We booked a package with British Airways hoping to stay in a famous, elegant, wonderful hotel as a once in a lifetime experience for our family. British Airways are amazing by the way and could teach the Waldorf a few tricks about customer service! The lobby and entrance is indeed amazingly beautiful and one cannot fail to be impressed by its grandeur, elegance and history....but the World has moved on since the 1930's and expectations have too which I think the Waldorf and the Hilton group have seemingly not appreciated, and are trading off of an image which doesn't bear fruit in reality. We had booked 2 suites for 3 nights (as there are 5 of us) We were told at checking in that we were being upgraded and got quite excited given that anything above a suite might be a wonderful gift given our 'once in a lifetime visit' but, when we got to our rooms, they were exactly as I had booked...no upgrade there then. The suites were clean and tidy but not a patch on the grandeur of the lobby and a bit of a let down from what I had expected. I am used to staying in normal 'business class' hotels and the rooms weren't really anything substantially different to those one would expect in this class of hotel, and certainly not opulent or inspiring. On the surface of it, eveything seemed pretty good but after a couple of days the faults were evident. The shower door was coming away from the wall so the door was tricky to shut, the air con had a mind of its own and sleeping in 24.5 degrees was trying! The mini bar's door didn't shut properly and was so expensive it was mind blowing...7 Dollars for a branded Coke is just racqueteering. This sort of thing doesn't add value, it just highlights the ridiculousness of this establishment's arrogance and attitude towards (attempting to) milking its guests. The bottom line is, if you're stupid and rich enough to pay these completely made up prices, we are happy to take your money from you. There was no free WiFi in the rooms, you had to use the lobby which was so busy that the WiFi was so overloaded that using it was almost impossible. My daughter got food posioning and was very sick. She was ill in the bedroom, but it took 40 minutes to get a maid to help me...obviously I don't expect anyone to clean up my kids' sick, but I did ask for a bucket or bowl as she was being sick every 20 minutes, the maid gave me the bin and told me she would try to find something else but my daughter then covered the bathroom floor...we never did get a bucket and had to use the bin and towels. I had to 'borrow' some cleaning fluid from a passing cart to clean up the toilet and floor and carpet myself. She had been sick in our travel bag so all our clothes needed laundering but the hotel wanted 27 Dollars to launder ONE SHIRT so I had to fill the bath and tread them with my feet to get them clean. At least the air con being stuck on 24.5 degrees enabled me to dry it all quite quickly over the vents though! They say that they pride themselves on service but this was not evident to me. I could go on but I would end up writing a book. I think you get the idea from what I have written so far though. Bottom line is that I will, one day, go back to New York, but certainly will not be spending that kind of money to stay in that hotel again as it was so disappointing versus my expectations and their advertising and reputation. Live and learn though eh? a distinctly 4 star experience at over 5 star rates.
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