This is a nice hotel in a good location in the wonderful city of Boston.
It is over-decorated in the public rooms to the extreme (which I happened to enjoy for the camp value) and the general appearance of the place is good.
My room was very comfortable. Good quality linen on the bed, nice bathroom. Ipod dock. More comfortable than many hotel rooms. But it was also very small, which I didn't like - especially as a business traveller spending more time in the room than I would if I were on holiday. The cable was useless too - with very limited channel selection.
All this would have been fine but what really left me annoyed was the desk staff. They were hopeless. Very young, and clearly in need of training (they mastered 'Hello Mr ____' whenever I walked by, a curious feature of upper level American hotels which always leaves me unnerved - what's wrong with 'sir'?). I checked in at about 5pm only to be told that my room wasn't ready and I'd have to wait an hour. This is pretty poor form for 5pm by which time the rooms should really have been turned around - especially with a check in time of 3pm advertised. Did they offer me a free drink in the bar with a newspaper whilst I waited? Somewhere to sit? (bear in mind it was FREEZING outside) Anything at all? Nope. Even the worst B&B in the world would give you a cup of tea and the local paper rather than send you out onto the streets.
I returned in an hour and the room STILL wasn't ready. So I waited in the lobby on a chair, still not being offered any apology or refreshment, but able to make eyes at 'Catie Copley' the hotel's 'Canine Ambassador' (that's Boston soi-disant-posh for 'dog'). I was clearly considered a huge annoyance for arriving at 5pm - two hours after my paid for room was meant to be available to me. All I wanted was a shower and a gin.
Eventually I got my room, but there was a difficulty with payment as it was meant to be handled from the UK by my office. We had failed to send things through properly. Fine, I put the deposit on my card and waited for payment to come through from London. This caused all manner of problems - I had a form faxed through to the hotel. They didn't get it. They said they didn't have it at the desk. I could SEE IT WITH MY OWN TWO EYES FROM IN FRONT OF THE DESK. They still maintained it wasn't there and refused to let me point out to them where it was. Eventually after having finally communicated its location they were able to process things, but it was like something from a 60s farce. Admittedly there was lots of stuff going on at the desk and the duty manager was stressed (which she seemed to blame on me) but really! I am unfailingly polite to hotel staff. I know that often if something is wrong it's not their fault. And it wasn't. Fairmont clearly haven't spent the money to train their staff in any level of crisis management - or they haven't employed people with enough experience to work at a managerial level.
The upshot? When you have this many headaches to deal with you suddenly realise, that the gym is rubbish, there's no sauna/steam room (pretty standard in 'luxury' hotels now), the public areas amount to an overdecorated lobby, the breakfast costs $30, and the internet is so expensive that you need to take out a mortgage in order to use it.
When all these add up you think, 'yes the shampoo is worth nicking and the sheets are made of natural fibres, but why am I here?'
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