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Is The Crosby Street Hotel Being Stingy With Room Keys?

Where: 79 Crosby Street [map], New York, NY, United States, 10012

*Update* We have since heard back from Crosby Street's head concierge, who tells us that it is not the hotel's policy to not provide more than one room key. He apologized and said he would make the GM aware of our tipster's experience.

As one of the first guests to check into the Crosby Street Hotel earlier this month, we were wowed by a lot of what the hotel had to offer, particularly the design and the tenor of service. Likewise, an anonymous tipster wrote to let us know that the spacious king-sized room they stayed in at the Crosby recently was “tasteful and fresh and charming and stylish, as was the hotel lobby space.”

What our tipster loved: “the room decor, right down to the pin-stripe wall coverings; the bed; bathroom and products; the well-insulated room and silent night of sleep; the elegant room service presentation at breakfast; and the thoughtful gift box of pencils waiting for me upon arrival.”

What our tipster DID NOT LOVE (all caps theirs): “that I couldn’t get two room keys. I’ve never heard of such a thing. According to the woman at the front desk, their fancy-pants sensor-key system does not warrant handing out two keys.”

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Tags: Hotel Technology / Room Keys / → All Tags

Will You Someday Use Your Cellphone to Open Your Hotel Room Door?

USA Today has a half-hearted report on the emerging room key technologies in hotels these days. We say half-hearted because there's no technology mentioned that gets us really excited about staying in a hotel room in the future.

For instance, the Plaza Hotel when it finally opens whenever that may be will use radio-frequency key-cards that can unlock your room door when swiped past the lock at close range. That's kinda cool. It can save us the frustration of trying to swipe a keycard thats been demagnetized against our knowledge.

There's also talk of creating a papercard which would look and work exactly like the plastic keycard, except it's more environmentally-friendly. This sounds nice until the paper gets squashed in our purse.

Lastly, Accor Hotels is testing out a new lock that opens when guests' cellphones or PDAs are flashed in front of the door. Now, this is some great hotel technology. We imagine your cellphone is programmed at the front desk to open your room and your room only. Wouldn't want people breaking into rooms just by flashing their BlackBerrys around.

Sadly, they say it will be years before this type of lock becomes common in hotel rooms.

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