I have a general request for a room on a higher floor on my Hilton profile. As with all those requests I am aware that these are never guaranteed and subject to availability only, so I was delighted to see that the Conrad New York actually offers a dedicated room category for higher floors. I went ahead and booked a "one king superior suite" on their website for July 17-19. The room description states "Located on a higher floor with abundant natural light…". Upon arrival we were assigned a standard room #437 on the second floor (they call it fourth floor but in fact it is the second floor). At this point we already weren't impressed by the arrivals experience as there was no one manning the door, no welcome of any sort and no explanation given for the room assignment on a lower floor when we had specifically booked and prepaid a room category "located on higher floors". We went ahead and took the elevator up to the room. An envelope was given to us with a note stating that we had been upgraded and breakfast was complimentary for Hilton Honors members. I found that note fairly confusing as I had specifically booked a room the description of which said "located on higher floors", then got assigned a standard room on the second floor and to top it off they hand me a note claiming I got upgraded when as a matter of fact we got downgraded. I pushed the "Conrad Service" button on the phone to express my discontent and inquire whether we could be moved to the room category we actually booked and paid for, only to be told the hotel was sold out and all rooms were taken. After I hung up I also realized that we had not received the breakfast vouchers for both nights so went back down to the front desk to pick up the voucher and on that occasion I suggested to the agent that in the future when they downgrade customers at the very least they should not hand out a note claiming an upgrade had been granted. She finally offered to move us to the same room on the 14th floor and made me feel like she was doing me a huge favour by doing so. A security agent was sent up with us to the original room #437 to check the inventory of cups, glasses and corkscrew to ensure we hadn't taken anything. He noticed that we had used the soap and could not spare to make us feel guilty for having done so. I guess we should not have arrived wearing jeans. The second room, #1438 was o.k. location wise but there were no bathrobes and the safe was not functional because it is located under the wet bar's sink and according to the janitor at some point before our arrival water had dripped into the safe's electronics. The safe problem could not be solved during our two night stay. One would be wondering at this point why a room with a non-functioning safe is not taken out of order in the system or at the very least why they can't inform the guest before assigning the room about the fact that the safe doesn't work. And why can't housekeeping ensure bathrobes are in the room, one would think they got a secondary room check by some housekeeping supervisorette or whatever. The design is nice and the furniture functional but you can tell the materials are of the cheapest quality and won't look nice for long. As a matter of fact the decor panel at the bar came down over night. The mattress is of good quality and the room was surprisingly quiet. As for the breakfast, service was unacceptable. The waiter showed up a good 10 minutes after we had been seated and literally a few seconds before we were upset enough to leave. Coffee and tea came halfway through our breakfast, about 20 minutes after we had asked for it. Orange juice though ordered, never arrived. This hotel is way overrated, the staff lacks of basic hospitality training and seems generally inexperienced and lost. I've seen better attention to detail and empathy to a guests needs at the Econo Lodge. The "high-tech" rooms that they are so proud of basically comes down to a big lightswitch panel from which you can control every lamp in the room and an electronic do not disturb sign - they had that at the Intercontinental in Berlin 15 years ago. They seem to think that this compensates for poor service. I would not return to this hotel and would not recommend it to a friend, or to anyone for that matter.
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