It's Glory Days are Over
Written: Aug 18 '02 (Updated Aug 19 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great Location
Cons: Past its prime. Bait and Switch Promotions
The Bottom Line: My advice? If you want a Marriott like experience, here it is. If you are looking for a high-end hotel in New York, the Plaza is no longer it.
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| steve-53's Full Review: The Plaza |
We used to be big Plaza fans, staying here on both business and pleasure. Our latest trip to New York had my wife pretty excited about staying here since they had a special promotion for a "Central Park Suite."
We showed up at noon and they said our room wasn't ready, but would put our name in the computer. We were fine knowing there was plenty to do in NY and check in was at 3pm. So we left our bags, and off we went to the theater and dinner. Coming back to check in the bellman takes us to our "Central Park Suite," room 1501. While the room may have been physically somewhere over Central Park. There was no view. In fact, there almost was no window at all! The bedroom had a window 18 inches across, 4 feet off the ground, set 3 feet in, tucked almost unseen in the corner of the room. It was like having a room in the basement.
In the old days a call to the front desk would have gotten a new room or an upgrade (or even someone who acted like they cared that guests were customers.) But instead "Mackenzie" told us there were no more rooms like this in the Plaza and that she couldn't help us. Perhaps she could help us tomorrow, so call back then (like when she was off duty?)
Obviously they ran out of park view rooms and instead of saying "oops, sorry" or "lets make it up to you" they decided that this room met their "park view" criteria." It's a shame since the suite itself was quite nice and spacious and if my wife hadn't been sold on the park view by their reservation people it would have been fine. (While this may just sound like petty griping, we're not talking about Motel 6 rates here. When a room gets past $500 a night you expect it to meet some facsimile of what they promised, or some effort to make it so.)
Its amazing to see hotels make the classic mistake of optimizing revenue for the night while losing two frequent customers revenue forever.
All this was pretty surprising since we think highly of the Fairmont, particularly the one in San Francisco.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
steve-53
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Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
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