Disappointed
Introduction We booked a 3-night stay at the Conrad for my son's spring break birthday trip to NYC. I had emailed the Conrad New York ahead of time to make sure that our stay would be kid-friendly, fun and perfect for the purpose we had planned. Check In Things started going wrong at online check-in. We had been upgraded to a river view suite as a Hilton Diamond and we were checking in for a room on the 15th floor in the app. As I was attempting to check-in, it timed out and crashed. I had restarted the app and the room was gone. Instead it was putting me in a room on the 7th floor. I had contacted the front desk and the were able to assign me a room on the 11th floor, but my originally selected room was gone within a matter of minutes (not sure what happened unless someone booked the same room?). We lost a few floors in view, but not the end of the world. But then as I emailed to confirm that I had my requested preferences, I was told that the room does not have a bathtub and was shower only. With young kids, a bathtub is a must-have! Clearly the people in charge of assigning rooms here have no clue. (They suggested putting an infant tub in the shower for my 4-year old - which absolutely would not work.) Or I can downgrade back to my originally booked room with no view to get a bathtub (Sigh). As I was already en route to the hotel, I decided to just deal with it in person. When I arrived, the front desk staff explained the same thing, or I can pay to upgrade the 2nd and 3rd nights to an executive room during my stay (as it was sold out the 1st night) for an extra $190/night which does have a bathtub. Note to all Hilton Diamonds - even though this is an all-suite hotel, I asked and was told that they do NOT offer complimentary multi-category upgrades to luxury suites or executive suites or beyond. Anyway, my app was showing a nor1 upgrade to the Conrad suite for an additional $200/night so that wasn't much of an accommodation at all! She proceeded to tell me to just book the app upgrade because she can't offer anything better. So we took the app upgrade and paid extra to take the Conrad suite. (It had to be manually processed, because the front desk had "checked" us in so nor1 couldn't get applied.) Room The Conrad suite itself is huge and having all the space is so nice with kiddos, but there were a few things wrong when we checked in. The whirlpool tub was showing an error (which we had to call down to fix), the TV in the bathtub is missing a remote so cannot turn on (which we had to call down - but they didn't have the remote, so it remained off the entire 3 nights), the blinds in the office are broken and cannot be pulled up to open, the powder room toilet clogged (which we had to call down to fix), there are only 2 thermostats for multiple rooms so we could never get the temperature right in all of the rooms, the lights randomly turned off (we assume there is a motion sensor somewhere, but we never figured out where).This is the floorplan of the Conrad Suite. The door next to the double-sinks behind the bed actually leads to a separate shower room.View of another building with a glimpse of the water from the Conrad Suite.Some Room Pics: Service As the welcome amenity, we received one still water, one sparling water, and a small box of chocolates as a Diamond. (I've seen photos of fruit trays, but we never received one.) They also did send a birthday cake, but for some reason told me they couldn't send it due to our nut allergy because the mix is made offsite. I informed them of the nut allergy a week ahead of our arrival, but they waited until the last night of our stay to let us know. We did work it out so they could send it up to us (birthday boy doesn't have the allergy - another child does), but they sent a carrot cake. For a kid turning 5. I've seen photos of red velvet birthday cakes and chocolate birthday cakes - not sure why they thought carrot cake would go over well with a 4 year old turning 5. It didn't. Oh well, guess it's the thought that counts. (It seems like there sure are a lot more misses than hits here.) Dining Also, as a Diamond, breakfast is included as part of the package. They had buffet on the weekends and a la carte on the weekdays. Our Saturday buffet was uneventful, all the food was fine. Nothing really stood out. However, there are no made-to-order eggs (i.e. no omelettes) as part of the package - you'd have to pay additional at the a la carte prices. However the Sunday buffet - omg, was a nightmare. The guy at check in was not friendly at all and were quoted a 20 minute wait for a table. We asked if we can wait back in our hotel room (since we had small kids with us) and was told no. Once we finally got seated way past the 20 minutes, they were running out of food and did NOT restock. Our waiter took pity on us and gave us a fruit plate when there was literally no fruit left in the buffet (thank you for the gesture - it was greatly appreciated). I understand they were busy. There is no exec lounge at this Conrad, so all the Hilton gold and diamond people end up at the restaurant. However, this is still supposed to be a high end restaurant at a high end hotel. This exact scenario I would expect at an Embassy Suites or maybe a Hilton (although I've had much better experiences at both ES and Hilton properties before), but not a Conrad.