Tablet Gently Ushers You Into the World of Soft Openings

February 24, 2009 at 10:04 AM | by Jenna | 2 Comments

We've been telling you for ages now that stalking an upcoming hotel to find out about its soft opening — that is, that shaky period when the hotel opens its doors before every part of the hotel is up and running and fully functional — can score you a killer opening rate and a chance to check out the place early. You've gotta be brave, though: most of the time, not all public spaces are ready to go, sometimes the kitchens aren't up and running, and some amenities may be missing.

Now Tablet Hotels is telling you the same thing — albeit a little bit late (but we'll get to that part in a minute).

Tablet has just introduced "Tablet Spy", which they're touting as "your look inside the most eagerly anticipated new hotels, before they're officially opening." They're offering special Tablet-exclusive opening rates for guests who are down to stay in properties still in their soft opening stages. After your stay, you're supposed to give Tablet a rundown of your experience to "help decide whether the finished property is a Tablet-caliber hotel."

We can totally get behind this; it's like they're gently ushering you into the world of newly-opened properties! Oh, and when we said "a little bit late", we were referring to the hotels they've chosen to launch the promo with: the Cooper Square and The Standard New York, both of which have had their doors open for a couple months now (though both are technically still in their soft opening stages).

The Tablet Spy rates for tomorrow night? $255.00 for Cooper Square; $255.00 for the Standard NYC (we paid $215 for our room at the Standard last month). Rezzies can be made for Cooper Square here and for the Standard here.

2 Comments

Return to » Tablet Gently Ushers You Into the World of Soft Openings

markj
HotelChatter

Tablet Spy
I love Tablet, but let's face it their first priority is to sell us the hotel goods. They work directly with the hotels to sell rooms. Treating hotels with kid gloves is not something we do 'round these parts. Anyway, always nice to see more hotel talk round the web, especially from the great folks at Tablet.

February 24, 2009 at 10:36 AM

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PaddyBoySmiff
HotelChatter Member

whats really going on inside this place
Since Dec 11th 2008
Cooper Square Hotel located on Bowery between 5th & 6th street opened up, each and everyone of us put forth 110% into this job. Thinking we were all going to be taken care of in the sense that we all work long hard hours for the money that we were supposed to make. In return it more or less feels like we were just bought in to deal with the front end of a opening and to be taken advantage of. Over the course of two months the promise of things getting better became old as we all were working on average 12hr shifts with no, or very little break. In this process the people who issue our checks in the front office were taken 30 min out of each shift for breaks we were never giving. On top of this we were working with out a ice machine, or a glass washer, and we had a bar on wheels. This letter is to make sure that we can get what is owed or to make sure this kind of stuff does not happen to people who work at the Cooper Square Hotel. Every other department in this Hotel works eight hours, 30 min break in and out the door, Food & Bev were completely thrown under the bus to deal with what we all thought was going to be basic bar work which is labor intense to a certain point, but the pay becomes worth it. This hotel had and did not offer any of this stuff, and in the long run took money that we worked for, from breaks that we were never giving.

March 4, 2009 at 5:29 PM

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