HotelChatter

My basic king room was suspiciously close to the elevator, but the hotel layout is compact, maybe five rooms per floor, so I was prepared to accept it. The bigger problem was the instant aural assault from next door. I didn't recognize their language, perhaps Japanese, but I recognized their other universal, familiar sounds. It may have been an afternoon delight for them, but it was definitely not for me.

Half an hour, an embarrassed apology from the front desk, and a new, quieter room on a lower floor later, I hoped for clear sailing. Wrong.

Thankfully the room had a comfortable bed, with the crisp, extra-fresh linens that new hotels can do so well. The small bathroom got a lot of bang for the buck, with Ecru toiletries, Frette towels, and a bright white subway-tiled marble shower. But post-shower, my comfort level is instantly diminished when I realize the horror of horrors: where are the bathrobes? The 10 minutes that follow are slow, cold, wet, sad minutes while I wait for the housekeeping oversight to be rectified.

Inside The Distrikt elevator.

And then, mid-morning, the drilling. The skull-shattering, teeth-clattering, soul-crushing drilling that suddenly began about 6" behind my headboard (or very, very close).

I spent the better part of the next hour alternating between business calls and SOS calls to the front desk. Finally, a third person from the front desk told me, vaguely, that it's "the government" doing the drilling and there's nothing they can do. Including, apparently, apologize.*

I love the line from the movie "Flirting With Disaster," when Ben Stiller explains he and his wife "aren't B&B people." As I depart -- and as the doorman ignores me again while tourists stream inside -- I confirm to myself that I'm just not a Distrikt person. Even though they (kinda) tried their best.

*HotelChatter asked the hotel's rep to clarify the construction situation at the hotel and this is what they told us:

We checked with the GM, who says the only complaints the hotel has received since opening is regarding work that is being done on the hotel’s West wall. They do not allow the crew to begin work until 10:00 a,m., and the hammering is sporadic. When the hotel gets a complaint due to someone trying to sleep, they offer to relocate the guest to an unaffected floor.

A new hotel room was again offered to our spy but she was already on the way out, back on the road again.