Degas House — Hotel in New Orleans

I am in disbelief over how poor my experience was at the Degas House. Normally I wouldn’t take the time to write a review over normal hotel issues but since the management at Degas House went above and beyond to make our short stay extremely unpleasant I feel compelled to tell everyone all about it.

First, the good things: the building is lovely to look at and take photos of. The kitchen staff were also very nice and accommodating. The tour guide is nice and the tour itself is kind of interesting though Degas is more of a minor character in the story (he lived there for six months). The management also, though seemingly begrudgingly, provided us with one hypoallergenic pillow after an email and a follow up phone call requesting one prior to our stay.

We checked into the hotel in July which is very hot and humid in New Orleans. The hotel seemed cool enough thanks to central air conditioning which, of course, did not extend to our room (the Desiree Room). The Desiree Room at first seemed quaint but as we began to settle in we began to notice more and more was awry: the window AC unit could barely keep the room below 85F/29C, the large ceiling fan above the bed didn’t work, the mantles and bed frame hadn’t been dusted, the bathtub hadn’t been cleaned, no batteries in the TV remotes, and small piles of black dust on the floor indicated the presence of termites or some other insect.

Our first night was very unpleasant. We had alerted the manager Kathy that our ceiling fan didn’t work but they took no steps that day or indeed at all during our stay to look at it. The window unit AC did its best but we could hardly sleep, at times even considering sleeping on the floor in the dining area downstairs which was significantly cooler than the room above.

The next day, we asked management again to either look at the ceiling fan, move us to another room, or perhaps lend us a fan to help cool down the room. Having received no response by midday we ended up ordering a box fan from Instacart and debated checking out early. The box fan helped keep the room at an acceptable temperature overnight but hardly comfortable.

Then the third day the power went out. Management were not in the office and didn’t answer the phone, so we went about our day. When we returned a few hours later the power was still out though it seemed someone was looking at a fuse box.

At this point we were ready to cut our losses and spend the rest of our time in New Orleans elsewhere. We found the manager Kathy who, during a pandemic was in office with a cold, and told her we would be checking out early. She acknowledged our frustrations, apologized, and told us she would be in contact with the owner of the hotel to compensate us for the additional nights and our trouble. We checked out and had a lovely time thereafter at the ACE.

I wish it ended there but it didn’t. After a couple weeks, after we returned home, I emailed Kathy to ask about our refund. No reply. I sent a follow up email, this time to the short reply of “I explained to you it will take time to do this reverse…”. A week went by and I followed up again, this time again to no reply. At this point I filed a dispute with my credit card company which the hotel was very happy to respond to. They quickly challenged our dispute, saying that due to their refund policy and the rate we booked at, they would not be honoring the refund agreement we had with Kathy. Thankfully, the credit card sided with us and we can finally put this dismal experience to rest.

My advice to anyone looking at the Degas House would be to walk by it on a nice day and take a photo of it. Staying there completely spoils it. My advice to Degas House would be to drastically improve on your customer service, maintenance, and cleanliness. We should not have been treated the way we were treated by Kathy, and all of this could have been avoided with some attention paid to the condition of the room. If the room is not fit for a guest to stay in, don’t take the money. And certainly don’t squabble about it...

B&B review, not the reception center.

Quick Summary: Broken bed, dirty floors, dark rooms, horrible customer service

Details: My wife and I found an amazing deal on Priceline and couldn't pass it up. Turns out the Degas House was getting the deal. A few days before our arrival, we got an email saying they switched us to their best suite. We were actually a little annoyed because we had chosen a room specifically for the jetted tub. We figured the best suite would be pretty nice though. It usually goes for $325 a night. We arrived late and had to pick up our key from a lock box (which was barely attached to the wall). They don't have any staff there over night and they don't have any way to contact anyone. Our instructions said our room was the one with the double doors. They were very narrow doors so getting myself and our luggage in was a big of a struggle. There was a way to open the other door, which I had no problem doing once I was inside, but my wife, who is an average height woman had to stand on tip toes to reach the top latch. As we closed all the curtains, we found that a few of the windows didn't have functioning locks. We were exhausted and wanted to go to sleep right away. We had to brush our feet off before we got into bed because the floor was dirty. We moved all the pillows and pulled back the blankets and discovered that the bed was broken. Like, seriously broken. The top of the bed was a shallow V shape and was slanting toward the floor. We got in anyway, hoping for the best (because there was no staff in house and no way to contact them). We immediately both fell to the middle of the V and we felt like we were going to fall to the floor over the top of the bed. We knew we wouldn't be able to sleep like that, so we ended up sleeping with our heads at the bottom of the bed. In the morning, we found that even after turning all the lights on and opening all the curtains, the room was ridiculously dark. My wife couldn't do her makeup because she couldn't see her face. The shower is in a claw foot tub with two shower curtains around it that don't hold the water in. There is also no where to put your soap/shampoo, so I had to put them on the toilet. When I reached out to grab the soap, I burned my arm on the exposed hotwater pipe. When I got out, there was water all over the floor. The towels had rust stains on them. We went down to breakfast at 10:15 and found that breakfast ends at 10:00 (the email we received and the welcome letter said 10:30). The lady who makes breakfast was actually super nice and offered to stay and make us food but we felt bad and didn't want to keep her. We had a day of sight seeing planned and wanted to get going but wanted to speak with someone about the bed and the dirty floor before we left. The breakfast lady told us the manager doesn't usually get in until after 11:00. We decided to leave and talk with her later. When we did talk with her, she seemed surprised. I told her about the exposed water pipe, the dirty floor, the broken bed, etc. She said it was a historic building, like that makes everything okay. The bed was so obviously broken, we couldn't believe the housekeeping person hadn't said anything. She did say she would have the owner look at the bed. We told her we were very unhappy with everything and requested a refund for the other three nights we booked. She laughed in our faces and flat out said no. We left for several hours and when we came back, it was very obvious that no one had been to our room to look at the bed. The manager called us and told us she could move us to a new room. If we were already staying in their "best" room, there was no way we were going to stay in another room. We packed up and stayed in a hotel for the rest of our trip, eating the cost of what we had paid to Degas House. Don't make the mistake we did--just book a better place to begin with. You are better off in a Super 8 or Best Western than the...

We wanted this to be a good tour and experience. Unfortunately it just wasn't. As a fan of Degas and his works I knew we'd be visiting the house and not an art museum, and I wasn't expecting to see any original pieces of artwork. There are other museums to have that experience.

Here's the thing; please don't start what is to be a 60-90 minute tour by forcing us to watch a 30-40 minute PBS documentary from the late 90's that is definitely showing its age. We're actually HERE! I'm on vacation to see and experience things that I can't from home and while I may not be able to find this exact film due to its age and quality, I can certainly watch other award-winning documentaries about Degas from the comfort of my home.

There are times that a multimedia experience can add to the overall impact of an in-person experience, but if you are going to do anything...do it right. Get a quality multimedia setup and not a cheap $100 TV with no speakers that muffles the narrator's voice and makes it tough to impossible for a room to understand. If you are going to show a film, do it well. If you are going to show a film, let your docent expound on that information and not criticize or contradict it for being wrong. Our docent made multiple statements that a couple facts in the video were wrong and "they don't know what they are talking about". Your own docent then diminishes the experience that you just asked us to enjoy.

The docent was rude and curt throughout...often stumbling mightily over her tour points and complaining about everything; the computers aren't working, someone moved my demonstration, I think this rule is stupid, etc. She also at one time in the tour insulted a tour attendee not in our party who sneezed, demanded no one look at their phones during the tour otherwise she'd lose her train of thought, and more. Regardless of her connection to Degas and the home, her attitude diminished the experience.

Finally, don't expect anything original here. No original paintings or artwork which is to be expected. But even the elements on the tour are of the quality of a class project and certainly not up to the standards of a quality experience...outside of your memories of your 4th grade classroom. Poster board diagrams, a meddling timeline of his life on computer printouts taped to one wall, etc. Again, if you need a visual aid, do it right. Hire a professional or spend some time at Kinkos to have quality visual aids and materials created that show your passion for Degas and your tour experience.

This should have been at most a 30 minute tour, not 90, and an experienced, nice, and well presented tour and guide would have improved...