Ritz Carlton Philadelphia: Cheapest Ritz I've Ever Stayed

You couldn't find a more perfect location to stay at in Philadelphia; this Ritz is literally in the center of the city next to the Philadelphia city hall. So either direction you walk you'll be the same distance from anything. If you want to go shopping and eat at a nice restaurant walk southwest and you’ll be at Rittenhouse Row/Walnut Street. If street food and Chinatown is more your style, walk northeast. If you want to go to all the tourist attractions just walk east. So as long as you’re only wanting to stay and do stuff downtown everything is walkable from this Ritz.

Check in was pretty standard. I used my FHR benefit to try to check in early, and they did allow me to check in early. It was a little chaotic because I was trying to check in when everyone else in the hotel was trying to check out. The staff did go over all the amenties along with the FHR benefits and how to use them. One thing I remembered however was there were a bunch of people in the front entrance area waiting for their valet to come back with their car and I did hear this was a problem of this hotel; the valet wait times.

They did recognize that this was an FHR stay; so I received early check in, view upgrade (facing city hall) and higher floor, option for 4PM late check out, free breakfast for two credit and $100 amenity credit. Also they offered us free bottles of water.

The room was clean, and the bed was really nice. However nothing super stood out to us; just kind of standard. After experiencing more higher end hotels, this Ritz was more or less a nicer Marriott. We did order some amenities and they over gave me stuff I requested; which was nice. However one thing I remembered during my stay, I stayed in a 1 king bedroom, and it was abnormally small. Plus I believe there was a infrastructure pole in an awkward place in the room which made the room feel even smaller. To me it felt like 100 to 300 sq ft room.

The property was a bit on the older side but seemed to be well maintained. The lobby area was mostly the restaurant and it was pretty elegant and nice. I didn't get to explore much of the hotel because I stayed here when the pandemic was about over but many restrictions were still in place.

The food at the hotel was well made, nothing special though. I ordered in room service for dinner, using the $100 amenity credit, and breakfast was also in room service using the free breakfast for two. Service was fine, phone call was respectful so as the delivery. As for variety it was just basic food options like burger, salmon, steaks; nothing super stood out.

Personally if I had to do it over I would try to find another use for the amenity credit that came with FHR. As the food wasn't super special. I really liked the food in Chinatown; as well as a place called "Zio's Brick Oven Pizza". Also if you're walking from the Amtrak station I would not walk on market street; it's the quickest route but there were times I felt unsafe. I would much rather detour through walnut street instead. Also I would research the rooms before you visit and see if you can be placed into a larger room.

Overall comparing to all of hotels this hotel wasn't terrible, pretty decent in fact. However if you were to compare this Ritz Cartlons to other Ritz Carltons, or even other 5 star hotels, you might be disappointed. On the other hand it's a fairly priced 5 star hotel you can usually find for about $200; so it's not bad in that aspect.