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Tags: Refereeing Hotel Reviews / W Hotels / Washington DC Hotels / → All Tags
The W's 'Congress of Cool' Gets Some Partisan Reviews
It’s been two months since the doors swung wide at what's arguably DC’s most hyped hotel opening of the year — the W, duh — so we thought we’d check back in on the swirling review chatter, especially now that people are talking about the hotel itself and not just the rooftop POV bar.
Over at TripAdvisor, it’s registering with a 68% approval rating. Not too shabby. But true to DC form, people seem to be awfully partisan when it comes to the Congress of Cool, making reviews range from scathing to glowing.
Tags: Refereeing Hotel Reviews / Hotel Blogs / Hotel Delays / Hotel Hype / → All Tags
What's Happening With The Allegria Hotel on Long Island?
Ouch. The Allegria Hotel and Spa at Long Beach is only just opening up but it's already attracted a bunch of negative reviews – at least on TripAdvisor where so far, no less than four people have complained about problems connected to their opening date – thanks to one of our dedicated HotelChatter tipsters for pointing this out.
Someone's whining because they had to cancel their planned wedding when the hotel finally admitted they wouldn't be open in time, and someone else had this for an attempted booking experience:
I called to make a reservation to inquire as to availability. The lady on the phone said"We have no rooms" and hung up. SO RUDE.
Um, Stephanie Tanner, is that you?
Tags: Refereeing Hotel Reviews / TripAdvisor / New Haven Hotels / → All Tags
The Study at Yale Passes With Flying Colors, So Says Recent Reviewers
Our inner geeks have been pretty excited about New Haven’s new-ish hotel, the Study at Yale, ever since the place opened last year. But until we pay the hotel a visit ourselves, we’ll have to rely on our steamy fantasy involving a rendezvous with a hunky Visiting Scholar. Er, also, the TripAdvisor reviews, which are impressively positive—13 “excellent” ratings and one “very good.” Apparently even the doormen are “dapper!”
A few highlights:
* “The only other choices near the university are a Courtyard by Marriott that in our experience could use a good cleaning, and the Omni, which is good but overpriced for what it is -- so The Study is a wonderful, welcome addition for visitors who are looking to stay near Yale,” writes TA user Oliver001.
Tags: NYLO Hotels / Refereeing Hotel Reviews / Dallas Hotels / → All Tags
NYLO Las Colinas' First Baby Steps Appear to Be Steady
NYLO Las Colinas opened its doors in July with a lovely ribbon-cutting ceremony, after lots of anticipation and a whole lotta slowdown with the chain's expansion. Better late than never on this one, we suppose — the NYLO chain has been a fave of HC's since the first property opened in Dallas in winter of 2007, and its middle child was born in Warwick, Rhode Island and now Irving, Texas (Las Colinas) boasts the third property in the still-young chain.
So, how does property number three appear to be faring? So far, so good — at least according to the lone review of the place on TripAdvisor.
Tags: Refereeing Hotel Reviews / Manhattan Hotels / TripAdvisor / → All Tags
What Makes This Hotel the 'Number One' Place to Stay in NYC?
Hey, ever heard of the Inn New York City? Neither had we, really. A quickie search through the HC archives (which go back — way, way back) was fruitless, and racking our brains turned up nothing. Why were we searching far and wide for info about this hotel, you ask? Because, according to TripAdvisor, Inn New York City is the very best hotel in all of the Big Apple. Hmm.
We know TripAdvisor is not always the undisputed bastion of accurate and consistent (or even sometimes real) reviews, and we also know that just because we haven't talked about it doesn't mean it's not good — but really, what makes this the supposed best hotel in all of NYC? Let's investigate.
Tags: Refereeing Hotel Reviews / Checking In On / Hotel Openings / → All Tags
The Roosevelt New Orleans Gets Its First Reviews
The Roosevelt New Orleans re-opened this month, with a brand new Waldorf-Astoria Collection flag, newly-renovated rooms, and a pretty hefty and impressive history — but is all the hype and hooplah worth it? How are guests feeling about the place?
Natch, we checked in on the property at TripAdvisor — and, sadly, there are only two reviews of the iconic hotel that have come in so far.
Still, reviews are...good, if not bland. As usual, there are some service glitches to work out. One guest who called the hotel "beautiful, beautiful, beautiful" also said this:
I waited an hour for breakfast and it was alright,waited a bit for valet parking to bring my car but there was a lot of construction in the area. Overall you will not be disappointed with this hotel-I would most certainly go back
Another guest added this (and, um, sic):
The shower was the best thing during my stay multple jets and sit down. The king bed very comfortable, very small rooms but in new orleans your not suppose to be in them..... the restaurants and bars service was excellent when you received it. I walked out once out of the bar after waiting 15 min for service and walked out at the restuartant once waiting on service after 10 mintues.... food is expensive but good.
Rates are still sitting under $200, and the famed Blue Room lounge should be open by the end of July.
[Photo: Judi Bottoni, AP via USA Today]
Tags: Refereeing Hotel Reviews / W Hotels / Washington DC Hotels / → All Tags
First Reviews of the W Washington DC: The Good, Bad, and Ugly
It’s been a little more than two weeks since the W checked into DC, and we’ve been anxiously prowling the web for the first reviews. Sadly, the only TA review so far just covers the rooftop bar. Over on Yelp, we found a slightly more comprehensive overview — again, more of which focused on the POV bar than the hotel guest experience.
The Good: The one guest review we can find was decently positive, which is encouraging. “The renovation that they have done to transform the old Hotel Washington into a W is very impressive, and it's cool to see all the W glitz superimposed onto a stodgy old Washington building. I found the staff helpful and friendly.” Of course, there are a few caveats: “One major drawback — having one elevator devoted to the POV crowd is annoying, since they only have 3 elevators, and each is small.” Ah yes, we can attest that those elevators can get pretty majorly backed up — but really, we're not sure what can they do to solve that issue.
Tags: Refereeing Hotel Reviews / Manhattan Hotels / Reader Reviews / → All Tags
Sounds Like Someone Had a Good Time at the Greenwich Hotel
Every so often we feature a hotel review from one of our readers that we feel should be shared with the rest of you dear hotel guests. These reviews are highlighted because they are timely, about cool hotels in cool places and are relatively level-headed. Think you can submit one just like this? Send it in.
We've given the Greenwich Hotel a fair amount of heckling around here — we have a somewhat tumultuous history with the Robert DeNiro-owned place — but we quite enjoyed this review, which landed in our inbox over the weekend.
Hey, at least someone had a kickass time at the Greenwich. And there is a possible Will Ferrell sighting, too.
From an enthusiastic, very satisfied Greenwich guest (spelling in context, where applicable):
My great stay was in Tribecca at the Greenwich Hotel where I encountered the most friendly service from front desk to concierge to GM all of whom managed to positively welcome me and the physical property is luxe in a very subtle in it's eclectic mix of reclaimed civil war era wood and modern appointments to include the basics but also bose dock for iPod and phone charging and playing, free goodies at the in-room snack basket and drinks all excepting alcohol drinks which are not free of course. The spa is over the moon, particularly the pool which is saline and out of a design mag, with private steam showers in the changing room.
Will Farrell was the only other client working out, which also was cool for me.
The introductory corporate rate for this property was $429 for a King bed, down from a rack (ex-hotelier) of $579. It was a lot of bang for the buck. I am referring it to all my NYC business traveller friends.
Tags: W South Beach / Hotel Openings / Trip Advisor / Refereeing Hotel Reviews / → All Tags
W South Beach Gets Its First Review
We're sick of seeing renderings of the W South Beach. Got a real snapshot of the new hotel? Send it to us.
As we'd been highly (highly) anticipating for a very long time now, W South Beach is now open. Glorious! And after its inaugural weekend, the place has gotten its very first review on TripAdvisor. Even more glorious.
Not so glorious: it's not very good.
Okay, yes, so it's the very first review on TripAdvisor — we understand that one person's experience does not necessarily represent the quality and performance of a brand new hotel (nor is the quality and performance of a brand new hotel necessarily representative of how the hotel's going to operate later on), but it's worth taking a look at only because it's the very first review.
Tags: TripAdvisor / Refereeing Hotel Reviews / Hotel News / Christopher Elliott / → All Tags
Is TripAdvisor Removing Some of Those Fraud Warnings?
Last week, we were pretty excited when it was brought to our attention that TripAdvisor was stepping in to referee certain hotel reviews submitted to the site that appear fraudulent or, you know, like good ol' PR copy posted by folks affiliated with the property to manipulate rankings.
But now maybe TA is stepping back — Christopher Elliott asks on Twitter:
Tipster says @TripAdvisor has quietly been removing "attempted to manipulate" warnings from selected reviews. Anyone else seen this?
Hmm — could TA be backing down on this? We did mention we thought it was possible that these big ol' red warnings splashed across the top of hotels' pages may serve more to remind visitors about the way the site can be easily manipulated; maybe they agree?
Anyone seen this? Let us know.
Tags: TripAdvisor / Refereeing Hotel Reviews / Hotel News / → All Tags
TripAdvisor Keeps It Real by Calling Out Potentially-Fake Reviews
You know what's the worst? Cruising over to TripAdvisor to check out some unbiased, honest guests reviews — but stumbling upon a collection of reviews that look like they were written by a PR person or an on-property marketing department. We've gotten pretty good at spotting those and calling them out (see our Refereeing Hotel Reviews series for a couple examples of sneaky PR folks at work), but TripAdvisor has started to take notice too. And they're taking action.
Jeff over at Beat of Hawaii recently blogged about a warning he'd come across on the TA page for Hotel Renew in Hawaii; a big red box chillin' on the page that reads:
TripAdvisor has reasonable cause to believe that either this property or individuals associated with the property may have attempted to manipulate our popularity index by interfering with the unbiased nature of our reviews. Please take this into consideration when researching your travel plans.
That's right. Called out.
Tags: TripAdvisor / Refereeing Hotel Reviews / Hotel News / Business Hotels / → All Tags
TripAdvisor Launches Business Travel Center
We love us some TripAdvisor over 'round these parts. When a new hotel opens and we want to get a good look at what guests are saying about the place — or we want to compare our opinions against the thoughts of the general public — we head on over to trusty TA to check out what people are saying about the amenities, the romance factor, the service, etc.
But when we're traveling on business and we need to know specifics, like how close a hotel is to our meeting location and whether or not the business center provides free copies, we don't really dig having to wade through the dozens of reviews that describe how the hotel's concierge was instrumental in orchestrating a marriage proposal or how the restaurant had no food that children could eat.
So last week, TA heard our cries and launched a new "Business Travel Center": business travelers "can now specifically sort reviews written by business travelers about their business trip stays at hotels, and see rankings that display hotels that best cater to business travelers." Ooooh. So now, separate from a hotel's general Popularity Index (you know, "#1 in San Diego" and whatnot), there is now a Business Popularity Index that will rank hotels based on popularity specifically for business travel.
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