HotelChatter

Seattle Hotels / Boutique Hotels / NYT Hotel Reviews / → All Tags

Arctic Club Hotel Forgets the Little Things

Where: 700 3rd Avenue [map], Seattle, WA, United States, 98104

The New York Times checked into the Arctic Club Hotel this weekend and came back with a review that reads like your girlfriend’s account of why she finally broke up with that guy who was sooooo good looking, but inattentive.

The Times loved the hotel’s “dashing” back story—it’s on the National Register of Historic Places, having been designed in 1916—and it’s “handsome, spacious L-shaped rooms,” but as the writer’s mother often says, “handsome is as handsome does,” and it’s in the things that matter where the Arctic Club Hotel falls short.

The writer and his family arrived “to find no one to greet us or take our bags,” leaving them to haul their own luggage. Their room was without the promised coffees or teas, an inexcusable offense for sure, but the final insult came when the writer had to fix his own toilet that wouldn’t flush. (Though it’s unclear whether the writer called the front desk for help before taking matters into his own—hopefully eventually washed—hands.)

The bottom line? Despite the witty design and accommodating staff, “the hotel still isn’t getting the details right,” and so the Times dropped the Arctic Club Hotel like a bad habit.