Originally Posted by nick_a

Just got back from a 3 night stay at Aman NY. My partner and I live in Philly and visit NY often, so we have a running list (12 after this weekend) of luxury NYC hotels we've visited in our search for our favorite luxury hotel in the city. Long story short re: the Aman: beautiful, and disappointing.

My partner surprised me with this hotel. I thought we were staying at the Peninsula, but as we rolled up, he said, "I have something to tell you.." I've been wanting to stay here since the minute they announced they were opening a NY property, so I was very excited! We were greeted quite kindly, luggage immediately whisked away, and after showing our IDs at the ground floor reception, we were brought upstairs to our room, where we met our butler. She was lovely, offered to press some clothes and shine some shoes, which we took her up on. Then we went down to the terrace lounge, which is so dreamy to look at in pictures, and that's where the troubles started.

Terrace Lounge: Beautiful to behold, really poor service. Once we sat, it took about 20 minutes of waitstaff walking by us sitting there before we finally had to flag someone down ourselves just to order a drink. It wasn’t particularly busy, but seemed like other tables were facing the same problem of being essentially ignored. The lack of proactive service on the terrace extended through the weekend until Monday morning. Every single time we went to the terrace, whether we notified Arva reception or not that we were going to sit down for a drink, no one would come over unless we waved someone down (no matter how many times they walked passed us sitting with no drinks or even menus). It was exasperating and extremely un-Aman-like.

Nama: Perhaps the biggest mishap of the weekend was our reservation for omakase that didn’t happen. Saturday night we had an early reservation for dinner to be followed by a show at Circle on the Square (so timing is important here!). My partner emailed concierge many weeks prior to reserve a spot at Nama's chef's table, having an exchange about ensuring we'd be done after 2 hours, etc. When we arrived at Nama, we were sat at a table in the back. Confused, we asked why we weren’t at the chef’s table for our omakase meal. They responded that there were no reservations for omakase that night, so the chef’s table was closed, and because it was a prearranged meal, it could not be arranged last minute. We had tickets to see a show that night, so we didn’t have much choice but to stay at Nama. To be fair, we did the chef’s tasting menu and it was very good, but not what we signed up for. The Nama manager came over at one point to make a show about how he would look into this mistake, but at no other point afterward was this mistake addressed.

House car issue: After dinner, we asked for the house car to bring us to Circle on the Square for our show, and they confirmed. When we went down, the car and driver were nowhere to be found. Someone downstairs at reception was very apologetic and friendly, but unable to find the driver. We ended up being a few minutes late to the show, and luckily they still let us in, but this was extremely stressful and surprised.

Spa/pool mishap: On Sunday, I went to the pool to relax on one of the daybeds and have a cup of tea before my massage. Both were taken, so I grabbed a seat in the back corner to wait for one to open up. I was there for 25 minutes, and similar to the terrace, was completely ignored by the pool staff. A large family came in and was quickly attended to, then as soon as one of the beds opened up, the family was offered the bed, even though I had been waiting for it for almost 30 minutes. Of course I’m not upset that the family got the bed - there were six of them and one of me - but it was pretty upsetting to be ignored for 30 minutes and then skipped over without even a word. I briefly confronted the pool attended who quite literally shrugged his shoulders and said "nothing I can do about it now," so I left the pool and said something to the two women at the front desk about this, and they quickly apologized, but never mentioned it again even though I saw them maybe 4 more times that day. This definitely upset me more than it should have, but after a weekend of being ignored, I was fed up.

I will also note that after being so helpful and kind the first day, we never saw or heard from our butler again the entire time we were there. Which felt strange after having been at One&Only Palmilla just a week before, where the butler texted us every single morning and night to check in and see what they could do for us. Hotel butler services are hit-or-miss, we've found; this was somewhere in the middle?

Anyway, enough complaining, some good things:

Suites: Hard product is to die for, suites are spacious and get lots of light, bathrooms are HUGE, electronics straightforward and up-to-date, shower was as big as a walk-in closet, Toto toilet was lovely to have. All of the minibar, including alcohol, was complimentary. Stowable TV, which is always nice.
Pool: stunning to look at, and relaxing to be at, but there's no service to speak of, so it's really not the star of the show (contrast with, e.g., the Baccarat or the FS Philly, where you can order food and drinks at the pool and chill out for some time, before/between/after spa treatments, etc).
Common areas: I'm a sucker for cool/interesting common areas - bars, lounges, etc. And these ones do NOT disappoint, including live jazz music in the indoor lounge in the early evenings. Drinks were lovely. With the exception of the seat pillows on those big couches - I believe someone here noted how stained they already are, which is not surprising given the traffic they get - everything is gorgeous.
Arva: service in the restaurant (not on the terrace) was quite friendly and competent, and the food was very good.
The Jazz Club: we had a great time, and were given great seats for a very fun show. A friend joined us for a drink upstairs before they brought us down the "secret corridor," which was cute and fun.
The Spa: facilities themselves are very nice, and my massage was top-notch.

We noticed that many patrons (perhaps the majority?) at the terrace and lounge, and at the spa, were not hotel guests but were in fact Aman Club members. And things started to add up: at the end of the day, Aman New York felt to us more like a Members Club with hotel rooms, rather than a top luxury hotel with a membership. We have been planning for some time to spend the weekend we get married at the Aman NY, but now we're thinking we'll instead splurge on a speciality suite at the Carlyle, or the FS Midtown if it reopens in time. But, we've also read other reviews praising the service, and have a friend who stayed here and said his experience was nothing like ours.

Anyone who's stayed here: does this align with your experience, or did we catch them on an off weekend? I would LOVE for it to be the latter, as it's such a bewitching space...