When I travel to Boston on business, the Park Plaza is the hotel my company puts me up in. As a result, I've stayed here several times a year for over 15 years. So I think I'm more than qualified to review this hotel.
As much as I like older hotels, I really can't stand this place. Yes it's got a great location but aside from that there are so many negatives, that I never get a good nights sleep here. In fact, the only thing stopping me from giving this hotel the lowest possible rating is that I think you wouldn't believe me. So without dragging out the handwringing about writing a very negative review, let's get right to it:
Pro:
- Great location, just across the street from Boston Commons
- Many wonderful restaurants nearby
- New HD Flat Screen TV's
Con:
- It stinks. Literally, this place always smells. The lobby smells like a mixture of an old library and bus depot. Really. The hallways always smell musty and the heating and cooling units in these rooms don't bring in any outside air at all. The rooms smell of old carpeting which brings me to my next point...
- It's old, and the rooms haven't been refurbished in over 15 years! The carpets are dirty, the walls are dinged up and need to be repainted, the furniture is old, broken and scratched, the windows won't open unless you happen to have a crowbar with you and the tiles in the bathrooms are cracked. In fact, I'd wager the bathroom floor tiles are the same ones installed in 1927 when the hotel was built!
- The walls are paper thin. Noise is always an issue here. During my last stay, two women in the room next to mine were loud all night despite repeated reminders from security to keep the noise down.
- Since it is a very old hotel, the roomsare an eclectic mixture of too little or too much room. Most rooms are so small you'd have to go outside to change your mind. Some rooms are large because they've taken 2 or 3 rooms and knocked the walls out to create a bigger space.
- Heating and air conditioning is nearly uncontrollable. The rooms are always too hot, even in the winter. Several decades ago most hotels discovered individual in-room self-contained heating and A/C. Not here, the Park Plaza is still on the old central steam heating in the winter or cool water in the summer. The result is you're never comfortable. Let's say you have a early spring heat wave. Room too hot? Too bad. The hotel will still be on central steam heating and so no A/C. Opening the room window will do nothing other than to let in lots of noise courtesy of a nearby fire department that is always responding to emergencies with sirens blaring 24/7. On this stay, sure enough the room was too hot. First I couldn't get the window open. I finally was able to force it open just enough to let in the outside 15 F degree air, but it was so noisy outside, I was forced to get up and down all night opening and closing the window to moderate both the temperature and the noise. Hey, Park Plaza it's 2012! Time to get rid of your 18th century heating system! Don't even get me started about how hot the rooms are in the summer time. Since the water pipes just circulate cold water and a very week fan just blows across the pipes in your room, you'll never get the room cold enough to sleep comfortably. A very few rooms do have self-contained Heating and A/C units, but good luck trying to get them. Either they are always taken or the front desk staff doesn't understand what you're talking about. I've tried repeatedly to communicate to the front desk that I want a room with a independent AC unit, and each time I get the same old steam pipe rooms.
- Because the location of the Park Plaza is so great, this place is always crowded with reunions, frat parties, conventions etc. As a result, there are always people noisily walking through the hall late at night into the early morning. And, because of the afore-mentioned paper thin walls and lousy doors, you're going to hear all of the sounds in the hall way. Combine that with a noisy neighbor and you've got a din of noise presented in full stereo. A couple of years ago, I was treated to a 4:30 am fire alarm evacuation. That was not fun.
- Front desk staff is quite aloof and not very compassionate about your discomfort. This is a poor hotel, with poorly trained staff in a very old hotel trying to pass itself off as a upscale hotel. It is not. If the hotels location weren't so great, this hotel would have been shuttered long ago. It's living on past glories and an enviable real estate location.
I really hate writing a review like this. But I'm not kidding when I say I find it difficult to find anything I like here.
I have a love-hate relationship with Boston: I love Boston. I've had some wonderful times there. But, my visits are always tempered by my dislike for this hotel. I stay in a hotel over 200 nights a year. Many of them are terrific, the Boston Park Plaza is not one of them. If I were you, I'd go somewhere else. But, until I can convince my company not to put us up here anymore, I'll be trying to avoid coming to Boston and spending more restless nights in the Park Plaza.
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