This was the 2nd time that I stayed at this hotel. The 1st time, it was absolutely fantastic! This last time, not so much! My disappointment started the second that we walked in the door and were greeted by a giant construction tarp that was covering the entire lobby. I booked my reservations on the hotel's website and there was no mention of any remodeling at all. Turns out, not only are they remodeling the lobby, which doesn't effect much other than the immediate feel of the hotel, but they are also remodeling that the 2nd floor lounge area and the 3rd floor.
The 2nd floor is where they have their complimentary happy hour service and their complimentary breakfast service. There were signs directing you to the 3rd floor for both of these events. I don't know why they moved it to the 3rd floor, it's under construction as well. Drinks and breakfast was served at makeshift tables surrounded by construction tape and hanging plastic tarps. Not exactly the relaxing, romantic atmosphere my wife and I were expecting.
Now, onto the accomodations. The first time that I stayed at the Magnolia, I was blown away by my room. It was large, immaculate and more than I expected. This time around, it was nothing but an average hotel room - plus a giant stain on the carpet, an air conditioner that never shut off and a bathtub/show faucet that felt like it was going to fall out of the wall. The bed had 2 of the smallest pillows I've ever seen on it. No extra pillows in the closet or anywhere else for that matter. We called down to get some extra pillows sent to the room. After waiting 30 minutes, we finally gave up and left for dinner. On the way out, we stopped at the front desk to ask about the pillow request. The guy says, "aw geez, I sent your request in as soon as you called, I don't know what happened. I'll have them in your room before you get back from dinner". That was great but he never bothered to apologize or anything. Luckily, the pillows were in our room when we returned.
10 minutes after we got into our room, a guy, with all of his bags, comes walking right into our room. Apparently, he was given our same room when he checked in right after us. I travel a lot for business and that has happened to me before so I didn't really think about it again, accidents happen. However, after returning from dinner later that night, we found out that neither of our key cards worked anymore. When I went to the front desk to get them to fix the problem, all that the guy said was, "oh, they cancelled all of the keys issued for that room because it was given to 2 different people". He never apologized for the mistake with the other guy or for the fact that our keys were "turned off" and nobody bothered to tell us.
Will I stay at the Magnolia again? I have to admit that I probably will. The location is absolutely perfect and I'm assuming that when the remodeling is completed, the whole place will go back to being a beautiful hotel. At this point, I'm 50/50 on this place. The 1st time was amazing and the 2nd time was not so great. I'll give them 1 more shot. If it's half as bad as this last time, they'll lose my business for good. They are lucky that the 1st experience was so great. It's all that's keeping me from getting really upset about this latest visit.
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