The Empress Hotel — Hotel in Asbury Park

The Empress Hotel used to be my wife’s and I favorite go to spot to stay in Asbury. They were the most reasonable for a hotel right by the beach. They were clean and the most friendly staff that we had encountered. We appreciated how far they had come and the way they rose it back up from the ground. Our most recent stay for Valentine’s Day weekend I think may be our last. Which makes me very sad. The last few times we’ve stayed we have seen it slowly declining but, this time was the icing on the cake. Staff that were usually very friendly were now rude and acted like they didn’t even know us. After checking in later that evening we were disturbed with very loud noise from other guests next to us and kindly requested to be moved to another room which they could not do for us. Also the sink in our room was barley usable because you would run it for 30 seconds and it would start over flowing. The toilet was clogging left and right and again when asking if someone could come look at it the lovely lady at the front desk who we’ve come to know and love was suddenly unhelpful and said she would have to call her manager to see if there was anything he could do. Anything he could do? Well of course you have to do something! How can we stay in a room with no working toilet or sink?? Finally after almost 45 minutes she brought up a plunger for us to use to try and fix the toilet ourselves.... Then the worst part was Sunday morning when trying to leave for breakfast we were unable to even get to the parking lot because it was a sheet of glass from the rain and ice storm the night before. It was so unbelievably dangerous and when approaching a staff member about this she claimed “oh my manager was definitely here salting yesterday” and was starting to sound very snotty at first. I explained there was no way there had been salt put down because it was literally an ice skating rink and even if he had put some down he needed to be out there salting the lot in the morning. She said she would call him. She was looking all over for him because apparently he had been in the building earlier but, now was unable to be located. Bottom line, we love this place and we’re not angry. More saddened at the rapid decline of a place that we have come to know and love and we feel they just aren’t fair to all of their guests. They take care of the people they want to and everyone else is just kind of there and winging it. We truly love you guys and hope things improve so we could possibly stay in the summer and see if we have a better experience. When you’re a loyal guest you just expect a little more and just common curtesy. That’s all we ask. Hoping for a better future with The...

Avoid this at all costs. My partner and I picked this hotel because of the location alone. The location was perfect for what brought us to town. Everything else about this hotel was unbelievably terrible. Every time I thought it couldn't get worse, it did.

The staff was terrible. In the rooms, there is a plaque stating there is a vending machine (on the 3rd floor only) and bottled water available for sale at every bar. I stopped at the 3rd floor vending machine for water and it's canned soda only. So I stopped by my room to get cash and headed to the lobby to purchase bottled water. The front desk attendant pointed me to the bartender behind the lobby bar who rudely told me he would not serve me (even though he was a hotel employee and standing behind the bar) and I had to go into the night club to buy bottled water from them. Not going to happen. Instead, I walked to my car to get some bottled water I kept there. Upon trying to return to the hotel we came up to the main hotel lobby entrance where employees were outside the OPEN door smoking with their friends. They told us they we as guests were not allowed to use the OPEN main entrance door to the lobby they were smoking in front of and had to walk around the block to get in through the breezeway. For reference, this was not an employee only door. It was the main hotel door we had just exited out of and had entered through earlier in the day. Really inconvenient given my hands were full of bottled water and it was below freezing outside. And again, the door was already propped open while they were smoking and opened straight to the middle of the hotel lobby.

The rooms are not nice, but I expected that given the price I paid. Had I paid more I would be appalled. They're outdated, run down, and the heat doesn't work which is unacceptable during the winter when it's below freezing outside. I'd imagine the same is true of the AC in the summer. The bathroom was the worst I've ever seen in a hotel and I travel a lot.

All in all, there are too many other options in the area to deal with the rude staff and run down rooms at the empress. If you're looking for a hotel in the area, my advice is to...

Paid around $220 a night for two nights in the off season over a weekend. The hotel staff were wonderful; however, there were several problems with the building.

First, the sliding door on the balcony was stuck and the handle was loose. You really have to pull hard to get it open.

Each balcony has 2 seats, but they're cheap plastic lawn chairs. I would think that the hotel could spring for sturdier wood or metal chairs, at least.

Parts of the wallpaper were peeling off in the room. Many of the electrical sockets were worn out and anything you plugged in could just fall right out of the wall.

One of the worst things, by far, was the club downstairs. It blasted music at 1:00 AM on a Saturday; it was so loud that that the furniture and walls in our room were vibrating. We were on the fourth floor; I can't imagine how bad it must have been for guests on the lower floors.

The rooms have small, regular televisions. There are no smart TVs. They did have an HDMI port, at least.

There are also no refrigerators in the standard rooms. This is mentioned on the website, to be fair, but it is nonetheless a negative —mini fridges are a pretty standard amenity.

Finally, this hotel is not a great place to stay at in the off-season; most of the boardwalk attractions and many of the local stores are closed, so you have to walk 10‐15 minutes to downtown Asbury Park to get anything resembling a decent meal.

All in all, the staff at The Empress are fantastic, but the hotel is badly in need of maintenance and, more importantly,...