As a frequent business traveler I appreciate unique hotels with some "character" - and the Crowne Plaza has some really interesting elements - they have a number of converted Pullman cars that they use as hotel rooms, and the layout is interesting and the place is situated in a perfect downtown location.
It was the location that led me to book a room here - I was in town for a conference at the adjacent historic Union Station - the nation's first, and wonderfully preserved and utilized for this event as the exhibit hall for a statewide educational conference and expo.
I was surprised that even with a travel club discount the room was still at the upper end of what I'm usually willing to pay, but for the sake of convenience I decided to opt for it.
When making my reservation, I advised them that my arrival might be late - 9 PM or so, which is almost exactly when I arrived - I was quite surprised after a very long day of traveling that there were 12 people in line ahead of me waiting to check-in and only two desk clerks behind the counter. As a member of the frequent guest program, they had my room in the "executive" section of the hotel on the second floor - but they did not explain to me that they had me in a different section of the hotel, and failed to supply the critical information I needed to find it - so I ended up wandering around for almost 20 minutes with all my luggage before I discovered that my room key unlocked a door to an unmarked section of the hotel where my room was located. The area was marked as a "designated quiet area" - which was unexpected but appealed to me. I later read that an active railroad is immediately adjacent to the hotel (it IS after all a railroad-themed hotel) and while the guest information states that you might hear a gentle rumbling - I later discovered that you might be shaken out of your bed by a thundering locomotive at any hour of the day or night. I am not a light sleeper, if you are this could definitely be a concern.
The room was appealing on the surface, but I quickly found a lot of problems: the grout in the shower was terrible looking - it had obviously had some overcoat painted on to make it look white and new, but about 50% of it had peeled off and so the contrast between the cosmetic treatment and the underlying grout was ugly. While the towels were soft and thirsty, the shower head was pointed at the middle of my chest and was so low in the shower that I had to duck to get my hair wet. If you are shorter than my 6'1" frame, this might not be a problem for you, but I found it irritating.
Maybe I was cranky after a long day of traveling and a long wait to check in, and a frustrating experience trying to find my room, but I found it hard to believe that there were only 5 clothes hangers in the closet, and that they only fit in the closet if they were turned SIDEWAYS. That's right, if you hang clothes perpendicular to the bar on the hanger the way they are intended to hang, you can't close the closet door. Really? How much did I pay for this room?
The room was obviously designed in the days when the average traveler had no need to plug-in any electrical or rechargeable devices. I always carry a small ultra-portable outlet strip with 4 outlets to give me easy access to charging while running my laptop. Unfortunately there were only a couple of outlets in an otherwise very large room, and (here's the real problem): they were in the most inconvenient places possible. The only one that was not completely blocked by heavy furniture was too far from the outside edge of the bedside table. The long cord on the clock radio was stretched to it's maximum length and the clock was barely perched on the very outside edge of the table! No way that my phone charger was going to allow my phone (which I use as the only fail-safe alarm clock I trust, as long as it is plugged into its charger at night) to be anywhere except on the floor, at least 4 feet from the bed.
What appeared to be a nice desk at which to work turned out to have only one outlet available - a two-prong on the base of the lamp. So my outlet strip (3 prong) can't help me now, and my laptop (3 prong) won't plug into the lamp. Argh! Do business travelers NEVER stay here? I can't imagine that you could get any work done in this room.
Internet. I held my breath to see what I was going to discover. OK, the good news - they offer free wi-fi to all guests - and they provided a wireless access code to get me logged on to the hotel network. The bad news - you guessed it - it was unbelievably slow. My 3G wireless on my phone, working as an access point was more than 10 times faster than the best test results I managed from Speedtest.net on the hotel wifi. Luckily, the hotel was hosting the conference, and the conference people installed their own free, unsecured WI-fi network that was available throughout the hotel for the days of the conference - it was fast and reliable.
If an educational show can come in and in one day set up a fast, solid wi-fi network on a temporary basis and provide it free to all comers, why can't the Crowne Plaza get decent service to their guests? Why, because they haven't been forced to do so.
I'm sorry to be so negative, but here's the core problem: low and mid-priced hotels have been successfully taking business travelers away from the upper tiers of hotels and will continue to do so until (and unless) they come to the realization that failing to understand the basic needs of your customer base will cause them to leave you in the dust.
The Crowne Plaza hasn't reacted fast enough to provide those very basic amenities like reasonably fast free wi-fi and recognizing that business travelers are highly dependent on portable electronics like smart phones and tablets that need to be recharged. They need to provide lots of outlets and locate them near the beds and the desks.
While the hotel has lots of good things, these issues overshadowed the positive attributes, in my opinion. I would not stay here again, even at half of what I paid, which would be about what I would have spent at a Hampton Inn or Courtyard - both of whom have these problems all figured out.
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