I took my mother to NYC for an early Christmas present. I spent a great deal of time researching hotels on TripAdvisor and other sites, as I wanted to stay within our hotel budget, but also find a really special place. I saw that the Bentley Hotel had mixed reviews so I was initially a bit wary. What won me over was the fact that the hotel manager (Jennifer) replied to some of the negative reviews, so I felt like they were paying some real attention to the negatives and taking some of the criticisms to heart.
As noted on the Bentley Hotel web site, the hotel offers views of the East River and Queensborough Bridge from some rooms. I emailed the hotel about a week in advance to request a river view on a high floor for my Mom. The front desk manager (Esmee) emailed me back, and I was feeling very encouraged. (To be fair, she did not guarantee a river view but I had assumed from our exchange that she had at least noted my request on our account.)
We were also encouraged when we arrived. The doorman was extremely polite and immediately offered the tip that on our way back to JFK we could save about $10 by using the hotel's car service. (We had come in using Carmel town car service, and they did a fine job.)
Unfortunately, that was about the end of the good vibes for us. When I checked my mother and I in, I mentioned that I was requesting a high floor with a river view for her and that I did not care where they put me. The desk clerk seemed surprised by my request but said that he would see what we could do. He then proceeded to check us in and give us keys for rooms on the 10th and 15th floors. I asked him "so the room on the 15th floor is the river view, right?" He said, no that the floor on the 10th floor was. I don't really consider the tenth floor to be a "high" floor in a building with 20+ stories, but at least it had the river view... or so we thought. I helped my Mom get to her room and we were surprised to see that it had only a city view. Thinking that perhaps the desk clerk had been confused, I ran up to my room on the 15th floor and found that it too had a city view. (If I pressed up against the windows and looked left, I could see part of the bridge, but not the river.) I went back down to my Mom's room and delivered the bad news. To be fair, we could have gone back downstairs and complained about where we had been placed, but after hours spent in airports, airplanes and in the town car (not to mentioned the fact that a good-sized crowd had built up behind us while we were checking in), we decided to just make the best of it.
Incidentally, the East Side location is nice. While it is not the most luxurious part of town, it is about 1.5 miles away from the Times Square and Rockefeller Plaza areas, which were absolutely booming with activity (tree-lighting took place while we were in town). I enjoyed being in a more quiet part of town. (East Side is hardly quiet, but its all relative.) We felt safe enough walking around at night and there are several restaurants within a short walk.
On that first night, we noticed some of the quirks that other travelers have mentioned --- no washcloths in the rooms and the lack of an ice machine anywhere in the building. You can call for ice, but its just so annoying to have to wait (as long as 35 minutes in some instances) for something so small and simple... and frankly, it feels like they withhold some of this stuff because they are angling for tips. Also, there is no free wifi in the lobby (and absolute must these days) and the Internet in the rooms costs $13.95 per day (or $33.95 for three days). Both my mother and I purchased the 3-day plans.... more on that in a moment.
The lobby and the rooms were nicely designed, and neither of us had any complaints about the cleanliness of the rooms. The mattress on my bed felt rather soft but I was tired enough that first night that it didn't really bother me. The hallways were a bit dark in my opinion, but not a big deal. Some of the room numbers (the 1's on my mother's door and the 5 on my door) had fallen off and not been replaced. Also, you cannot turn the room temp down lower than 65... and at this setting my room never got cooler than 71 degrees or so. It was fine the first two days, but the last two nights I was terribly hot all night long.
The only other quibble I had as far as decor was that there were no holiday (Christmas or otherwise) decorations anywhere in the hotels. This was disappointing only because so many of the NYC hotels were so beautifully decorated and we were hoping to enjoy some of that at our hotel.
A couple of plusses that I will mention before I get into the most frustrating aspects of our stay --- the bartender was a nice guy and had a friendly, soft-spoken manner. In terms of offering local tips and dining advice, he was—by far—the most knowledgeable and helpful person in the hotel. The housekeeping ladies seemed very friendly. Also helpful were the doormen, who secured taxis for us on a couple of occasions. The only problem was that they seem to be limited to working only certain daytime hours. In the early mornings and later evenings when we really needed help getting transportation, nobody was posted.
Now for the major negatives ---
On the 2nd day of our stay, the wifi Internet went out. Nothing was posted in the lobby or elevators about this so you pretty much had to struggle with it for awhile and then call down to the lobby before they said, "Oh yeah, the Internet is out today." We were initially told that it would be fixed the next morning. It was not. Nor was it fixed that evening. Nobody could give us any idea if or when it would be fixed. I understand that things happen, but the big issue here was that nobody seemed to know anything... every time we asked, we just got a shrug, a blank stare or a "its not my job" type of attitude (the latter being something that we encountered repeatedly throughout our stay). That was the most frustrating part of the whole experience.
Anyway, after the 2nd day, my mother asked for a refund of the money she had paid for the Internet. She was told that it was taken care of. When I asked a few hours later, I was told that they use a third-party internet provider and that I had to call them using an 800 number and get the refund myself, since it had to be the cardholder who called. I did so and there were no problems. When I mentioned this to my mother, she went back down to the front desk to confirm that her refund had been processed. It turned out that it had not been taken care of, as promised. In fact, the girl that she spoke to denied that the paid Internet was even something that the hotel even offered. After a very frustrating conversation (and I believe the intervention of a more knowledgeable employee), she got the 800-number and was able to get her refund.
Even if everything else had gone perfectly, the Internet problems are a total deal-breaker for me, in terms of whether or not I'll ever consider staying at the Bentley Hotel again. In this day and age, you cannot leave travelers without Internet. I just have too much going on professionally to ever be in a position where I might not have access to Internet for days on end.
Incidentally, it was only after 2 days without Internet service that we were told that there was a business center on the 2nd floor... for a fee, naturally. This information might have been helpful during check-in (there is also a small fitness center on the 2nd floor but this was not mentioned either). Unfortunately, even if I had known about the business center it would not have been of much help since there was no way to get files from my laptop to their computer to send to my co-workers.
Another big complaint that we had came on Friday. We had gotten up at 5am and left the hotel early on Friday morning to attend the TODAY show taping. When we returned around Noon, the maid was cleaning my Mom's room. So my Mom dropped off her stuff and left her to it. She returned quite awhile later to find that the room still was not clean. The maid was working away frantically and was extremely apologetic. She even offered to return the previous day's tip to my Mom, who graciously declined her offer. Evidently, what had happened was that the maid had been called to a staff meeting while in the middle of cleaning. But despite knowing that a customer was waiting to get back into their room, they still required her to attend... C'mon people, this is completely unprofessional.
Unfortunately, this lack of professionalism—which seems to emanate mostly from management and front desk staff—just seemed to be present in almost every dealing we had with the hotel staff. Whether it was waiting 35 minutes for a plastic fork to be delivered to my room so I could eat the food I ordered from a local restaurant one night or watching as a patron ordered a cafe Americano from the coffee bar in the morning, only to be given a regular coffee and still be charged for it (with zero apology or even an acknowledgement that an error was made).
It is a real pity, because I really wanted to love this place. I'm tempted to rate this a one-star experience, but I won't only because the rooms were clean a FEW members of the staff (the bartender, the doormen, the polite housekeeping staff and the the 11pm-7am guy working the desk) seemed to have their act together. We did enjoy NYC, but it was in spite of the Bentley Hotel, not because of it. I cannot recommend this hotel, nor will I stay there again.
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