A former New York in town for business, I was quite excited to check out the new, hip Hotel Americano. The bar scene in the lobby was hopping and breakfast at the restaurant in the morning was delicious. The room itself was ok, location a little far west.
But never in my life have I had such an UNPROFESSIONAL encounter in New York. My second day I had difficulty getting the door unlocked (yes, they have physical keys and not key cards), a door which had to be yanked open to get out of the room since arrival. When I came down to say I was having trouble, I was not escorted back up but told to try again, sometimes you have to force it a little and if I still had trouble, then they would come help me. When I went back up to 'force it a little' the key quite easily broke off in the lock.
This resulted in me be locked out of my room, without access to any of my belongings for nearly 15 hours. The front desk had no idea how to handle the situation. In New York City, where you can get anything at anytime, they insisted there was no one who could help until the engineer arrived at 8am the next morning. For some reason a 24hr locksmith wouldn't do the trick? I was given another room and only after asking was I given contact lense solution (but no case... if I needed a case could I call back to the front desk again?) and a tooth brush. At one point they even asked me if I had tweezers they could borrow to try and get the key out???? No breakfast or coffee offered immediately the next morning. The engineer who was promised to arrive at 8am didn't arrive until after 10am.
At no point was a manager available after repeated demands to speak to one. Eventually, after the engineer broke the door, a locksmith was called.
The only reason any of this was done was thanks to the kind and attentive doorman, Leonardo.
In a City where superior client service is the norm and not the exception, I could not believe that their was not a manager on duty or called in immediately to handle this, nor did the front desk staff seemed to have any sort of training to handle anything more than passing out keys and taking credit cards.
It may be hip in the lobby - but it doesn't matter when you've been wearing and sleeping in the same clothes for 15 hours.
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