The way WE were at the Plaza Hotel
Written: Feb 19 '05 (Updated Feb 19 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: It IS an icon. Surrounded by decadence and poor hospitality
Cons: Icons need touch-ups if they still want to stay in the biz.
The Bottom Line: If it gets a facelift, you may overlook the price for the heck of staying at The Plaza for once. But double-check everything they want to charge you for.
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| elsa70's Full Review: The Plaza |
December 10th was my fiancé’s grandmother’s funeral day. She was our neighbor, and was amiably chatting with us one evening, and the next morning she had passed away. We were grief-stricken.
Late that night, we were in bed talking about how often in life we remember how important our loved ones our to us when they are gone, and that we should do something special for them every once in a while.
My mother lives in Connecticut with my 97-year-old grandmother. I live in Northern Italy. The next day, I went to work as usual, and made reservations for me and my fiancé to spend Christmas Eve with my mother and grandmother. I had been sharing my life (and a roof) for 5 years with a man whom my mother had never met. I suddenly felt the urge to introduce them, and wanted him to meet my grandmother before she too passed away.
Needless to say, I wanted that moment to be memorable.
When travel is your everyday job – I own a travel agency – planning your own getaway is usually quite easy. Within 15 minutes I had made reservations for our British Airways flights and a thought crossed my mind: - My mother used to love high tea at the Palm Court. She used to take me and my brother for Sunday brunch at the Plaza when we were too young and bratty to appreciate it. I made reservations for two rooms for Christmas Eve night at the Plaza Hotel.
I booked through Leading Hotels for a travel agent discounted junior suite room and through Fairmont hotels for a deluxe double room single occupancy for my mother. Leading Hotels generally offers travel agent discounted rates in peak season as well, however the room rate for my mother was lower through Fairmont. Our junior suite room was $ 279,00 plus taxes, my mother’s deluxe room was $ 249,00 plus taxes with complimentary breakfast. Taxes in New York are 13.25% plus 2 USD occupancy charge per person.
I then sent an e-mail to reservations at the hotel for reservations for Christmas brunch at the Palm Court, explaining that my mother’s reservation included breakfast but that the three of us would have brunch the next day, and they replied with a confirmation. Brunch for three would be a total of $ 285,00.
I decided I wasn’t going to tell my mother we were going to say overnight at the Plaza until we met in New York. That would be our Christmas present to her. So a week later we surprised her by telling her we would be visiting for Christmas but not to make any plans for Christmas Eve since we would have liked to attend midnight mass in New York and then drive back to Connecticut.
As I mentioned earlier, I had already been to the Plaza hotel as a child, but had never seen the rooms. Of course – I had taken the elevator from the lobby just like Eloise used to do… But I can’t say I had ever really paid attention to anything in the Plaza hotel when I was 6 years old. And when in my high-school days I lived in New York I hardly ever went uptown. I figured this was going to be an exciting, wonderful experience for all of us.
CHECKING IN AND CHECKING IT OUT
We had an awful outbound flight and my fiancé was really annoyed. (but that’s a whole new Epinion – a one-star review on British Airways). I am used to NY taxi drivers, but the one we got on Christmas Eve actually thought he was driving a sled. Once we got to Central Park South, my eyes were puffy from crying all over Heathrow terminal, and Simone had dry heives.
While Simone catched his breath by the smaller Central Park South entrance to the lobby, I walked in to check-in for both our and my mother’s rooms. I knew for a fact that our rooms were guaranteed for late arrival, and it was only 4:15 P.M. The concierge insisted on taking our luggage as soon as I walked through the bass revolving door. However, when it was my turn, the desk clerk began by telling me that our junior suite was no longer available since it wasn’t guaranteed for late arrival, and that at 4 P.M. the junior suite had been assigned to other guests.
Ok. Take one deep breath. Exhale slowly.
On my left side I had one of those terrible Italian families that are so often my customers who were complaining very loudly about their mini-bar charge expenses, and the clerk who was attending me was visibly distracted by them, so I told her I would wait for the manager to assign us another room. I then asked the Italian guests if they needed any help since they knew no more than ten words in English, three of which were curses. I helped the clerk sort out the Italian man’s problem and then asked her to check with the manager if they could finally assign us a room. She asked me to take a walk (literally) and to come back to the desk in fifteen minutes. I decided to check out the hotel’s lobby and services while Simone was standing outside on the sidewalk smoking a cigarette (yes, we Italians STILL smoke, and in New York we DO feel like morons).
The lobby was very crowded and bustling with tourists, but even on such a hectic afternoon it manages to exude that turn-of-the-1900’s feeling that one would associate with this landmark hotel. The overall impression that the Plaza must give to a common tourist doesn’t disappoint expectations, however I noticed peeling painting in some areas, dirt in the hall’s corners, and other scruffiness such as stained carpets and ruined decorations. On the other side, the stunning Christmas tree in the main lobby made me finally realize that it was Christmas Eve after all, and it seemed all the staff was polite, efficient and cheery even with the curious tourists who were just walking in and taking pictures next to the tree. I then walked past the Palm Court looking for directions to the gym and spa, but couldn’t find a way to get there. I did take a good look at the Boucheron bling in the window displays and stumbled upon the CPS 1 Brassérie - and decided we were definitely not dining there. The prices were sky-high for a French Brassérie, and the menu actually featured only French entrées. However, the décor and the ambience were quite impressive, being it a hotel restaurant. Should one no know where to eat in New York, the Central Park South 1 doesn’t look all that bad.
I then wandered over to the Oak Bar, and saw that they still actually had a smoking area, so ran out and told Simone we could have a cocktail and smoke a cigarette while waiting for our room to be ready. After a Bloody Mary and two Camel Lights I thought it was well time for us to check into our room, whichever that might end up to be.
Travel agents are used to getting bumped off planes, downgraded in hotels, overlooked when it comes to service because of the rates we pay – but I certainly wasn’t expecting Ms. Joelle to tell me we would have to settle for a “Fairmont King” (i.e. standard) room for the same rate as the junior suite. I wasn’t going to accept it, not in front of my fiancé who is constantly complaining about the travel business. I really began unravelling. After about fifteen minutes of discussing with the so-called manager, behaving like the obnoxious Italian guest I had helped out an hour earlier, I finally managed to get ourselves a deluxe double room on the seventh floor overlooking Grand Army Plaza with an extra 40 dollars off our rate and that my mother’s deluxe room would be in the same hallway. OK, so blame it on the Leading Hotels reservations system on Sabre CRS. Whatever.
By that time – 5:30 P.M. – I was badly in need of a cold shower unless I wanted my mother to begin nagging about my physical appearance. “You looked tired”. “You aren’t taking good care of yourself”. “Are you happy with Simone?”. Oh, no. You can never escape from your mother’s nagging. Not even when you’re 35 and living an ocean apart.
We finally got our brass key and went up to our room with a bellman that eerily reminded me of Abraham Lincoln, but who had apparently witnessed our trouble getting our room and was very sympathetic. He even refused to be tipped. The Eloise elevator made some strange sounds, and I am a tad claustrophobic, but I guess the old-fashioned noisy cabin is part of the hotel’s charm, and it did get me to a narrow wood panelled hallway, to pale blue carpeting, to a dark wood door, to our room.
OUR ROOM WITH A VIEW
We walk into room 812 and.. Just the view we had actually made up instantly for all the past and future upsets.
There is no city like New York, and looking down at the lights of the city on a festive day made it feel so much more like a real treat.
However, Simone, who is after all a cold-hearted man, noticed immediately that the curtains were terribly soiled, that the pale blue carpet had shades of grey and stains all over the place, and that there was dirt underneath our bed. I decided to overlook it all. The bed’s mattress was comfortable, but we didn’t understand why our sécretaire hid a laser printer and a keyboard if there was no HD. My take on it was that the printer was to be jacked into your own laptop. Simone believes someone stole the computer altogether.
I don’t like stuffy French Louis XIV replica furniture ever, and the furniture wasn’t even that good of a fake. But I suppose French is somehow the main theme of the Plaza – or was at one time. The room seemed smaller than it probably was, anyway.
I was VERY disappointed by the bathrobe. This must sound ridiculous, I know, but I have a dozen of Frette items at home, and all of them are plush, soft and luxurious. The Plaza engraved Frette bathrobe had nothing to do with real Frette towels and bathrobes except for the tag - trust me on that. The bath supplies weren’t good enough to take home, and I collect them. But I still use the Plaza matches as of today.
The chairs badly needed upholstering and one of the bedside lamps wasn’t working. But what the heck. Who cares, after all. I’ve seen worse, albeit not at a travel agent’s rate of $ 249.
But the worst according to me was the bathroom. I don’t care how romantic or emotional an old bathtub should be… I thought our bathroom was disgusting. The bathtub was yellowish and mucked with lime, and the shower just drizzled. The sink had the same problem with the encrusted yellowish stains and looked as though it hadn’t been cleaned properly in ages. There was dirt all over the windowsill – and I could see it through the VERY dim lighting. I felt like showering with my clothes on. I didn’t mention it at all, however. I quietly managed to shower, walk barefoot on the carpet to the bed and take a power nap. I then left Simone snoring on the bed (fully clothed himself, since the bed covers weren’t in tiptop shape either) and went downstairs to check in for my mother and see if I could do some last-minute shopping before closing time at Bergdorf Goodman’s.
Luckily I rushed into the store before I asked for my mother’s key because the store closed at 7 and it was 6:30. I managed to buy 4 presents before I was practically ushered out the doors. I then returned to the clerk hoping not to have to discuss with Joelle once more.
MY MOTHER’S ROOM WITH NO VIEW
But no, of course there SEEMED to be a problem with my mother’s reservation as well. Joelle comes around the corner once more and apologizes to me that because of security reasons, she cannot give me my mother’s room key. Plus, my mother’s room was 536, and that meant it was not going to be on our same floor, and would not have the same view we had, but I was assured it would face Central Park. I had jetlag, was hungry, hadn’t been smoking all day except for those two cigarettes I had practically smuggled into the Oak Bar, so I said: “Fine. Have it your way. I give up. All I can say is our business will no longer be doing business with your business. But please, let ME pay for my MOTHER’S bill at least, and let me do so NOW.” That couldn’t be done either. So I figured I’d come down at dawn in Christmas morning with my nightie on and pay the bill. That would serve them right – plus I could see it as a pretty good take for a scene on a Home Alone remake.
Forget about asking the concierge to make reservations for dinner or anything, I settled on the idea of calling a restaurant myself given the lack of service I had been greeted with. A travel agent manager belonging to a high-profile business travel group, no less. Go figure. So by now it's 7:35, I am expecting my mother to call us any minute and I still don't know where we'll eat. Let me try the Ocean Grill just in case.
BINGEING AND BRAINSTORMING ON CHRISTMAS DAY
Well, everything went marvellously after all; my mother was in seventh heaven, she was overwhelmed by the surprise, we managed to go to dinner in a favorite uptown old spot of mine and even got to midnight mass at Saint Thomas on Fifth. It seemed my mother didn’t even realize she had a room with virtually no view whatsoever, and actually her bathroom was in better shape than ours. We decided to meet the next morning at 11.30 in the lobby for Christmas brunch.
On Christmas morning at ten thirty, I went to the desk to recommend the clerks not to allow my mother to pay the bill. They registered my credit card as form of payment for both rooms. I went off to check out the gym that I had finally located – I am not a fan of hotel gyms, so all I can say is that it has three treadmills, four spinning bikes, a Turkish steam bath, some other lame device and one of those weird hot/cold showers we call Scottish and that if by chance happens to happen to your own shower at home you call a plumber immediately. Plus a massage salon closed for the holidays. Nothing noteworthy.
We met at the main lobby at 11:30, and were immediately escorted to our table at the Palm Court. Although our Italian waiter’s service was somewhat hurried and approximate – he forgot our orange juice and served us American coffee – he warmed up to us as soon as he heard us speak Italian. I must say that the buffet at the Palm Court was BY FAR the best brunch I have ever had in a hotel. The food was truly spectacular, and I believe we all had at least four helpings. I was so embarrassed to get up from our table time and time again after glancing at the other guests – who mostly appeared to be New Yorkers meeting with family to exchange presents – picking at their fruit salad… At one point one of the waiters actually mentioned that I had a pretty hefty appetite for such a tiny figure (which I’m really not, since I wear a size 8 on my best days).
Of course, the decorations at the Palm Court are overwhelming, bordering on kitch. But on Christmas day it was absolutely perfect. They had a string quartet playing Bach, Strauss and Christmas carols, excellent service at the buffet, and the entire setting had a very festive yet distinctive décor. The linens were beautiful and even the silverware was antique and polished. A far cry form the bathroom seven floors upstairs from there.
We spent almost two hours stuffing ourselves and chatting amiably, and we nitpicked at the hotel’s assets and shortcomings - meeting your mother-in-law isn't easy conversation grounds. We all agreed on the carpeting having to go. We all could care less about it being originally form the fifties or whatever; pale blue – or peach in my mother’s case – carpeting needs to be replaced OFTEN. My mother found the “antique” bathroom charming, but then again even though she’s lived in Italy for a quarter of a century she still remains an American at heart… And I have come to notice living in a country steeped in ancient history that anything older than fifty for an American is historical, whereas for Italians it is plain old unless it’s from the 1800’s or earlier.
My mother’s room had actually better upholstering, had clearly been renovated in I’d say the past decade, and was cleaner than ours. Her curtains were just grayish, probably from city pollution. Our room had probably been cleared out in a hurry, but that still doesn’t justify the lint underneath the bed, the soiled curtains and dirty windowsills, and I clean our bathrooms at home far better that what the Plaza’s maid service does in room 812.
At one o’clock I asked my mother to go ask for her car to be brought up to the main lobby since she had asked for valet parking once we had told her we were staying overnight. We had already left our rooms at 11:30 and I just went to sign the bill, o so I thought.
The brunch at Palm Court was not 95 dollars apiece, but 195 dollars each. They had charged us the full 279 dollars for the junior suite that not only didn’t we get, but didn’t get a chance to visit either. They had charged us for a bottle of Evian – we DID have a bottle of empty Evian water in our room…that I had purchased at JFK. And the bill they wanted me to sign didn’t contemplate my mother’s room or her brunch. In typical Italian fashion, Simone told me to just sign the bill and leave, but I insisted on having things settled the proper way, although that meant my mother would walk in any minute and want to pay for her own.
It took us – me at the front desk, Simone trying to keep my mother busy – 50 minutes to get into my mother’s car and leave. And I managed to pay for my mother’s room, I ended up paying $ 319,97 for my own room, and 585 dollars for brunch, regardless of the e-mail I had along with me stating brunch was 95 per person. They did detract 23 dollars on my mother’s bill because I insisted she did not have breakfast and brunch, and they refused to detract the 40 dollars because of our room downgrading. I happened to have the receipt from the stand at JFK where I had purchased my half-liter Evian bottle of water the previous day for $ 4,12 so they didn’t charge me the $12,95 for the mini bar after all. I even hate Evian water. I never drink it in Italy OR in France. I suddenly felt myself warming up to that poor Italian guy who was swearing at the top of his lungs the day before – his 12-year-old daughter probably never did unscrew the Veuve Cliquot cap off the tiny bottle they were charging him 45 dollars for.
I I had not taken a stand, they would have charged me over $ 100,00 more than what I should have paid. Even so, they still got away with an extra 40 dollars, not to mention the mistake concerning the Palm Court. I spent more than two and a half hours at the front desk, and for one night and brunch, on a travel agent's discount, I ended up spending over $1,100. Luckily the Euro is pretty high compared to the dollar, but it's certainly not pennies.
Abraham Lincoln actually bid me farewell while I was walking away from the front desk. When I turned right, the Italian waiter was serving a right-corner table at the Palm Court and said, “arrivederci e Buon Natale signora bella, è stato un piacere servirla oggi” (goodbye and merry Christmas pretty lady, it ahs been a pleasure to serve you today). The bellmen at the revolving doors weren’t allowing tourists to enter the Plaza hotel on Christmas Day unless they had reservations, and for the first time since I had set foot at the Plaza hotel, I felt one of the lucky few. I finally felt privileged.
Just the awe of excitement on my mother’s face throughout the few hours we spent at the Plaza Hotel were well worth the expense and all the trouble I went through. But from a professional’s point of view ? Well.
Let me tell you that on this week - Fashion Week in NYC - I had trouble finding rooms for my customers and the Plaza was still selling consortia and corporate rates, and I booked people at the Essex House for the same price the Plaza was selling at.
I have a number of favorites I always recommend to my customers, on any budget scale – the Peninsula, the Pierre or the Sherry Netherland for a first-class hotel on Fifth, the Drake for business travellers, the Iroquois for a quaint, charming, small luxury hotel, the Algonquin, the Carlton or the Helmsley Park Lane for their quality/price ratio when they have specials...Down to the Chelsea Inn, the Washington Square or Gershwin hotels for young hip people on a budget….
I would never recommend the Plaza hotel to anyone at this point, unless they specifically ask me, and then I still would have some…reservations.
Nevertheless, it was fun, for once, to walk out of a landmark and feel as though I was an extra on some movie from the past. Whether it felt like the staff hadn’t been briefed on customer service since he Way We Were or the draperies hadn’t been taken to laundry services since North from Northwest is I guess a (sky-high) price to pay if you want to sleep in an “ancient” icon. I do seriously hope they clean up their act and their rooms soon, however: even the Trevi Fountain gets thorough cleaning every once in a while. And no one takes a bath in it since La Dolce Vita.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
elsa70
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Location: Ciao, baby.
Reviews written: 33
Trusted by: 24 members
About Me:
temporarily out of order. ZZZZZZZ.
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