I've not had any trouble with any hotels on previous visits, but after the
Fawlty Towers experience at the Holiday Inn Civic Center @ 8th Street in San Francisco, I was disappointed to have problems at another of my hotels.
I finally decided to leave the Country Inn & Suites by Carlson in Long Island City this morning. The carpets needed cleaning, the door of the cupboard in which the fridge lived didn't close, the fan in the bathroom was noisy, the TV wasn't HD like the website promised, and there was no 'do not disturb' sign - although the man on reception at breakfast did apologise for that, contact the cleaners to tell them, and promise to find a sign for me (he never did). Also, the breakfast was pretty limited and poor to be honest, although it was free, so along with the other trivial things, I was prepared to let it go. I was informed by the receptionist in no uncertain times that I must still pay for Sunday night as it was their policy. I contested this, but she insisted in a not-so-polite way. I'd rather have the person's full attention as well instead of having them gabbling on to their colleagues in a foreign language. I'd also read the TripAdvisor comments by this point and found that many people complained about the attitude and rudeness of the staff, but this was nothing compared to what happened later. I found this very strange, as most of the Indians that I meet in the UK are the most friendly and polite people you could ever hope to meet.
In preparation, I looked on the website to see if they had any rooms spare for Sunday night, so that I could shoot down the "you must pay because we couldn't sell the room" argument. They did have at least 5 of them available - at half the price they were charging me too!
When I went down to complain again and insist on being allowed to check out, I indicated that if they were going to charge me for another night, I at least wanted them to fix the TV. The woman on reception denied that HD TV was promised and eventually told me that they didn't have HD and that I was wrong (several times) because the website doesn't promise HD. I showed her the room rate page on my phone. Then she finally got the manager, and he denied it too. So I showed him on their PC that although the hotel details do not indicate HD TV, the individual room rates do list it explicitly. I had also had a quick search of the web for US for the correct magic phrases to use and although US law isn't as strong as UK law is (they don't appear to have anything like as much protection as those summarised well by
Martin Lewis's SAD FART rules) and found "not as described" was what I needed. Once shown the website, the manager acknowledged straight away that it shouldn't have said that and that I was right and offered me a free night ($221, including taxes) which I took - as effectively, that saved me the extra night that they wanted to charge, and it was so late by this point (only an hour before first pitch) that I was in danger of missing most of the game.
I had already researched alternative hotels in Manhattan, and I don't know how I didn't notice some of the deals available there when I searched for hotels last month. I found the Holiday Inn Express Times Square offering a high-floor room for just $40 more than the Long Island city place (and then $140 more for one final night, but I'm prepared to pay that to be somewhere nice.) My room wasn't available when I arrived, but I'd only made the reservation half an hour earlier and I was 4 hours before the check-in time and immediately, the lady offered to store my luggage which I accepted, as I couldn't see any other luggage there, implying that they actually store it properly - unlike the Country Inn & Suites where all the bags were just dumped in the public area in reception! I shall use this facility again on Wednesday to store my luggage until it's time to travel to the airport.
When I returned from the ballgame, I was able to check-in properly which went with no difficulty at all here unlike you-know-where, where they were confused that I'd guaranteed the room with one credit card but wanted to pay with a different one. I received a gift pack of biscuits, water and crisps and the man at the desk was as helpful as possible. He even rang my room 20 minutes later to check that everything was OK.
It has a nice view of Southern Manhattan and the Hudson river across to New Jersey, rather than a taxi repair company's premises which is what I had in Long Island City. Additionally, it's about 2-3 blocks away from a major subway station, so I despite the fact that I'm now in Manhattan, and thus further away from the Mets stadium, the end of the 7 line is here so I can still easily get the 7 train to the Mets games on Monday and Tuesday! The room is clean and doesn't smell odd, the TV works and is HD, the room doesn't look tatty.
I had already researched alternative hotels in Manhattan, and I don't know how I didn't notice some of the deals available there when I searched for hotels last month. I found the Holiday Inn Express Times Square offering a high-floor room for just $40 more than the Long Island city place (and then $140 more for one final night, but I'm prepared to pay that to be somewhere nice.) My room wasn't available when I arrived, but I'd only made the reservation half an hour earlier and I was 4 hours before the check-in time and immediately, the lady offered to store my luggage which I accepted, as I couldn't see any other luggage there, implying that they actually store it properly - unlike the Country Inn & Suites where all the bags were just dumped in the public area in reception! I shall use this facility again on Wednesday to store my luggage until it's time to travel to the airport.
When I returned from the ballgame, I was able to check-in properly which went with no difficulty at all here unlike you-know-where, where they were confused that I'd guaranteed the room with one credit card but wanted to pay with a different one. I received a gift pack of biscuits, water and crisps and the man at the desk was as helpful as possible. He even rang my room 20 minutes later to check that everything was OK.
It has a nice view of Southern Manhattan and the Hudson river across to New Jersey, rather than a taxi repair company's premises which is what I had in Long Island City. Additionally, it's about 2-3 blocks away from a major subway station, so I despite the fact that I'm now in Manhattan, and thus further away from the Mets stadium, the end of the 7 line is here so I can still easily get the 7 train to the Mets games on Monday and Tuesday! The room is clean and doesn't smell odd, the TV works and is HD, the room doesn't look tatty.
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