For my wife's birthday, I decided to spoil her for her present by taking her for a long weekend into NYC at a VERY posh hotel. Major brownie points right? Well let me tell you how the first day went...

To maximize our time in NYC, I booked us on a 6am flight, which had us arriving at 10:45 after the layover at O'Hare. Good thinking, except for the part where you have to get to the airport an hour before the flight, and getting up an hour before that to shower & dress, etc. 4am is EARLY!

The flight went off without a hitch, and I had even arranged for transportation to the hotel, rather than having to fight for a taxi. So when we get to the bagage area, I look over all of the chauffers' signs to find my name.

No name.

So I call the company, and they said "You were supposed to call when you are ready." At this point, I was a bit confused, as I had confirmed a day earlier and they had my flight information. As I tried to explain this to the operator, they said "no, you call when you are ready to be picked up." I then informed them I was ready... DUH! So then I was told to wait outside and the driver would come by to pick us up in about 5 min.

A black econoline van picks us up, which was not quite what I expected, but I went with it. He did know what he was doing, as to avoid traffic, we got to see some very choice parts of Queens on our way to the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan.

We roll up to the hotel at about 11am. Drop the bags and try to check in. Nope, check in is at 3pm, but we'll have the bags sent to your room. So we head out to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (a truly amazing place if you haven't been) and tour until 4:15.

We get back to the hotel at 4:30 and try to get out room keys. "Hmmm," says the receptionist, "the room doesn't seem to be ready yet. Let me call up to the manager to verify this. It'll only take 5 min."

So we wait for 10 minutes with no answer at the counter. The receptionist then says, "why don't you have a seat in the lobby and I'll come and let you know the status." Fine... so we go and sit. We've already been up for 12 hrs, and the wife is starting to get cranky, but I do my best to calm her down. You know merde happens, and I'm generally an easy-going kinda guy.

At 5:00 with no notice from the receptionist, I head back to the counter. He says, "It seems that the people who were in the room we had reserved for you left their luggage in it, and we can't remove it by law. I am having another room rush cleaned for you, and to make up for the delay, let me get you some free breakfast coupons for the length of your stay." Well, that's ok, the room will be ready in 15, and we'll be able to make our dinner reservation at 7:15.

5:30 rolls around and still no notice from the receptionist, so once again I head back to the counter. He says that it is still being cleaned, so have a couple of drinks on the house (prints off some more coupons) and claims that he'll come and get us in the bar.

At this point, we're not much in the mood to drink, so we go back and sit in the lobby. The wife is almost in tears due to exhaustion and stress. I calm her down again and go to the concierge to get them to hopefully change the reservations to 8:30. After the concierge fights through the restaurant's phone system three times, she finally gets our reservation changed.

6:20 rolls around and still no notice from the receptionist, so I head up once again. He says, "Again, I'm very sorry for the delay, the room is ready now, your room is on the 19th floor... here are the keys. Enjoy your stay."

We get to the room, tip the bellman and check out the digs. The view is nice, but the bed doesn't look quite right. I reserved a King Suite, and this bed is Queen, bordering on Double. So I call down to the desk to ask about this oversight, and at this point I'm only dealing with the manager. He says "You weren't told this was a Queen Suite? I'm sorry... let me check for another room for you. *clicketty click* Ahh, here's one on the 8th floor. Shall I send the bellman up to help you move?" I guess...

Ten minutes later a different bellman comes up... so I have to tip him too. >

He takes us to the new room and says "I'm sorry, I don't have any keys for you, but I'll let you in with the master key." He does and I ask him to send the manager up with the keys.

It is now 6:45, and the manager get to our room. He hands us our keys and is quite appologetic. I'm past the point of dealing with him, suffice it to say I made him aware of our displeasure, and I'll talk with him tomorrow.

While we start to get ready I notice that the room seems kind of warm, so I go over to the thermostat to turn it down. There's not lights on it, so I look to see how to turn it on... nothing.

So after we're ready to go, we leave the room and just to play it safe, I try the keys in the door... they don't work, so I go up to the reception desk AGAIN and ask to have the keys reprogramed to open my room, oh and while we're out to dinner, could you have a maintenance person go and look at the A/C unit in my room?

We have a wonderful dinner and get back at 11pm dead tired. We get into the room, but the A/C is still out. I see the message waiting light blinking on the phone. The first message is the front desk appologizing for the fact that the A/C unit can't be fixed and that if we need some fans, just let them know. We could sleep through anything at this point, so that's what we do.

The next morning, on our way to the free brakfast, the Manager sees me and comes over. He appologizes again and says that if we have our bags packed before we go out today, he will personally move them to our new room. He assures me that it is one of their finest, but it isn't quite ready yet, as the conference that was using it had extra tables and chairs in there, but they will be removed by the time I check in. In addition, he has arranged a stretch limo to take us back to the airport.

After some sleep & free breakfast, that sounds pretty good to make up for yesterday. Move out extra chairs? What kind of room is this?

See attached pictures... needless to say, we didn't want to leave on Sunday.

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That is one swanky room!

Too bad you got off to a rocky start, but it sounds like it ended with a bang.

So....another little Gumby running around saying "My Head Hurts" in about nine or so months?



Rob

Quote: Originally Posted by Rob So....another little Gumby running around saying "My Head Hurts" in about nine or so months?

I didn't tell you all, but the pregnancy I posted about earlier miscarried. Everything is back to normal and we're working on it again with gusto... that's be best part anyways

I'll let you know again if we get some good news.

Wow thats a pimpish room!

and what hotel is this..so no one goes though the same trouble? lol maybe they were having an off day...after all we are human..

but NYC..is a little hectic...it was fun when i went.

My dad runs a hotel. Just complain nicely and you'll get nearly anything you want.

when i read the part about them not being able to remove the luggage in the room, i thought that it was probably another screw up and that was your luggage that they had put in their earlier ...

That was amazing ! Also sounds like everything worked out alright _despite_ how it started off.

Quite a trip - good job on managing it

Excellent write up Gumby. I'm glad everything worked out for you and your wife.