The MC Hotel, Autograph Collection — Hotel in Montclair

I recently made a terrible mistake. I booked a room at the MC Hotel. My fiancee and I wanted a place to go after our wedding that wasn’t our apartment but local enough to minimize travel distance. I called and booked a “Superior King Bedroom”--I requested a balcony and was assured that I would receive one. The day comes and check-in was easy enough, woman working the front desk was very nice, but everything else was terrible.

When I opened my hotel room door, I noticed two things: One - the room was MUCH smaller than it appeared in photos and Two - there was no balcony. Great. Terrific. It was the evening before my wedding and I had too much to do so I didn’t bother calling and making demands.

My time at my room’s desk was spent between counting money and swatting these little pink flies that seemed to come with the room in lieu of a balcony. Having finished stuffing cash into envelopes and tired of swiping flies, I turned to my computer to figure out some last-minute songs. One of the flies was pretty interested in my music choices, so I snagged a pic of it as proof.

The room was a disaster. By “disaster” I mean the wallpaper was peeling at the seams, the sofa’s armrest was ripped and had questionable stains (pics of both are included). Behind the sofa, a bottle of Sprite from a former guest lay on its side--maybe a feeding ground for the flies? I can’t say, I didn’t touch it. I wonder what definition of “superior” the people at the MC Hotel are working with.

My wedding came and went--I was embarrassed to bring my wife to this room but did anyway. She was quick to call out the same issues I had found upon entry. The next morning, upon check-out, we asked to speak to a manager. I told her about my experience and showed her the pictures. She seemed upset and took down my name and phone number. “I will have the GM call you ASAP” she said. That call didn’t come.

At this point, it’s important to say that I prepaid for this room in full--it was expensive for two nights. Imagine my surprise when, two days later, they charged me an additional $630! I called the hotel and was pretty upset and received nothing in return. The manager on duty was rude and told me I had to take it up with the booking agency, even though the charge came from the MC Hotel. She outright refused to help rectify a problem the hotel had created. When finally the GM was placed on the line, she was never told about me, my experience, nor was she given my phone number. Could be that they charged me additional guest fees for each individual fly in the room, I’m not sure.

I am a very, very happy and lucky groom--I married the woman of my dreams. Our wedding weekend was ruined by the MC Hotel’s disregard for cleanliness, upkeep, respect for guests and general operation. This is both a review and a warning: do not stay at this hotel. It is filthy. It is literally coming apart at the seams. It is operated by people who have a blatant disregard for their guests and no idea how to work with 3rd party booking agencies. Stay away. Stay on the streets of Montclair, they’re honestly...

The only thing good about this hotel is the location… besides that I would avoid staying here at ALL COSTS. It literally is not worth it in the slightest. I checked in to have a relaxing weekend in one of my favorite neighborhoods. Upon inspection of my first room, there was marks all over the walls, and there was literal pieces of popcorn all over the pillow and under the bed (on both sides). My first thought was, how when the bed was made perfectly… did they even change these sheets??? I immediately go downstairs and ask for another room. Why did the front desk tell the maintenance crew, my new room number instead of the old one. So I go up to my new room (mind you I am struggling with bags and not one person offered to help at the front desk). I see a man walking into my new room from up the hall and I got really nervous thinking that the assigned me a room that was already occupied. The crew member was apologetic but I just wish there was more clean management of the property. Too much thoughtless things occurred during my stay. Down to me returning the next day from a workout and my card not working in the elevator and having to go to the front desk for them to re-activate it? The process here are clearly outdated and ridden by human error. Which would be understandable if the room was $100 a night but standards are higher when you are spending after $500 a night. Then the second room I checked into had even more marks on the walls and the sink was clogged, toilet ran randomly throughout the night, light near desk was literally broken and just dangling… it felt like an expensive mess. That was the opposite of relaxing, did I mention I was on floor 7 and felt the vibrations of the night club until 1am each night. On my final morning a family checked into the room above me and their child's running woke me up. Mind you, I had been just dealing with all these problems and was not going to even write a review. BUT IT IS OVER TEN DAYS since I checked out and my room deposit still has not been returned to my card (although I have called the hotel multiple times to confirm that my room was cleared for damages). I do not know when my deposit will finally settle but this is absolutely ridiculous especially accounting for the stay that I had. Also, something to note, each time I call the front desk to inquire on the status of my deposit, they all tell me a different standard wait time. First person said 1-3 days, the second said 5 business days, now today the manager on duty said that she doesn’t see my deposit processing on their end… ummm can you loop me in with someone who knows? Just terrible and would never ever...

I understand that there is short-staffing and other issues because of the times. But what for what this hotel charges - if you can't do it, don't do it! We made online reservations for three rooms for our wedding weekend. Thank goodness I didn't delete the original confirmations because when we left, we were charged TRIPLE the amounts (current room rates, I guess?), exorbitant amounts kept appearing (and then sometimes disappearing, sometimes not) on three different credit cards (even though we were explicit that all room charges except for incidentals should be on one), one room was charged for valet services 6 days for a 2 day stay (and valet was supposed to have been included in the package), etc., etc. It took some time to look at the folio for each room to sort out exactly what was going on. When discussed with one of the assistant managers, she insisted that all the rates were correct, that everything changed because we made a lot of changes (we added on night to one room), and somehow had no record of the nonrefundable rates we paid for at time of reservation (only existing proof were the confirmation emails I received. She behaved as if it was all our error even when the folios themselves were rife with them (6 valet days!) and screenshots of charges appearing on cards were supplied. (A big issue for one card that was a debit card.) After every conversation where things were supposed to have been rectified on the one primary card, random charges continued to appear on the other two guests' cards. On top of that, the on-site service. 8 of us had breakfast at the hotel early and not crowded. We waited an inordinate amount of time for coffee (which had to be made) and water (we were told it had to be made through a fancy filter, and when it finally arrived, we there was only enough for a half glass. There were no napkins (we were told they'd run out!). The orders took forever, came out piecemeal, and at least two of them were wrong. Even though we took care of our own, there was no one available to take care of bags anyway. The valet area was exceedingly crowded. The toilets barely flushed. The magnification mirror had a dead battery. One room smelled like rotten fish. When you pay this much for a hotel, the expectation obviously is a much higher level of service. I've had much better service at a Hotel 6 and have never with any business anywhere ever run into the number of billing errors. I know it's a convenient spot for Montclair, but STAY ANYWHERE ELSE! It is simply not worth the $ and at any amount, the...