MLK 2019 Trip with an upgrade

100   Recommended
Room Penthous...
January 27, 2019 by EXPERT

 Map | 4 Reviews | 75% Recommended
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Liked:
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Service
 
Food
 
Amenities
 
Room
 

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The Surrey
 Map | 4 Reviews | 75% Recommended

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Room Penthous...

Liked:
Location
Service
Food
Amenities
Room
Stats

Booking

With the impending arrival of a new nephew, I once again needed a room on the UES. Again, my kids would be staying with my parents, so my wife and I really only needed a place to sleep.. I contacted @besvisor once more and he showed me that the price delta with a 1 bedroom suite wasn't terrible; so he pretty much talked me into booking a suite.. At booking he was able to confirm an upgrade to a ultra 1 bedroom

Check In

We arrived via foot after finding a parking space for our whale (I mean minivan). The hotel offers valet but (knock on wood) I've had sucess finding street parking on the UES, which saves me $70 per day... We didn't arrive till almost 10 PM, helping to get our kids off to sleep. There was only one agent working the line, so we ended up with about a 5 minute wait. No welcome back, but a bottle of Fiji water was offerred (I had to ask for a second for my wife).. The check-in agent did say to me "we managed to upgrade you; we have you in the penthouse." To what I repleid- that'll do....

 

Room

The Penthouse.. I mean who doesn't like the ring of that... elevator to the floor marked PH... there's just one room up there and the rooftop garden that's in operation during summers.. The room is otherwise unmarked.. Thoughts on the room- it's big, nice dining area.. living area with fireplace and imac, bedroom that was quite dark though.. nice big bathroom with dual vanities, separate shower and large jetted tub. There's also a nice kitchen area as well. Living room has a fireplace and a projector that drops down from the ceiling.. The piece de resitance would be the extremely large terrace, which had it not been cold out would be an incredible asset.. Now onto the negatives: the projector that drops down from the ceiling- well there's a switch for the screen to drop down that didn't work. Fireplace- couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get it to work. iMac- nice and all, but not all the keys worked.. Jetted tub- not all the jets worked... There are speakers in the ceiling for some sort of audio system but all of the control panels didn't seem to have power or didn't seem to work... View from bedroom- well it's where they store all the furnitue from the rooftop garden during winter months.. So in my previous review I think I mentioned deferred maintenance- seems to be the same problem here in this suite. I'ld be upset if I paid the $10,000 per night they asked for but as an upgrade sure I'll take it

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Dining

Room service- similar to previous. Fine, but nothing spectacular.. I always expect better out of them because of the R and C flag and the Cafe Boulud association... Only had breakfast though. Of note, the breakfast credit is only for $40 to cover an in restaurant continetnal breakfast so we went much over every time...

Service

Meh, didn't have high hopes; didn't really meet them.. For example, I couldn't connect to the internet in our room with the room number/last name combo login. I went to the front desk to ask about it and they couldn't help me so I asked that they leave a note for me in my room with instructions on how to get onto the wifi. No note, nothing. Never could get on the wifi during our stay. Not sure if it's somethign specific to the penthouse (I tried 1701 and PH for our room number; no dice) but worse was that it was never addressed and fixed... Our previous stay we got a welcome amenity of a bottle of wine, Laduree macaroons, and a welcome note from my travel agent.. this time... nothing... maybe they thought the welcome amenity was the upgrade but my wife was really looking forward to the macaroons.. Finally, on turndown they never filled our ice bucket; except for the last night... Overall, I would say that the service didn't meet my modest expectations on this trip

Checkout

Our bill was fine, our checkout was fine... still bears to see if we wil have any billing issues like last time 

Overall

the only reason we keep staying here is its proximity to my parents house; plus the fact that it's significantly cheaper than the Mark and Caryle... We really only need the room for about 12 hours at night, so I don't feel like spending much more. Once again, I do believe it's time for a refreshing, given that it's been open now for 9 years..  In addition, service seems to be slipping as well unfortunately; though it didn't even start very high....

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