Very nice hotel, clean rooms, and a great value. The staff is pleasant, but they just beat the "magic" thing into you until you can't take it anymore. Everyone asks you how they could create "magic" for you...

Well you know, making food appear it my room after midnight would have been "magical..."

That is a small nit-pick item though. Rooms were really clean and nice, and the bed was great.

I stayed at the Pier 5 for business in January 2006. The location is excellent and the hotel was in good condition. I appreciated my balcony which overlooked the harbor.
Although I liked the hotel and would consider staying there again under difference circumstances, I would not stay again on business. There is no "sundries" store for snacks, magazines or forgotten items. The only vending machines I found were for soda only. There is also no room service aside from breakfast. As a woman traveling along, I would have appreciated room service for dinner. You have to go into the two restaurants (which are high-end only) and order to go. Mild inconvenience but was annoying after a long day. I found myself leaving the hotel for errands, snacks, wine, magazines etc.
I booked the room on Hotwire and could not have gotten a better deal.

It is interesting that you write this about the Pier 5. I was there in February and did not get a chance to write a review but now that I saw the review about the ship and the crab thing had to write in as well. This is a great hotel and very unique. not another one like it in Baltimore. I stayed there on business and will definately bring my wife back for a weekend. so close to everything. the other great thing about this hotel is they hve two other hotels they work with - I think the Brookshire Suites and the Admiral Fell Inn. Both cool, fun hotels. They actually invite you to things that go on at those hotels too. me and a friend tried out the Brew at the Brook - if i am saying this right- where you can eat and drink all the beer you want in the early evening. cool places, great service, just what you want in a city like Baltimore.

We stayed here one weekend and the hotel was overall ok, nothing special. When we arrived, there was one valet outside and the wait was 20 min. We ended up carrying everything upstairs by ourselves and parking our own car. There was one woman at the front desk and the wait was ~15 min just to check in. The room was decent and included a balcony that overlooked the harbor. The room was supposedly "harbor view" but on one side there was a roof occluding half of the view of the harbor and right next door were people's rooms that you could see right in to! This was not very private to say the least! We had one incident of someone walking right into our room with us in it! The heat was great and the bed was very comfortable. The tv/movies were a rip off and should not be advertised as "on demand" if you have to pay $12 just to see a movie. The hotel overcharged me and am still in the process of working this out. One perk of the hotel is the location is excellent - close to everything! All in all, I do not think I would stay at this hotel again and would not recommend it.