HotelChatter

I travel to NYC quite a bit on business. I like to stay in the midtown area for easy access to clients, but outside the crush of Times Square.

For years, I've alternated between the W Court, W Tuscany (both now owned by St.Giles), the local Kimpton properties and Le Meridian.

Let's compare two recent stays. Two weeks apart.

The 90 Park Kimpton property gave me a great room with a view, a hand written "welcome back" note and free wine each evening. The room was small but cozy and they treated me well.

For the following week, I went one block east and stayed at the St.Giles Court. Despite showing up on a bedbug tracking site (the Kimpton did not), I thought I would tempt fate. I got a good rate and this was one of my standbys from when it was a W. I wanted to see how it changed under St. Giles.

First off, the service was not great. I had requested an extra bed and they totally missed that request. I had to ask three times before finally someone brought a bed upstairs.

The room was a good size but dirty. The shower stall had hair and something gross smeared on a tile.

To cap off the experience, I left my iPhone charging on the night table. I checked out and forgot my phone in the room. I knew exactly where I left it and called the hotel to see if they could mail it to me. No-one checked into the room after me but mysteriously the phone was gone. Poof. No record of it at all. On top of this, I found two mysterious $100 charges made to my credit card from the hotel. Neither were on my invoice at check out.

It's too bad. This used to be a nice hidden gem. Now it's just a shabby old W with poor service and my iPhone.