Renaissance Albany Hotel — Hotel in City of Albany

Renaissance Albany Hotel is aesthetically nice and in a good location downtown but the service was unsatisfactory. Shout out to Tee-Tee for a warm and pleasant check-in process. The rooms are alright. Fairly clean. Lots of natural light. The beds aren’t very comfortable. The box frame makes it a pain to get in and out of. You’ll hurt yourself if not careful. My shower door wouldn’t stay closed so I had to be really careful with showering or risk the floor getting soaked. The hotel lost power for about 5 hours one morning (9/16). I showered in the dark at 5am which is an inconvenience at best and a safety hazard at worst. I missed an important early morning overseas virtual meeting. Had to walk to a nearby Hilton property, pay for breakfast to sit and use their electricity and Wi-Fi in their restaurant. The Director of Operations and General Manager both demonstrated a “sorry but it’s out of our control so just deal with it” attitude which was disappointing. To quote the Director of Operations, “It was like an act of God.” This is commonly what hospitality and airline corporations like to say when they don’t want to take responsibility for the experiences of their paying customers. The management here didn’t offer any type of service recovery or offer to improve the experience of their guests. To be a Silver Elite loyalty member who is intentionally choosing Marriott properties for the purpose of reaching Gold Elite this year, and to pay $200+/night for a room including it’s amenities but be without those amenities for a period of time makes the value of that room decrease…and yet…they did nothing. I’ve also never stayed at a Marriott property or any other hotel where they didn’t provide complimentary self-serve coffee in the morning. Yes. You.Have.To.Pay.For.The.Coffee!! Even after having to go to another hotel on that Friday, pay for breakfast so that I can use Wi-Fi and to charge my devices, I get back to the Renaissance Albany (after the power had been restored) and ask for a cup of coffee to take to my room and the Director of Operations takes my room number to make sure he charges me for the darn cup of coffee. Unbelievable!

Wait, there’s more.

So after the power outage, my TV nor my climate control worked in my room. I also didn’t have hot water - just luke warm. Maintenance came up right away and fixed the AC. Thankfully. He disassembled the dresser the TV is mounted on so that he could attempt to fix it. He said he’d be back with someone to help him figure it out but he never came back. I was without a working TV service the entire day and a dresser drawer left on the floor. He said the hot water would take a while. I didn’t get hot water until Sunday - the morning I checked out.

Great service can truly make even unfortunate and seemingly uncontrollable situations seem not so bad. It would have been nice for management to proactively offer something small for the inconvenience (e.g. free coffee) or at the very least show a bit of empathy and acknowledgement for the experience. I plan to visit Albany many more times in the near future but will not stay...

Visites July 1st 2021 and many COVID-19 protocols still in place. Fair enough. Understaffed like most places and industries. Fair enough. Issues as a Titanium member. ... Upon arrival nothing said to me about breakfast, so I asked and was told restaurant and lounge access were both closed. Told to call room service in the morning and it would be delivered as a Titanium member. Called in morning and advised to log into restaurant website to view menu and called back with order. On both calls stated I was a Titanium member. Food arrived quickly in to go containers. Unpacked everything and truth be told, it was very good but like any take out would have been better on plates with real silverware. At check out, learned to my surprise that breakfast was not included and that with 17.5% surcharge breakfast came to $159 .... Less $20 Titanium credit toward breakfast! ... So $139.

At check out .... I was asked if we parked with them, which we had ... Self parked in their lot. I knew there was a charge before check in ($17). When we went to leave hotel the automatic opener to let us out of garage would not open without a key. Learned this later as my repeated requests from the "for service" button went unanswered. With car behind leaning on his horn, we called the hotel from a cell and the front desk picked up. Told to hang up and press the for service button. Then same person came on and buzzed us through. Total stressfull time trying to get out of garage: 15 minutes. At check out, shouldn't I have been told to hold onto my key? Which is what you need to get out. After all, I was asked if I parked with them, and she saw me place my keys in the key return slot. Room, not so clean ....found someone's open ChapStick on the floor and threw it out ... Well actually one of my kids found it. And while walking around in socks I stepped on something that poked me in the bottom of the foot that felt like a tack. Got down on my knees and found a sharp piece of plastic sticking out of the carpet and threw it out. Put on a band-aid to stop bleeding. Internet. Had trouble logging in and no instructions at check in or in the room. With a call to the front desk access granted and made a morning zoom meeting with moments to spare. Our room request of high floor was granted. No extra pillows, no extra towels and no room upgrade. ...Our room was "ready" at about 10am, but I had already advised that we would not arrive until after 1030pm! So planty of time to add the towels. So that morning we needed to request additional towels be delivered. The good ... The bed was comfortable & nice shower with strong water pressure. Has the feel of a recent renovation. Food from restaurant food was good. Short handed staff tried...

First, the positives: hotel is beautiful, with elegant wood paneling, and detailed murals decorating the ceiling and upper walls of the lobby. The large room with two queen beds we stayed in was spacious, modern, and clean.

The onsite Wellingtons restaurant was the highlight of the hotel for us, serving up deliciously prepared dinner entrees. Shout out to our dinner waiter, Brett, who went out of his way to provide outstanding service. Breakfast was a little more disappointing. Normally, it turns out, in-dining breakfast isn't even offered at the restaurant. Only room service breakfast is available. We happened to be staying during a few days the hotel was fully booked with law students taking their bar exam next door at the Albany Capital Center. So, buffet breakfast was offered. But, coffee was not particularly good, and pancakes we had were extremely dry. They tacked on an 18% mandatory service charge without even giving notice about it for ordering extra items not available at the buffet. Hostesses were chatty and not particularly polite, and we were seated multiple times without even so much as being given place settings.

The aspect the hotel fell short on, in my opinion, was the hospitality element. In the hospitality business, especially at premium room prices, you expect the staff to be forthcoming, helpful, and hospitable. Instead, we were presented with a barrage of excuses as to why the hotel wasn't functioning as normally expected. We exited our rooms at 9:30am, taking down our "do not disturb" signs, and saw cleaning staff on the floor. But, for some reason, our room wasn't cleaned upon return. The excuse from the front desk? Unexpectedly short-staffed, due to the influx of law students at the hotel. This wasn't told to us upon checking in.

Another disappointing aspect of our stay was how the cleaning staff let the hall vacuums rip prior to 9:30am, in front of rooms like ours where we had requested a late check out the night before for a little more rest, and our "do not disturb" sign was still up. This happened multiple mornings in a row, actually. When confronting the manager regarding this issue, he was rather complacent and essentially shrugged his shoulders, not even offering so much as an apology.

So, overall this hotel did have a lot of excellent potential. But, unfortunately, due to improper planning to have adequate staff on duty, and what appeared to be somewhat dysfunctional management and lack of accountability,...