Bienville House — Hotel in New Orleans

We arrived at 3:30PM on Sunday. The clerk, William Just, allowed us to check in as most hotels do when they knowingly have rooms available, even though their check in isn’t until 4PM. We were charged in full “to avoid having to deal with being charged later” and then informed that they were running behind getting rooms ready and that we should leave and they would call us when our room was ready. We had been traveling all day and I was feeling very ill so we asked if there was an estimated time that a room would be ready in hopes that I would be able to rest. Another clerk (slim, older African American lady with a pixie hair cut- we didn’t catch her name) rudely stated “Check in STARTS at 4PM” and then informed us that there were “20 rooms ahead of us” and they’d get to us when they could. We went to walk around and received a call at about 5PM that our room was ready. We arrived back at the hotel around 5:20PM and were told that we would be getting a complimentary upgrade and that we would be “surprised with our room,” implying that our room would be surprisingly pleasant.

We were surprised with our room and pleasant it wasn’t! The first surprise was that our room wasn’t ready at all after we toted all of our luggage up to the 4th floor on a tiny and slow elevator. In fact, housekeeping was standing outside with their cart, just about to get started cleaning the room. We heard the housekeeper on the phone with the front desk stating that they had never said the room was ready. So, we went back downstairs on the tiny and slow elevator (understandably typical of the era it was built) and were told that the room needed to be cleaned but as soon as it was, we’d be able to go back up. We were decently satisfied with this because it did appear that maybe this would be an upgraded room based on the shared outside patio area so at this point, we were hopeful that in fact, this terrible service was abnormal and out of character for this establishment and they were working hard to right it.

We were assigned a different and inferior room about 6:15PM and we received our second surprise. The bathroom in our assigned room wasn’t cleaned. There were substances that appeared to be lotion or hair gel on the counter and there was also long black hair in the shower as well as smudges on the shower floor. It was apparent that the bathroom had not been cleaned. We alerted the front desk and soon there were very loud and angry knocks on the room door. A woman who appeared to be a supervisor of housekeeping, angrily rushed our room, demanded that I show her where it was dirty and then yelled at me that the counter top was damaged and not dirty. The counter top did have visible damage and watermarks from beauty products from past guests but there was some kind of substance, the consistency of hair gel or lotion on the counter top. It was apparent that the bathroom hadn’t been cleaned well, if at all and that housekeeping staff would not tolerate being asked to complete their job. I relayed this experience to the front desk and was advised by an obviously annoyed William that he would “personally clean our room.”

By this time, we had searched all possibilities to stay somewhere else and just eat the money we’d paid for this hotel. Hotels were completely booked for the time we were there and we were forced to stay so we went down the street to CVS, bought cleaning supplies and hoped for the best.

The only explanation provided by the older African American lady, in addition to demands for us to be patient was that Sundays are a busy day turnover wise for rooms and October is a busy month for New Orleans and that we “could go to any other place out around town and be experiencing the same thing right now.” I have no doubt that Sundays are heavy turnover days for a hotel but one would think that hotels would staff themselves well enough to cover that? Never once was the excuse cited being unexpectedly short staffed for the day so management is obviously having issues staffing for demand...

Stayed there the last 3 nights. Very nice and comfortable little hotel but cleaning is clearly an issue.

First thing I noticed upon arrival was a dirty Q-T in the door of the elevator. It was still there when we checked out 4 days later. None of the staff saw it ? ?? Second the fact that the pool was very dark. We own a pool and know that It should NOT be. Plus we never saw anyone cleaning it the whole time we were there. (Not saying they didn’t) Maybe it’s supposed to be brown but the online picture shows a different color pool. Just not my color swimming pool water and I would not get in it. Third problem was the Housekeeping. Clearly the worst of any place I’ve ever stayed and my husband and I are world wide travelers and I travel with my job. 😳 When they clean your room they do not wipe off the tables or vanities or give you another bag for your ice bucket, (they took ours and didn’t give us a new one) They only give you wash clothes the day you check in and the front desk doesn’t have access to housekeeping products after hours. You only get coffee for your coffee maker the day you check in as well unless you ask the front desk for more. Housekeeping does not hang your towels up or place them where they go after the first day they just stack them on the vanity. We also never got another bath math either we had to use dirty wet towels. The third day they left a big garbage sack of dirty towels right outside our door over night. Some one (not us) moved it across the hall by the wall during the night or the next morning. So needless to say, I complained to the front desk our last night there about some of these things. They couldn’t have been nice enough and did everything they could to try to help. Gave us coffee, apologized and even gave us a half of a room night credit on our bill we noticed at checkout. Which was totally unnecessary and I did not complain for that reason, I felt very bad complaining but I really felt it was enough of an issue that it needed to be addressed. Plus we had other family members staying in the hotel on the same floor that were experiencing the same problems. If I were the manager I would certainly want to be aware of what’s going on. Saying all of this, these are only housekeeping and cleaning issues that can be addressed easily by a manager. I loved the location and quaintness of this little hotel, easy parking, bar, and continental breakfast every morning. Extremely nice and helpful front desk staff and bellman that I can’t say enough about. We would love to stay here again and I hope my review will not discourage you. So why did I write it? So hopefully the hotel will address it and you as a perspective guess will ask them when you make reservations if they took care of the Housekeeping staff or issues. Then this will be the perfect place to stay in one of our favorite cities. Hope you have an awesome trip! 👑...

This post breaks my heart to write, so I will start with the positives:

Location is wonderful, 10/10. The rooms are spacious and the updated bathrooms were a plus. The rooms were clean and beds were comfortable. We very much enjoyed morning coffee in the lobby and conversing with Cynthia at the front desk. Honestly, I’ve been to New Orleans several times, and this was one of my favorite hotels. Note: walls are thin, so you do hear neighboring noise.

The issues I have are with management and lying to us on an issue we had. The lying is the worst part of it all.

March 24, we checked in. We reserved 3 king guest rooms. Upon arrival we noticed that the lock on my mom's door was broken. The deadbolt did not work, and either did the security chain. We spoke to an employee named Cynthia who immediately phoned an engineer to come look at the door. We took all of my mom's belongings out of her room and moved them to our room while the door was being worked on. We received a phone call back from Cynthia later that evening saying the lock had been fixed and we could move my mom into her room. We moved her in and then went to dinner. When we came back, we noticed that the lock was no longer working again. My mom had all of her belongings in that room. I spoke to Cynthia again and she had the bell boy come upstairs and look at it. He also determined the lock was not working. Once again, my mom had to move all of her belongings into my room again. It was then determined at 9 PM at night that she would not be able to sleep in that room since the lock wouldn’t be fixed that night. Cynthia was able to work her magic and move my mom to an entirely different room. She got to spend one night in that room, which was great. Since that room wasn’t available for our whole stay, the next morning they moved my mom to a different room for the rest of the stay. The new room locked and we were happy, minus a dog barking nonstop in a neighboring guest room.

On March 25, the manager of the hotel property called and apologized profusely. She said she would be crediting one night back and that it would take up to 14 days to process. She specifically said Expedia takes a long time to process refunds so I shouldn't worry. She personally told me this would happen due to being inconvenienced and having to move belongings multiple times. We were thrilled with the prompt desire to make it right. We thought, what a great hotel, they go out of the way to make it right.

Fast forward and we now know that we were deceived by a promise from management. Expedia has confirmed 3 times that the hotel has denied the refund. They specifically stated that we weren’t promised a one night refund. The sad part is, we never were going to ask for a refund, but when promised, you feel like it should be upheld. I’m very...