St. Regis Manhattan.
It used to be my go-to property in NYC. I have a corporate acct. and have stayed here countless times, but never will return again.
My wife and I were celebrating our recent marriage and had arranged several receptions for friends and family in Manhattan. I had contacted the hotel ahead of time to let them know the purpose of this trip, and had made several simple requests concerning our suite and the preparation (in advance of our arrival) of a bouquet of flowers and several bottles of champagne which I had delivered to the property.
Due to flight delays, we were running late and checked in approx. 1.5 hours past our expected arrival time. I had written to the hotel in advance (it took numerous emails to the front desk and concierge to even get a response, and it felt brisk and unwelcoming in writing at that!) to let them know our anticipated time of arrival, in order to have the room prepared for us. We had a pre-reception cocktail party that evening in our honor, and we were already on a tight schedule. I called the hotel again from our limo coming in from JFK to let them know that we were on the way.
Upon arrival at the hotel, there seemed to be no acknowledgment of any of this. I spent 25 frustrating minutes at check-in until it was finally suggested that I have a seat in the lobby while they "prepare our suite". FORTY more minutes past. That's not an exagerration. At this point we were already late for our own party. Not only were the flowers, card, and champagne not prepared as I had requested... but they did not even have a room ready for us and bear in mind, we were arriving 1.5 hours later than expected! I also had a suite upgrade at check-in per my corporate account for which I was told there were no other rooms available. No welcome back or congrats on your recent marriage... not even an offer to have a seat at the bar and order a complimentary drink as we waited a combine total of one hour, feeling completely foolish as we just sat there on a chair in the lobby. No apology or anything.
After an hour of waiting around I was furious and told the front desk that we were leaving our luggage with them, rushing out to the party that we were now late for (and without time to change or freshen up after a transcontinental flight!) and to have our room prepared with the luggage brought upstairs and unpacked by the time we returned, which I told them would be approx. 2 hours later. We had separate dinner plans later in the evening.
The taxi queue was too long to wait, so we dashed up to 5th Ave. to flag a cab to the Upper East Side. Sure enough, we were the last to arrive to our gathering and our friends had all been kept waiting for almost 40 minutes before we arrived.
Upon returning to the hotel approx. 30 minutes later than we had notified the front desk, I was sure we would be properly taken care of and that things would go much smoother for the rest of the week. How wrong I was. This was just the start of our hellish stay.
We walked into the lobby to find our bags sitting exactly as we had left them on a valet by the front desk. I was steaming mad! They handed us keys to an abysmal room facing construction and right beside the elevators, despite having stayed at the hotel as a repeat guest regularly and specifying countless times my expectations with the front desk in advance of our stay; letting them know this was in celebration of our marriage. This was clearly all an afterthought. The flowers had still not been placed out with the card, nor the champagne; all of which was piled onto the valet with our bags and wheeled upstairs minutes before, while we again were forced to wait in the lobby.
Upon entering the room which felt clammy from AC, there was a terrible odor of cigarette smoke blowing in through the vents. It was clear that this had been ongoing throughout the day as it lingered strongly in the air. Our room literally smelled like an ashtray. I immediately called down to the front desk to lodge yet another complaint, and it was at this point that I was promised a suite upgrade on the next night (not to worry, they would repack and unpack, moving us seamlessly while were out during the day) and that they would investigate the cigarette smoke while we were out at dinner. Fine, things were sure to improve I thought. How could they not?!
We showered quickly, changed and left for dinner, returning several hours later to the same disgusting smoky room. Our AC vents were like oversized cig filters. I'm a very tolerant and reasonable person but it was truly unbearable. I called down to reception for the umteenth time to demand that something be done, and was floored by the response: "I'm afraid we cannot disturb the other guests by calling rooms at this hour to determine where it's coming from; had we known about this earlier we could have resolved it but it will have to wait for the morning". It was 11:30 PM. Understandable had it not been so utterly inept and insulting of them. We should have packed our bags and checked out right then and there. Instead we spent a miserable night, thinking things would be fixed the next morning. Afterall, we were moving up to a higher suite and could not forsee any other potential issues. It seemed as though they'd already bungled everything they possibly could. Wrong again.
The next morning we made sure to let the hotel know exactly when were leaving and the precise time we'd be returning to the hotel. Our entire room was to be repacked and all our belongings shifted to the new suite, then unpacked again before we got back. That evening was our reception party and we could NOT be late for this!
I also requested that a suit jacket be pressed by the hotel laundering service and returned to our room before we got back. I specified exactly how I wanted it done (not to touch the lapels!) and was assured it would be handled.
We spent a very nice afternoon in the city and returned by around 4:00 PM to a much improved suite and a bottle of champagne courtesy of our excellent butler - the one shining star throughout all of this! He had not moved us as he was not working our floor, yet he made a point of dropping off the bottle nonetheless. Everything seemed to be fine.
I hopped in the shower, changed and... something was missing. I searched the room top to bottom and could not find any of my underwear! Here I am standing in my sock, button down shirt, tie... yet no pants or underwear! I called downstairs to ask where my underwear had disappeared to. The butler who had moved us was apparently not on duty and it took 25 minutes for someone to come up to our room. Again, the clock was ticking and we were starting to feel rushed. The person who arrived had no clue what to do and started opening drawers and digging through bags as I stood there wrapped in a towel, about to lose it. I then realized that my expensive cufflinks were missing as well... finally it was discovered that an entire piece of luggage had never made the transition!!!
I again called downstairs and a total of 3 different people were called to our room. It took the better part of an hour to locate my underwear, cufflinks, and the missing bag. At this point, we were again set to be late to our own reception party!
Furious about this, I called downstairs to ensure that a taxi be waiting for us as soon as we step out of the elevator, as we were again running late. No problem I was told. We dashed right through the lobby and out to the curb to where a taxi was parked. I stepped forward to open the door and was rudely intercepted by the car hop/attendant who informed me that there were others waiting before me. I lost my cool at this point and walked up to the front desk where I had it out with the clerk I'd been dealing with. She informed me that they were not able to "hold taxis" despite promising to do just that when I called down from my room!
I explained to her that this was the second ocassion for which our plans were effected by the incompetence of the hotel management and that we were not going to be held hostage to the ineptitude of the hotel, nor adjust our trip to meet their timeline or confusion. I asked for the house car to take us to our destination, which was down in NoHo. The front desk apologized and said that the house car could only take us within 7 blocks (if I'm not mistaken) of the property. I replied that I didn't care and at this point, it better take us to Harlem if need be, because by no fault of our own (and ENTIRELY the fault of the hotel!) we were LATE FOR OUR OWN WEDDING RECEPTION and we were not going to stand in a taxi queue like complete idiots! Again, no can do.
I demanded to speak with the floor manager, who was called out. After a rushed introduction, she whisked us out to the house car and asked the driver to take us where we needed to go, requesting to speak with me about the problems we'd encountered the next morning... for which I was all too eager to discuss with her!
At this point, I should note that my jacket had been returned to the room freshly pressed and while I did not inspect it closely, it ***appeared*** to be fine. I will return to this later.
We made the most of the evening and had a wonderful night out despite the unecessary stress it caused my wife and myself. She was mortified by our late arrival and was in tears as I was arguing with the receptionist earlier. I should also mention something else that I neglected to write of earlier... Not only had certain articles of clothing and accessories not made the transition smoothly when changing suites, but a very long and heartfelt, hand-written love letter that I had composed for my wife disappeared altogether. It was simply thrown away by whoever moved our rooms and never found again. My wife was telling me the night before how it was the most touching thing she'd ever read and wanting to share it with my mom. It was tossed out and my wife is still saddened to this day. Never before has even the worst hotel stay actually ruined a vacation or trip, but if there was ever a contender for that... this was surely it!
The next morning I spoke with the floor manager who semmed genuinely appalled and sympathetic. She offered to comp us one night. In retrospect, it should have been the entire stay, but I was not fishing for anything. I had simply given up and tried to focus on the positives of our trip - none of which involved the St. Regis. I accepted the single night comp along with her sincere apologies and that was that. Service never improved. My wife had to call housekeeping every single night consistently for the remaining 4 nights of our stay to request a sheet cover for the bed. Never once did they catch on and surprise us by including it with turn down. On two separate ocassions she slept without one, as housekeeping simply never showed up. One night, she called down 3 times in a row and it still never came! We had given up on the hotel by now and agreed to just laugh all of this off and enjoy our time in the city. There was no way we would find a last minute booking elsewhere and I did not want to have to go through the trouble of moving yet again.
We had our wonderful butlet pack up our belongings on our final day and bid farewell (forever!) to the St. Regis. We were relieved to be moving on to the Mohonk Mountain House, however we couldn't leave the property hassle-free without one final snafu... this one was the nail in the coffin for me.
We checked into the Mohonk and as I was unpacking the luggage, I pulled out the jacket that I had pressed at the hotel, and noticed white bleach stains all over the sleeve and shoulder which burned a hole right through the fabric! It was a 1k bespoke pincord summer suit that I had made for the ocassion and had only gotten to wear once! I was very confused and before placing any blame, I contacted my tailor and seamstress and sent them photos. My seamstress is the head seamstress for the TV series "Boardwalk Empire" btw and she knows her business! Both informed me that it appeared the suit jacket had come into contact with some harsh chemicals or bleach. My seamstress explained that I might not have noticed it immediately upon getting it back from the hotel laundry, as it could have taken several hours (if not overnight) to seap into the fabric and soak the fibres. In retrospect, after having worn the jacket for a total of 4-5 hours at most (after having gotten it back) I simply hung it in the closet and did not look at it again for days, until the butler repacked it for me. I was livid!
I called the hotel and spoke with the manager who put me in touch with their insurance agent. We went back and forth for several week and he tried to claim that it was not possible for this to have occurred while in their posession because they don't use bleach or any harsh chemicals. BS!
So this is a brand new suit that's never been worn. The jacket is handed over to the hotel laundry in pristine condition, returned, and then days later when I look at it, there are chemical burns and bleach stains all over the fabric. Where else did this happen... in the closet?!?
I exlapined that the only plausible explanation, was that the jacket was obviously laid down on a surface (based on where the damage occurred) that must have unknowingly had some sort of harsh substance or cleaning agent, which rubbed into the fabric. It probably went unnoticed.
The hotel insurance however, decided that a far more likely scenario was that as I was walking around in NoHo, some bleach must have magically fallen out of the sky or spilled off a rooftop and landed on my jacket. This surely took place within the 30 minute or so window that I was not inside the lounge booked for our reception, I suppose.
I had asked my tailor who made the suit to contact the insurance guy directly and after several failed attempts back-and-forth, I finally just gave up and washed my hands of the entire matter. As angry as I was, I did not want to perpetuate these feelings any longer and just wanted to be through with ever having to deal with that property again.
That's my story of the absolute worst hotel stay I have ever experienced in my life. I should have posted it sooner, but I felt it could never be too late to warn against staying at the St. Regis Manhattan. This coming from a guy who has a business account with the property and has stayed there at least once annually for the past 5 years.