The St. Regis Atlanta — Hotel in Atlanta

I have stayed at countless St. Regis and Ritz hotels, and the one thing that is consistent is that the furnishings, lobby appeal and “first class” initial appearance are superficial. The actual service, care of the facility, care of the patrons, and preparation for your stay is no different between the economy Marriott properties and these. I seem to actually have better luck with my room and stay at the less expensive hotels. My recent stay at the Ritz in Bal Harbor and my stay at this St. Regis solidifies that. This is an expensive hotel - the cheapest room is close to $800 a night including tax, and that was with a discount through my corporate travel site. Otherwise I would have had to pay over $1k. Back before Ritz and St. Regis were sold to Marriott, every hotel employee, regardless of their role, had the authority to spend $1000 on the spot to manage a guest problem. No more, and the hotel staff are not trained in conflict resolution anymore also. Last night exemplified that. ||We pre-paid for this room, which was mistake #1, as I think you lose control. I won’t do that again. However, I traveled all day since 4:40 am, checked in at 7:30 pm at the hotel. I just wanted to get in bed, watch some TV and get some rest. What is apparent with the Marriott management is that they don’t check rooms for preparedness. That’s happened over and over again. Once I got into this room, TV wasn’t working. Called for maintenance, they were busy as there was only one on staff at this hr. I finally figured out that the cable was disconnected and tied up behind the TV. If someone had checked to make sure the room was ready, that wouldn’t have happened. But the big problem starts with the AC not working, in August in Atlanta. No air blowing out. Called maintenance, again. it would be 15 mins they said. 15 mins goes by, and being exhausted and not patient at this point, I go to the lobby and ask for another room. They don’t want to give it to me. “Please wait on maintenance”. I go back up and wait. 8:30 now, I’m tired, and no AC. I call back down and tell them I want another room. Wait on maintenance, give us 3 mins and we will call you back. 20 mins goes by, no maintenance and no call. I go back down to the lobby and tell them I want another room. “Can you please wait on maintenance, they are almost there”. No I say, this hotel is not full, please give me another room so I can go to bed. Believe it or not, they still didn’t want to give me another room. “Maintenance can fix it”. I told them that the room wont cool off in time for me to got o sleep, and I need another room. It wasn’t until I was loud and firm that they (front desk and manager) played around on the computer to find another room. Same floor, but the reason they didn’t want to give it to me was because it was a mini suite. Horrible conflict resolution. I couldn’t care less about the suite I just wanted a room cool enough to sleep in. ||The next room was cool, and I had the manager check it with me before moving to it. After moving to it found 1) sinks don’t drain, so after you brush your teeth the water is sitting there. And won’t drain. 2) Light above sink was out. 3) No extra pillows / blankets int he room 4) extra sink doesn’t drain either.||What an absolute waste of money, time, and has frustrated me to the point that I will never recommend this hotel. It’s very pretty, lobby and bar are well appointed, but the ‘devil in the details” kills it. The very simple things that could have made this a positive memory were not present. Conflict resolution was terrible. If I have been moved right away to another room, rather than waiting for 2 hrs to get settled, I would have gotten past it.||To the Manager should you read this - inspect the rooms and complete the checklist from a maintenance perspective before allowing guests to check in. You have until 4:00 check in time to do that. Perform preventive maintenance on your AC. Train your staff to resolve conflict beyond smiling and apologizing. And provide me with something to...

The St. Regis is the most expensive hotel in Atlanta and for that price I expect as near perfection as you can get. That is sadly not what I experienced. We arrived on a Friday evening around 6 pm. The valet area was very crowded and frankly a little hazardous as cars were being driven in multiple directions and at speeds that are really not conducive to a parking/loading area. Considering their inflated valet price of $56 a day I was seriously unimpressed. The Langham in Chicago is in the heart of downtown, only charges $50 and it is like a well-oiled machine. The lobby was nice – note I did not say breathtaking as I could say about the Windsor Court or the Waldorf. The young lady who checked us in was friendly but not very knowledgeable about the hotel because when asked if there was a hot tub she said “No, there is only a pool”. Later in our stay we went to the pool just to take note of it and interestingly there ACTUALLY was a hot tub but it was NOT covered and it had leaves in it and was clearly not operational. This is something I would expect to see at a Motel 6 but at this hotel it was really unforgivable – why not cover it or put a sign up – SOMETHING??? Let’s talk about the room now. We booked a Grand Deluxe King with a balcony. The balcony was large but not really pleasing to the eye – from our balcony we saw nothing but buildings and of course that means anyone in these buildings could also see us. The bathroom was large However, the sinks in the vanity had not one but 3 large cracks in them. The tub although stupendously large had many visible scratches in the bottom that I first mistook for dirt. I realize the property is old but at these prices they could at least REPAIR these things. I wanted to order room service so I looked at the menu. How is it possible that a 5 star hotel has less offerings on their menu than most 3 star places? I cannot accurately describe my disappointment. Room service is part of the luxury experience for me and this was just too sad. The fridge in the room was small, not very cold and chock full of ridiculously overpriced alcohol. I had a medicine that I need to refrigerate and could barely wedge it in there. A friend of mine had called ahead and spoke to a St. Regis butler to say it was my birthday so my husband had expected to see something in the room when we arrived. It was not there then but when we came back from dinner there was a single cupcake and a bottle of Prosecco which I abhor. The cupcake was very pretty but so dry that I only took one bite. I left it for the next day as I was full from dinner. Amusingly enough when we came back the next day after going out for lunch, we found the maid had thrown it away. My husband was pretty upset and called to complain. They agreed to “make” another one. So, one would assume that it would be fresh but it was dryer than the first and the icing tasted like lard and left a film in my mouth. We also had their famed Afternoon tea experience which I will review at the end of this. The bed was comfortable but the blanket was the type that makes me extremely hot and I could not get the room cool enough to cancel that out. Turn down service was a nice touch with the slippers and chocolates but I’ve seen it done more elegantly at less expensive places. My last impression was also not great. I called to say that I needed ice in a bag for the medicine that I need to keep cold – I was informed that they had no suitable bags – not even one Ziploc bag. Maybe the $800/night guests don’t merit these luxuries. Basically we paid what is for us an exorbitant amount in an attempt to have a fun, luxurious birthday getaway. It was fun but that had nothing to do with the St. Regis and I won’t forget it because it set us back quite a hefty amount but I would rather travel the much greater distances to visit hotels who value the customer more than they value how much the customer can pay. Don’t waste your money here. Atlanta has hundreds of hotels and many of them cost significantly less and the experience would certainly...

I decided to stay at the St.Regis for a short staycation. Based on my previous experience at a different St.Regis, I expected top tier service. I also researched their covid protocols beforehand both on their website and TripAdvisor to ensure I would feel comfortable. I noticed that some of the reviews mentioned the service falling short in some areas, but overall most guests had good things to say. I also had a friend who dines there frequently and though she recommended I try the Waldorf, she didn’t have any criticisms.

While most of the staff I interacted with were awesome, unfortunately my stay itself was pretty underwhelming. I valeted my car, but inquired about their car that will take you within 1-2 miles of the hotel and was told it’s only available Thurs-Sunday. This is not mentioned on the site and I also saw one of the cars outside that Wednesday.

Most of my issues stem from calling the butler line. Sometimes it would take a couple of tries to get someone to pick up, which in itself isn’t a big deal but then I receive varying levels of service dependent on who answered. Also the St.Regis really pushes their butler service as a premiere feature. At one point I wasn’t feeling well and though I had my car, my plan was to stay on the property the entire time for meals, the pool etc. I needed some medicine so I called and asked if they had any they could send to my room. I expected them to send it up, but the woman I spoke to said “we have some in our shop on the first floor, you can go down and get it.” Why wouldn’t she offer to charge it to my room and have someone send it up? So I ended up getting my car from the valet and leaving the property to get medicine and eat. While breakfast was good both days, my dinner was just okay; the steak was the correct temperature, but bland.

When I checked out the employee didn’t greet me or ask me about my stay.

I will say kudos to the valet, private dining, and housekeeping staff. They were all very pleasant and courteous. The guy who worked valet actually did ask me about my stay and when I responded that it was just okay, he said I hope it’ll be better the next time and offered me bottled water for the road, asked if there was anything he could do.

In the larger context of everyday life, not to mention a pandemic, I know these complaints seem minor/petty, but I believe the St.Regis speaks to a certain level of service and I just didn’t experience that...