Magnolia Hotel New Orleans — Hotel in New Orleans

Your experience at this hotel will truly depend on who is working the front desk. Adam is great but we only saw him briefly during our stay. Our first day we primarily dealt with the ladies at the front desk. While I wouldn’t say the service was atrocious, I will say it left much to be desired. The first night we called the front desk to request extra towels because we had 3 people in the room and only 2 bath towels were provided. The front desk told us to come down to get them. No big deal, we went down and got them without incident.

The second night we got back to the hotel at around 10pm and asked the woman at the front desk where the closest place to get water would be. She had her head down on the table, scrolling through her phone and seemed less than thrilled at the interruption but answered our question by telling us there was a convenience store around (can’t remember the exact directions but it sounded far, something like 2 blocks up the street, turn left, then walk three more blocks). I thought it was odd for a hotel to not at least have vending machines to provide guests with easy access to water but I didn’t question it, thanked her for her directions, and resigned to ordering a drink from door dash instead.

When we got up to our room, we discovered our room was cleaned and the towels were replaced (but again there were only 2 towels and we had 3 people) and so we would need to request additional towels again. We called the front desk multiple times around 10:40pm, no answer. I decided to go down to see if I could find someone to give me towels and saw the “one moment we’ll be back shortly” sign and so I waited. No one showed up for a whole 15 minutes. At 10:55pm Adam walked in for his 11pm shift and immediately asked if he could help me and apologized about there being no one at the desk to assist me. He also asked if I had been waiting long and seemed super apologetic even though it was not his fault (there was still 5 minutes until his shift!). Adam quickly and efficiently fulfilled my request for towels and told me if I needed anything else he would be there all night. About an hour later, I went back down to the lobby to pick up the door dash order and ran into Adam while I was coming out of the elevator. He recognized me from earlier asked if everything was alright and if I needed anything. I told him everything was fine and I was just down there to pick up a delivery. He again told me to let him know if we needed anything and that he’d be right back, he was just going upstairs to deliver something to a guest. In his hands were 2 bottles of water and 2 wrapped paper cups.

Interesting. The woman before did not let me know the hotel had water. The woman before told us to go down to the lobby to collect things we requested. I am not sure what the hotel policy is from what I saw so I can’t 100% say the women were slacking in their jobs but the service and treatment I received from the women gave me 2 star hotel vibes while Adam’s above and beyond service and friendly demeanor instantly upgraded it to a 5 star experience.

If all the employees were like Adam this hotel would be an instant rebook the next time we were in New Orleans but sadly that is...

This is not a “4 star” hotel. The Google rating is accurate and I wished I was more diligent in following the reviews. I was mislead by the very photogenic images of the lobby and the room. Upon arrival however, one will realize this hotel is poorly maintained. The paint is crusted everywhere, the carpeting is old and dirty, amenities look worn and rusted throughout the establishment.

The first room we were placed in was right next to the elevator, which is not ideal if you are a light sleeper as you will hear the elevator whirring all night. I say “elevator”because the 2nd elevator was down for maintenance the entirety of our 5 day stay. In fact - the tools and wires and maintenance station was messily laid out for all guests to see on the 8th floor. Personally, I think if you would call yourself a 4 star hotel, there should be some attempt to keep guest quarters tidy and neat even if maintenance work needs to be completed.

In addition - the room was so dark and depressing and the bathroom door would automatically shut loudly every time one opened the door which was quite annoying. My partner had to manually hold the door to let it close softly so it wouldn’t bang closed at night while we were sleeping. The door also opened up right against the edge of the sink making the bathroom space generally very awkward.

Towels, toiletries and linens were bare bones - much more reminiscent of a Motel 6 - not what one would expect of a “4 star” hotel.

One bright light was that the hotel staff was very courteous - and a nice gentleman kindly moved us to a different room with less noise. The room was better but the toilet did not flush… which I read about in various reviews and wished I had heeded the warnings. We didn’t want to move a 2nd time so we made a make shift lever with a spoon to get the tank to refill without having to remove the lid every time 😂.

Oh and by the way - they offer a TV option for casting from your device but when we could not get it to work, a nice maintenance man came to look at it - couldn’t figure it out and then came back 15 min later to tell us literally that his manager said it was a “marketing gimmick” because the functionality was no longer offered. 🤦‍♀️😂

As many other reviews noted - the breakfast is bare bones and though there is a “cute looking” restaurant attached to the hotel it was never open.

Overall, it felt like Magnolia did the bare minimum to make things “appear” aesthetically pleasing and that was about it. There are a lot of hotels with comparable pricing in the neighborhood and I hope cautious travelers will find a better stay and value for...

We stayed here for three nights. There was no hot water whatsoever, and the room smelled strongly of a combination of soil and smoke. We asked about both and were told that someone would fix both. I checked at the front desk and was told both were fixed. Neither were.

As many other reviewers have pointed out, there was a very thick layer of gray dust over the a/c vent — it looked like they hadn’t changed it in a decade or more. Hence the smell…

On the third day, someone called us well before 9 am from the front desk and demanded that I bring down the hotel’s rolling dolly immediately (complete with a passive aggressive "Sorry to wake you but..."). I did and asked about the hot water and smell again. They said I could use a shower in another room. I walked in, and the toilet paper roll holder was ripped out of the wall, with plaster crumbling. There was no hot water in this room either.

I mentioned when they asked that there wasn’t hot water there either. They insisted that that’s as hot as the building gets as if we were being divas for not wanting to shower with barely lukewarm water when paying for a hotel. Then, late on our final night, the water was miraculously hot after all that gaslighting.

There are many other things I could mention here but I’ll leave it at that. Actually I will add one: when I called the hotel before booking the reservation through Airbnb, the person at the front desk confirmed that they had valet parking. When we arrived, we learned there was no valet parking – just a lot across the street. Normally I wouldn't care, but we were moving cross-country and had a car packed full of our belongings. I pressed the person at the front desk, who admitted there had been a problem with car break-ins in the lot that month.

I’d avoid the place at all costs. The lobby may be gorgeous but...