My family and I stayed at the Park Plaza over Thanksgiving 2003. I had been to many functions there throughout the years, and had always been impressed with their conference/function facilities. Upon check-in, however, I quickly found that the beauty and glitz of the public areas does not extend to the rooms.

We had 2 rooms, and they were on different floors. To my eyes, however, they were nearly identical except that one was slightly larger. My first impression was one of disappointment. The wall paper was peeling, the bathroom looked as though it had not been updated since it was installed in the 1920s excluding a new shower, and the carpet had seen better days. On top of all that, it was about 10 degrees colder in the room than in the hallway.

Let me start with the bathroom. The bathroom was done in the horrible pink tile that most cheap landlords install in the bathrooms of apartments for college students (at least I have found that to be the norm in the Boston area). Many tiles were chipped and broken. The bathroom itself was so small that there was no way 2 people could brush their teeth at the same time. As with most older bathrooms, it gave the distinct impression of being dirty. I have managed to convince myself it is due to the age and not the housekeeping.

Our room had 2 double beds that did have luxuriously soft bedding, and the best pillows I have ever found in a hotel. That turned out to be very necessary, as the heat was broken in our room and the whole time we were there we spent under the covers trying to warm up. We checked in at about 10:30 at night. When we got into our room, the thermostat read 62 degrees. We turned it up, first to 75, then as high as it would go, but nothing we did caused any heat to be emited from the radiators. They were actually cold to the touch. A call to the front desk brought a maintenance man to our room about half an hour later, but all he did was turn up the thermostat as high as it would go. He then said if we continued to have problems to call again, which we did, but no one ever came back.

As soon as we checked in, my 18 year old brother went to the hotel restaurant to get something for dinner as he was starving. I should be clear here that there are a number of restaurants that are attached to the Park Plaza (Todd English's Bonfire, M.J. O'Connor's, McCormick and Schmick's, etc) but they are not run by the hotel. They do have a small restaurant but I would recommend going anywhere else in the area before eating there. The host was very upset that my brother asked to be seated at 11:00 pm, and made it very clear that they closed in half an hour and he should hurry up. He had such a horrible attitude that my brother left without ordering.

The customer service in the hotel was terrible. All of our complaints fell on deaf ears. When we complained at check out about the lack of heat in our room, they offered us a free dinner at their restaurant, but no reduction in the price of the room. We never even received an apology for having no heat, and got the distinct impression from everyone we talked to that no one cared in the least.

As to benefits to this hotel, it is in a very convenient location to all Boston sights (although I would discourage driving there, as it costs over $30 a night to park). We were able to find a fairly reasonable rate by Boston standards. Other than that, I think our stay probably would have been more pleasant if we had stayed in the Best Western!

Recommended: No