I found out the Empire Hotel was 4 stars after my stay. To say I was shocked is an understatement. The rooms are dated, tacky, and dingy. I.e. stains on the curtains, paint peeling on the walls. Whoever selected the finishes didn’t think about functionality. For example, the shower is a hand held, modern, sleek cylinder. It looks great but the shower spray shoots straight out and not at an angle so you have to hold the shower spray in one hand and bathe with the other. Very annoying. The air conditioning unit is the old floor model type. It is VERY loud so it’s not good for light sleepers, not to mention it pumps cold air very intermittently so it is constantly kicking on and off and your room is rarely a consistent temperture. When I left for a bit, the maid came in and turned the AC off which meant I came back to a hot stuffy room since NY was going through a 7 day heat wave during my stay. The rooms are small and the bathrooms (shower only) are tiny but this didn’t really bother me too much since I’m used to NY standards of real estate. The “view” I had was to an enclosed courtyard and looked right into more rooms. I never even had a top-sheet on the bed. I hope they wash the duvet covers with every guest.
I thought the pool deck would at least live up to the photos. Wrong again. The pool is tiny too. It’s approximately 8 feet wide by maybe 30 feet long. The photos make it look much larger. When I went up to the deck the first night, it was closing early (at 5pm) for a private party. When I went up the second night, there were no towels to be had and the water was running right below the jets so water was sputtering the entire time I was there. That also meant water was not being filtered properly and there was a huge slick of sun block floating around. Ga-ross. I didn’t even dip more than my calves in the pool. Another bust considering it was nearly 100 degrees in the city.
And finally, the service. Yet again, disappointing. I was checked-in very quickly but when I asked about receiving any frequent flyer miles for my stay I was told she didn’t know if I could get miles and to call an agent. When I went to my room, on almost the very first page of the “World Hotels” magazine, it says you can get miles with any of their airline partners. How did an employee of the hotel not know this? When I returned for the evening, my key didn’t work. Only one gal was working the desk so there was of course a line. It took almost 20 minutes to speak to her to get a replacement key. Not how I want to spend my time. I go upstairs to my room and later call for a wake-up call. No answer…after 3 tries. I finally just set my own alarm. It always felt that they were under-staffed, or newly staffed.
All around, the Empire fell short in my book. What a bummer. I thought I was going to discover a hidden gem.
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