After a 2-night stay including breakfast at JW Marriott Atlanta Buckhead for $71, I made my way by MARTA train and public bus to Marriott Atlanta Century Center/Emory Area for a $23 hotel stay. Both of these hotel stays were booked using free stay certificates I won in the 2017 Marriott Omaha Business Council auction for Children’s Miracle Network. These cheap nights and a $96 Frontier Airlines San Jose SJC – Atlanta round trip ticket motivated me to spend four nights in Atlanta this week.
Arrival
MARTA Lenox Station to Chamblee is two stations north on the Gold Line. At Chamblee I picked up Bus 47 for what Google Maps said would be 26 stops. The issue I quickly realized is there were no bus stop names shown inside the bus on the dark electronic display. Bus stops on the street did not show any street names either. On top of that, the bus only had about six riders and did not stop at most of the bus stops. Trying to count 26 stops was not helpful either.
Riding the bus through Chamblee appeared to me to be an area predominantly Latino. So I was surprised when I looked up demographics for Chamblee to see it used to be nicknamed ‘Chambodia’. Apparently this part of the Atlanta suburbs developed a large immigrant contingent in the 1990s, but the majority demographic in Chamblee these days is Latino.
As the bus approached the pin for Marriott Century Center on my iPhone map, I asked the driver to let me know where I needed to get off the bus.
Marriott Century City hotel is in a business park area and remote from any commercial center. The hotel is not convenient for guests without a car. The nearest restaurants are one mile away with several Ethiopian restaurants on the other side of Interstate 85.
The hotel mitigates its remote location with complimentary shuttle rides within a three mile radius including the Brookhaven-Oglethorpe MARTA Station.
Marriott Atlanta Century City lobby
Marriott M Club Lounge in lobby
Marriott Fitness Center in lobby open 24 hours.
Outdoor pool
Room 1010
Room 1010 Bathroom
The hotel was a great deal for my stay at $23 all-in. The bed pillows were softer and more comfortable than pillows at JW Marriott Buckhead Atlanta where I slept the previous two nights.
After checkout before 10am I took the hotel shuttle to Brookhaven MARTA station for downtown Civic Center and a different hotel.
My preference for Atlanta of the three locations I stayed was definitely being downtown Atlanta despite moving the following day to a lower market segment hotel with Choice Hotels Ascend Collection Inn at the Peachtrees for 6,000 Choice Privileges points (cost $30 when I bought 200,000+ points in April 2018).
Marriott Century Center Atlanta is a nice hotel room and a location I might prefer if in the city with a car. One of the hotel location’s main benefits is proximity to Interstate 85 and not too far a drive to downtown. This hotel in the suburbs removes some of the hassle and expense of a car in downtown Atlanta with city parking fees.
The hotel room had a comfortable environment.
Marriott Atlanta Century CenterÂ
Marriott Rewards category 3 = 17,500 points per night Aug-Dec 2018.
