Emeline — Hotel in Charleston

I am not one to leave bad reviews as you can see from my other reviews. But I had such a disappointing experience at Emeline that I wanted to warn others. I booked through a 3rd party to save a significant amount, however, the rate was still over $200 for 1 non weekend, non holiday night so not super cheap. There is a $39.90 resort fee which I fail to understand because it is in no way whatsoever a resort. I was traveling to Charleston for my dogs surgery in the early morning so I needed a pet friendly hotel and my confirmation at booking indicated pet friendly. It had no mention of an additional fee. When I arrived, I was told there is a $200 additional fee (and $25+ taxes on that fee) for my 6 pound dog for the "intense cleaning" required after a dog stays in a room. It costs more for my dog to stay than it did for me and my partner! I have encountered pet fees before which were disclosed before confirming the booking but, they have never been more than $75 even at very nice hotels. I was stuck though and had to pay it. So after paying it, I read about their "pet friendliness" and it reads that your pet gets gourmet treats, a bed and food and water bowls. None of this was offered at check in so I went down to the front desk to collect it and was given a small manilla envelope with some treats that she poured out from a dish they had at the desk (my dog, who will eat anything, turned her nose up at the treats). The front desk lady said she would send someone to our room with the dog bed and bowl. A young man brought the bed and bowl shortly afterward to the room and the bed was dirty with dried slobber all over it. Yes, you can see it in the photos I attached to this review. $225+ and you give us a dirty dog bed? I went to take my dog out to potty and asked if there was a pet relief area and was told no. I managed to find a paid parking lot across the street with some mulch between the parking rows! So that's enough about the dog "unfriendliness". The room, it was very musty smelling and the carpet in the halls looked either wet or stained (photos attached). Our room #370, was a king bed room and it was extremely tiny. Barely enough room to walk around the bed, nowhere for your luggage and the storage for your clothes was 1 tiny drawer and a rod beside the bed over top of the night table where all my clothes hung down onto the top of the night stand. The toilet paper holder was broken so the toilet paper would not stay on the holder and the shower head leaked the entire stay. The bathroom was large so I can give a compliment on that and there was 1 nice robe for 2 adults but it was nice. The bed was quite uncomfortable and the mattress seemed old and broken down in the middle. When we checked in, the front desk lady told us there is a coffee machine, hot and cold drinking water, ice, tea and fresh fruit on each floor just off the elevator available 24 hours a day and drinks and snacks in our refrigerator, complimentary. After getting settled in for the night I checked the fridge for the snacks but it was just a single brownie and a coke so I went to get a coffee and some fruit. There were no pods and just 3 apples in a bowl. I went to the other floors and did find an orange and a couple coffee pods but the pods would not work and the machine just poured out hot water. Another guest was there trying to get coffee too and could not get the machine to work. When I went back to my floor a staff member was emptying the trash at the coffee station and I asked her if I could get any coffee and she told me that they were completely out of coffee and I could just use the coffee maker in my room. I figured maybe I had just not noticed a coffee maker in my room so I went to look; there wasn't any coffee maker in the room! The "out of coffee" sign I have in the attached photos was not put up until mid morning the next day. I went to the front desk in the early am to inquire about coffee and they were totally unaware that there was not any coffee on any of the floors. This place is a huge disappointment on...

Overall we had a lovely stay at Emeline, the beds were so comfortable, robes were cosy, and the firepit in the courtyard was a great vibe. Unfortunately some customer service experiences let the hotel down.

I want to call out one person who was excellent and helpful, Chris really made the check in experience easy and set the tone for a fun weekend. We were on a company incentive trip for 9 people. When two had unexpected medical emergencies and couldn’t make it, Chris helped us cancel a room and reorganise the reservation.

Sadly the customer service experiences after that were below par for rooms that cost $619 per night (I would say even if rooms were half the price I wouldn’t expect to have this experience).

On the first night I ordered room service and received a call after that asking “did you order pizza?” They had sent it to the wrong room and by the time it arrived it was cold.

With early activities planned the following morning everyone in our group ordered breakfast to their rooms marking specific order times on the sheet. Two guests did not receive their breakfast until after we were supposed to leave.

Housekeeping only made one bed in my room and also did not replace toilet paper. By the time we were checking out we had to use facial tissues.

The night before checkout a lady at reception gave us all new key cards and told us we could check out at 12 instead of 11am. When my room mate left to catch an early flight she left her keycard with reception explaining I was still in the room. At 9am housekeeping tried to open my door and told me I was already checked out. When I called reception to make sure it wouldn’t cause an issue the lady I spoke to was audibly irritated with me and told me if I wanted to check out at 12 I would have to pay a fee. Eventually after arguing she told me I could stay until 12 without paying a fee. Her tone was unpleasant. Our keycards all stopped working at 11am.

I then had the responsibility of checking the group out of the 4 rooms I was paying for. Luckily I checked the invoice because there was a $200 per night pet fee added to one room for a service animal. The lady checking me out removed the fee for the first night and it wasn’t until after I left that I realised there was still $200 extra dollars charged for the second night. Not only was it frustrating, it is illegal to charge for a service animal.

I called the hotel and the person who answered told me they could remove the extra fee. I asked for an email invoice to be sent to me with the updated refund. I still have not received it. The lady hung up the phone before I finished my sentence while I was saying thank you to her for her help.

It’s very disappointing to have a lovely trip marred by the check out experience. It is our last impression of the hotel and makes it hard to give the glowing review I...

I’m currently staying at the hotel and here are my current thoughts:

Pros: aesthetically pleasing

Cons:

while location is great, it’s right next to market street so be prepared for the most chaotic check in experience of your life

the basic things you would expect from even cheap hotels are not matched and it certainly does not equal what you would expect from a 4 start hotel. I’ve went into further details below but so far the overview is we’ve had: a broken refrigerator, bug infested room, bed linens that appear worse for wear, dirty rooms, faulty cooling ect ect

-our refrigerator never worked. I put ice inside the fridge to try to make it cooler. After 3 days / calling 3 times and being assured it was being fixed I opened the fridge to find that the pie I had for my birthday was covered in ants. INSIDE OF THE REFRIGERATOR. I called the front desk to let them know and they offered to move us to a different room. When I asked how long i would have to move the told me 30 minutes! To move all our stuff for a 7 day stay we had 30 minutes before our key card access to the first room was turned off. This also happened at around 9pm. We were told we would get an email letting us know if we would be reimbursed but we received no further communication. That’s why I’m leaving this review.

not very clean: —As mentioned above I found ants (not just 1-2 ants like 40 ants) in the refrigerator and I saw several in the bathroom. —When we were moved to the new room as soon as I walked in I find a used greasy breath right strip stuck to the wall next to the bed at eye level and while plugging in my charger I notice shards of glass on the floor next to the night stand — linens had rips and stains that were present upon arrival. — small things like light switches had obviously not been cleaned very well

-Amenities and other basic things just not working how they should: — climate control in the room is a sham. It became clear to me that you can’t actually control it. You can turn the nob but it’s been preset some how to only make it SEEM like you can control it. I turned it to the lowest temp possible just to see if it would get to that temperature but it never did. It will be 72 degrees in your room until about 1am and then it will start to cool down, the lowest it got was 66 for about 4 hours in the middle of the night. At 8am you can hear it shut off and the temp will start to go back up again for the day. I had the temp set to 64 all day and when I came back the room was 72. — they have the water and coffee station set up with sparkling water on tap (which I was excited about) and the sparkling water is comes out almost warm so it undrinkable

I have photos and I will add them and complete this review...