Magnuson Grand Hotel — Hotel in Blooming Grove

I originally was given room 421.  This room’s temperature control was not functional – giving an error code. Trying to explain this to the employee on duty was next to impossible over the telephone. Her manager came to our room and identified the problem, and told the clerk to upgrade us to a pair of adjoining rooms to make up for the trouble.    We were then assigned to the adjoining rooms 423 and 425.  The clerk only gave us keycards to one of the rooms.

When we checked the suitability of the new accommodations prior to moving our personal effects, and noticed the room we did not have a keycard for was already occupied.   The television was on and voices could be heard.  We did not attempt to enter this room for their privacy. The clerk appeared surprised that this room was occupied and even asked if we attempted to enter the room.

We were then assigned rooms 323 and 325, and told we would be the only ones on that floor due to low occupancy of the hotel.   The clerk was hesitant to give keycards to both rooms. She also stated she would be marking one of the rooms “Out of Order” to avoid being booked.  The rest of the evening was uneventful.

On Saturday afternoon, the room keys did not work for the rooms.  The clerk made a new key for each room at my request, and informed me that “sometimes cell phones deactivate them.”  The 2nd room did not have a “Do not disturb” sign.  When leaving for the day we used the interior latch to close the room with no sign, and left a Do not disturb sign and left through the room that did have one, assuming staff would not enter either of the rooms.    When returning in the afternoon, the room that had been locked with the security latch was cleaned and made up.   This felt like an invasion of privacy.

Around midnight, someone used a keycard to open the door of my room.   I had the door latch closed, so they were not able to fully enter.   It was a couple that was assigned the room upon checking in.     I did not have a phone in my room in order to call the front desk at that time – an additional security problem.

I reported all of these issues when checking out on the morning of October 4th to Mona.  She told my party should would be fully refunding the price of the stay due to the issues we encountered.   It has been 5 business days and no such refund has been issued.   I understand the pandemic has made hiring and keeping quality employees difficult, but the service we received was inexcusable.   Our privacy was invaded.  Had the couple checking into the room arrived while we were not present they would have had full access to all of our personal items in the room.

I am requesting a follow-up response detailing how you will be handling this situation in terms of the refund that was promised. I would never ask how you were to handle your employees.  However, I can assure you they are in desperate need of additional training.  The evening clerk was beyond unprofessional and unable to handle any minute changes that occurred with any sense of decorum, as witnessed while trying to check in someone else into their room.

Response from management to above :

Thank you for your email. I do apologize for the issues that you had encountered while staying at our property. However, having discussed the issues with all parties involved including the house keeper that was on duty. We have also camera feeds that shows the Housekeeper entering the room that 'DID NOT' have a DND sign. We later pull feeds from the event that you outlined happened in the night and there was no one that entered the room.

It was brought to our attention that a very expensive vase that was in the room 323 next to the Air conditioner was removed and placed behind the door which we found broken. At this time we will not be issuing a refund and ask that further arrangements be made to take care of the damaged vase.

We look forward to a speedy response on how you plan to proceed in paying for the damage...

Unfortunately, our experience using the Magnuson Grand for our wedding block was just a mess in every sense of the word. We had chosen them because they were close to our venue and provided a shuttle for free to our guests – in hindsight, we would rather have paid an extra expense to hire a professional shuttle service and found a hotel that might have been more enjoyable.

I had set up my block months in advance and had a hard time getting answers to the questions I would send in the months leading up to the wedding – turns out that’s because the staff turnover was extremely high and a handful of different people had been tasked with managing wedding blocks throughout the time period. Unanswered emails and phone calls, promises to get in touch with me that never came through, getting different answers from different people, etc. I will say that the woman who received the mess that others had left her, Stephanie, was very nice when I went in to meet with her a couple weeks before the wedding and did her best to problem solve many of the issues that had come up with our wedding block due to others’ negligence. She was surprised when we opened my file that no one had ever asked me to sign a contract or pay a deposit, something that apparently should have been done months earlier, or that no one had contacted me to set up the shuttle schedule yet. There were copies of my unanswered emails in the file, as well.

Things only got worse as the wedding approached. Guests had a very hard time booking their rooms within the hotel block and found the staff unhelpful when dealing with them over the phone. Once everyone arrived, we were greeted with more disarray and puzzling actions by the hotel. Instead of our guests being roomed near each other (and us!), we were all split amongst three different floors. One of our guests was comp’ed his room because he found beer bottles in the first one they gave him, and dirty towels in the second. Nearly all of our guests had to go back to the front desk and get new keys after going to their rooms because they had changed the locks on the doors. The next morning, breakfast was pretty disappointing, but predictable given our other experience. Aside from a small offering of cereal or toast/bagels, the hot dishes were inedible. The eggs were so unappealing that I literally spit out the bite in my mouth rather than swallow it. The staff then proceeded to begin putting breakfast away at 9:15, when it was supposed to be available until 10:00.

Thank goodness this hotel was just a place for people to crash for a night and we at least got the shuttle we were counting on. In the future, we would recommend couples planning weddings stay far away from this place and save themselves...

If I could rate this hotel at a negative I most certainly would!!! I stayed with this hotel for three years in a row and this last time ruined it for good!! The room I reserved the year before was given away the room I was given instead was smaller and filthy!! Had to get "supplies" from the front desk which was rude as all get out!! We had no toilet paper no cups at all no ice bucket liner the bedding and bathroom looked as if they were not cleaned in a month! When reported and asked for clean towels as ours had makeup not stained but fresh makeup the result was the same towels folded and put on the rack!!!!! There was no hot water so for our three day stay we had no showers! NONE! Didn't matter if it was in the morning afternoon or evening (after 10). The only staff member that was kind and pleasant was the fella who took care of breakfast on Friday other than that the breakfast bar was empty or broken. the next two days. As we are heading out we seen housekeeping with guess what breakfast from the lobby that was suppose to be for the guest who actually didn't get any! Where was she eating you ask well she used the cleaning cart as a table yep right on top of those not so fresh towels we couldn't even get in our room!! Classy! Real classy!

To add to this horrid experience that was chalked full of wondrous misery with only the best highlights exposed, I tried contacting both management and ownership of this fine establishment and what did I get ... she is busy dealing with other complaints by other guest she will call you back ... one day two days three days later ... I called again to be hung up on called again had someone tell me she will get to me when she gets to me ... finally after calling and calling apparently I drove the woman crazy enough to put me through I demanded the owners information which she wouldn't give me but would pass along my concerns/complaints and he would get back to me. SHOCKER folks never happened!!

Stay away from this place unless you want to overpay for poor service poor rooms poor experience and yes literally rat traps in the stairwells! Never again never ever again will I ever stay here!! Guess what I found after being enraged by this company is a cheaper hotel and closer to my venue. SO for that I would say is the only thing good that came from this experience! Pretty sad when the Mayflower was a...