used in this morning still hanging on the shower rod. The towels had been removed and no towels were brought into the room in their place. I contacted the front desk to have towels brought to the room. I had gotten so annoyed at the towel situation that I did not inspect the bed linens.
When I awoke on December 11^th, I noticed the same small blood stains on the bedspread. As I began to wash up, I noticed three red bumps; one on my right arm, one on my left arm (I sleep with my arms slightly crossed) and one on my face at the edge of my nose. I was running late for work and I left the hotel. When I arrived back at the hotel on the evening of December 11^th, I inspected the bedspread to find there was still a blood stain and now what appeared to be little bugs in the surrounding area. I went down to the front desk and alerted them. I also showed them my bites. Due to the hour, the lady at the desk said all she could do is switch my room, and credit me for one night’s stay.
Bedbugs must also be common because the lady at the desk shared with me that normally what they would do is send my clothing and luggage out for cleaning but since it was so late in the evening and I was checking out in the morning, this could not be done.
I was given another room, 612. Room 612 passed the looking test however I was already put off and just wanted this visit to end. I sat up in room 612 worried about laying down and could not sleep. At around 2:00 AM I noticed the fan to the heater in the room stopped circulating. The heating system started to make a strange noise. Over the next three hours, the temperature in the room has dropped significantly.
Ironically, the hotel has stuffed my exress checkout pack under my door. On the envelope containing my bill for the week, there is verbiage that mentions a survey I might receive. The instructions are to talk to a member of the staff if I do not think I will be able to answer very satisfied or excellent to any survey question.
Prior to checking in for this trip, I pre-​booked a stay for January of 2015. That reservation will get cancelled as soon as I am able to do so.

We hated it. From check in to check out.
We are traveling on a road trip, and decided to stop for the night. I called the hotel and asked if they have a room with 3 beds. They said yes (it would be 2 full beds and 1 roll bed). Then we came to check in and the attendant said they can’t make a 2+roll beds but they have a room with sofa bed and we could rent an extra single bed from them. Ok, he solved the problem, but now I know We can’t trust information from staff.
The room itself is Clean, everything working well, but they don’t have mini fridge or even a bottle of water available for us.
Next day, we went down for breakfast and the lady at the entrance ask us for a blue paper. Without the blue paper, we would have to pay $ 12 per person. We didn’t have any blue paper and we went to the front desk to ask about it and they said the blue paper is only for those who makes online reservations (??). We have already paid $ 129 + the extra bed for a room with not even a fridge in a hotel in the middle of nowhere and we still would have to pay for breakfast? Never again

I’ve had better hotel stays. The bed was comfortable and the food was acceptable. However, the bathtub drain wouldn’t seal, so I couldn’t take a bath. They didn’t service the room at all while I was there. The TV system was having issues and kept losing signal. In general, it seemed like a staff trying hard to do a good job without many resources. New ownership cutting corners.

People need to know that there is no housekeeping staff on before 8am. In my case, some people trashed the lobby and parking lot the night before. I woke up to beer bottles all over the place. Management was totally unresponsive and I still have not received a call back after a few weeks. The restaurant also did not open on time in the morning so we had to leave without breakfast. There are plenty of other hotels in the area.

Hotel is not as nice but its clean. An interesting experience to say the least. Here are a few things I’d like to share:
Hotel is in the middle of nowhere so if you’re planning on eating or shopping, this isn’t the place (unless you only eat at Yogis which is part of the hotel). I did some venturing out & found some places about 12 minutes away.
During one of the evenings while resting, an employee UNLOCKED my door & then struggled to get it open which he/​she failed to since I (luckily) had the double lock on my door like I usually do once I’m settled in. He/​she stopped trying to get all the way in after they heard my voice asking, «Can I help you.» It was odd because this happened at 6:45 pm so it wasn’t housekeeping at that time. When we alerted the front desk, they said that they would look into it.
*Iron was missing from the closet and they brought one up quickly when requested but guess what? It didn’t work.
*Closet has one door (so only half of the closet is covered).
*ALL the outlets on the lamps were loose. When plugging something in, you have to move your cord or the plug so that it’s angled just the right way to pick up a charge. My son was on his laptop & couldn’t move while he had it plugged in so that it wouldn’t stop charging… ridiculous.
Smell of smoke kept coming though the AC area each night which was odd for a non-​smoking room/​hotel and disgusting to deal with. I called front desk but they sounded frustrated since I just called to request an iron. All they said is that they would look into it.
No microwaves, fridge, or security boxes in any room (maybe upon request??).
I paid with my debit card which has the MasterCard logo but there’s a $ 30 charge per night if its a debit card and you should get it back in 7 – 10 business days after check out. No reason ever given & odd since I didn’t even have to enter my pin # for it to be processed as a debit & it was processed as a credit card instead (still got charged the fee as if I entered a pin).
No TV guide but free WIFI & very comfy pillows!
Overpriced for what you get but some of the employees at the front desk are very nice.

This is the first time I have stayed at a Crowne and the experience was very pleasant. Clean rooms and nice ammenities

Very clean, smells great throughout hotel, nice staff, and clean rooms. I don’t care about prices but if it’s not clean then I’m sleeping with my clothes on. Lol. Nice business spot.

This review is for the hotel as an event venue.
Selected the Crowne Plaza for my wedding. Couldn’t have been happier with the choice of venue. The team is so flexible with arrangements, took so much stress out. Examples: opened the room to decorators first thing in the AM, had no problem with the Photo Booth in the lobby, accommodated last minute requests (e.g. we needed a podium, we needed to alter the place settings). They even set up a second, separate buffet area to ensure a smoother flow (and didn’t charge us anything for this).
Every concern had a solution. There was never a «no» to anything. They really made the process very simple for us and our vendors. Very reachable, very responsive. Agnes (the event coordinator) really stood out — she treated it like her own event, worked hard to make sure everything was done to our liking. And she was so calm throughout. John (the events director) was also a pleasure to work with.
The price structure was clear and very reasonable. No surprise charges at all. Everything was explained clearly before the event. Virtually unlimited free parking, and the location is so easy — right off the Turnpike. Service was great throughout the night. No intervention was needed from us to ensure that everything was running smoothly.
This is not the most glamorous wedding location — after all, it’s just a hotel reception hall. But still, it was much better than the average hotel hall. Clean carpet, nice trimmings, good lighting. They can also customize the hall considerably to your needs.

Hotel: Decent
Restaurant: Hair in Food. Probably on purpose.
My wife and I stayed here when we had to go back East for a funeral. The rooms were fine, solid, reasonable. The hotel’s location is next to two highways, yet also not next to any other businesses, meaning you’re stuck to go to their hotel restaurant, Yogi’s.
I’ll get right to it — THE KITCHEN STAFF PUT HAIR IN OUR FOOD.
The more in-​depth-​story: We went to the restaurant, and it was after their breakfast time. We asked if it was possible to get a breakfast, and the waitress cheerily said «I’ll check.» She came back and happily said «No problem at all.» So we ordered two omelettes.
Luckily, I cut my omelette up before eating it, because I found about 12 – 15 short, straight hairs, as if someone had just chopped an inch off their hair, and sprinkled «a pinch» of hairs into our omelette. (I know, we thought «maybe these are pubic hairs,» but they were pretty straight, as if cut from very long hair.)
Like anyone, I’ve had an occasional bug or single hair in my food. That’s bad enough. This was a deliberate act of putting hair in the food.
Here’s the worst part: the chef was a mostly bald guy with reddish hair. My only interpretation of this can be (1) it’s not his hair, (2) someone with access to the kitchen (hey, maybe the chef, maybe a busboy, maybe a mystery idiot) had to be saving some hair off to the side, waiting for people like us to make them mad by asking for breakfast at non-​breakfast hours.
The very nice waitress apologized, was obviously stunned, and came to roughly the same conclusion as us: someone did this on purpose. The way the hairs were clumped together made it obvious.
But no manager came over. No chef came out to clear this up. Nothing else happened.
I’d strongly recommend that, if you don’t like a pinch of hair in your food — or vindictive kitchen staff messing with your food and drink in bizarre and gross ways — that you steer clear of this place. This was terrible. Unfortunately, I had to attend a funeral — otherwise, I would have stayed in the restaurant longer, called the hotel manager, and pushed harder to get the ugly truth about this.
The person in the kitchen who did this needs to be found, fired, and even charged. GROSS!
So, the hotel’s a good option in this area, but maybe avoid Yogi’s unless you’re into eating someone’s hair.

This is a nice hotel in the middle of absolutely nowhere that nobody would ever go except for a conference of some sort. There are lots of hotels and lots of conferences out this way. That’s about it. Not much to do, and you have to drive to eat, drink or be entertained. That’s not the hotel’s fault. The place is well maintained, friendly and internally quiet. The outside traffic is pretty loud, my only complaint. It’s really just «white noise» and I slept ok, but I’d have been happier without it. One thing: join their Priority Club. They gave us 2 free drinks and a $ 5 dinner discount and some food to join for free. The drinks were anything I wanted (Glenlivet!) and very generous. I went to bed happy!