Omni Royal Orleans — Hotel in New Orleans

A Hotel with High Potential, But Service Inconsistencies Detracted from My Stay

I hope the management team takes the time to read this in full, as I’m writing it in the spirit of honest, constructive feedback — both for future guests and to help the hotel deliver the level of service its beautiful property deserves.

First off, the hotel itself is beautiful. The old-world charm really makes you feel like you’ve stepped back in time, and the atmosphere is fantastic. That part of my experience was exactly what I’d hoped for.

I arrived mid-week for a business conference that ended on Friday. Since I have friends in New Orleans, I chose to stay an extra night after the conference. When I checked in, I specifically confirmed with the front desk that my reservation covered both the conference and the extra night, and that I wouldn’t need to change rooms. I double-checked again Friday morning when many guests were checking out, and was again assured that everything was fine and I could remain in my room.

After lunch on Friday, I came back to the hotel — and was shocked to find a manager and housekeeping staff inside my room, even though I had the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door. The manager told me that I was supposed to have checked out and that I would need to move to a different room for the last night of my stay.

I was upset — not just about having to move rooms (though that was frustrating after I’d taken steps to avoid this exact situation), but mostly because they had entered my room with all of my personal belongings inside, without any attempt to contact me first (the hotel had my phone number and could have easily reached out). I went to the front desk to speak directly with Mr. Carlos Jenkins. I’ll be honest — I was visibly upset, and when he told me to lower my voice in front of other guests, that made things worse. I felt dismissed and disrespected, especially after I had done everything on my end to prevent this situation. Thankfully, after some back-and-forth, they agreed to let me stay in my room for my final night.

But things didn’t end there. A short while later, room service arrived at my door with a tray of items and a handwritten apology card. At first, I thought it was a nice gesture — until I opened the card and saw it was addressed to a different guest (Ms. English), apologizing to her for having to change rooms. I took a picture of the items and immediately went back to the desk to let Mr. Jenkins know about the mix-up. He thanked me and said someone would be coming up to remove the items from my room. At that point, it occurred to me — the items were wrapped in cellophane, and if they were later re-delivered to another guest after having been brought into my room, that would raise a public health concern. Honestly, had they simply told me to keep the items as a goodwill gesture, it would have left a much better impression. Instead, asking to take them back without any clear explanation only added to my discomfort and lingering doubts about how the situation was being handled.

In the end, I still appreciate the beauty of this hotel — it really is a special place. But my experience with the management and how they handled this situation left a bad taste. Simple communication and respect for guest privacy would have gone a long way.

I want to be clear — the rest of the staff was wonderful throughout my stay. My issue was specifically with how this situation was handled by Mr. Jenkins. I hope management will take this feedback seriously, as this is a beautiful hotel that truly deserves a more consistent...

The rooms were very nice, and the staff were friendly. However, the service was a little bit lacking and disorganized. For the most part, everyone was very helpful in person, but there seemed to be a lack of communication among the staff. They also charged the entire visit to my credit card, even though my mother booked the room and I could see the last 4 digits of her card on the reservation, and she had told them she would be paying for it.

I actually really liked the mattress in our room -- at most hotels, I usually think they are too hard or soft, but these were just the right amount of support and comfort. It would have been nice if they had a refrigerator and/or microwave, though. Instead, they just have an insulated box that will keep cold drinks pretty cool, but won't keep restaurant leftovers good for very long. And even if it did, there is no way to reheat the leftovers without a microwave.

During the trip, we received several deliveries. Some of the people dropped our items off right at our door, but most gave the items to the front desk. At one point in time, my husband went down to get his delivery. They didn't know where it was, but said they would bring it up to the room once they located it. Shortly after, someone came up with one of the items, but apparently the other item in the order had somehow gotten separated. They had to go look for that but eventually found it and brought that up, as well.

Another time, we called down to the front desk to order room service. At the time, we had two hours before we needed to leave for our next scheduled event. The person at the front desk transferred my husband to the room service line, but no one answered. He was able to leave a message though, so he left one with our information and our order. After 90 minutes, we still had not received the order (it was just sandwiches and fries, nothing fancy that would take a long time), so we called down. It turns out that no one had actually received our order. The person monitoring the room service phone line had left without informing anyone that we had left a message on the line with our order. The way I understood it, he had left after my husband left the message, so he should've been able to communicate this to someone.

We never did get our room service, but they apologized for this error and said they would be giving us a gift as an apology. One or two days later, someone was knocking on our door early in the morning repeatedly, despite the fact that we had a do not disturb sign up. We did not answer, and later found that they apparently had tried to deliver the gift. We called down to the front desk and let them know we would be in the room for another hour or so if they wanted to make the delivery. No one came to deliver it though, and we never actually received it, despite being in and out repeatedly over the course of the next two days.

The staff in general were all very nice, but I would not expect this level of confusion and miscommunication among them with the price we paid and the level of service advertised. A gift wasn't necessary, either, but it was a nice gesture to say they would give it to us, so it was a disappointment to never have received it.

Overall though, we would likely stay here again, even if the main reason is the location. Most attractions, tours, and restaurants in the French Quarter are within...

First, the pros: (1) It's incredibly conveniently located in the French Quarter; we could walk everywhere and often were easily able to stop back in our room to rest our feet or drop things off throughout the day without going out of our way; (2) it's a beautiful hotel (3) it was surprisingly quiet - maybe because when we were there last week, New Orleans in general was pretty quiet; we also had an inner courtyard room which was really nice to have; (4) Ricky, our bellhop when we first arrived, was awesome.

But that's about where it ends.

See, the price at first appears to be reasonable -- more than a lot of other options in the French Quarter but less than we spent in other towns/cities on our trip. But they don't tell you that parking is $50 a night, which added an extra $150 to our bill. We expected to pay for parking, sure; we always roll our eyes at it but we've come to expect it at a city hotel. But $50?! They give hotel guests a "discount" of $6 but then charge tax that amounts to about $5.50 so you're really not getting any discount at all compared to random people parking in the garage. And I didn't see the parking fee ANYWHERE on the website, nor did the gentleman behind the desk inform me of it when we checked in. We didn't notice the pricing sign until we were picking up our car. Maybe that's on us for not asking; we assumed it would be more like $25, which is the most we've EVER paid for hotel parking up to this point.

Beyond that, the front desk is minimally helpful at best. We wanted help with things to do, after we had a frustrating experience with some suggestions we pulled offline -- the woman behind the desk told us the concierge wasn't working that day so we should come back tomorrow. Um, what? You're telling me that no one but the concierge can give suggestions of places to see and things to do in New Orleans? Do the people working there not live in or around New Orleans? The fact that we were basically told we were on our own for that day and MAYBE someone could help us the next day is absurd, and definitely not what I expect from what's considered to be a luxury hotel in the city.

Lastly, although the staff mostly wore face coverings and they had signs posted that everyone was required to, they didn't enforce it at all among the guests, even in the lobby. We were mostly impressed with how New Orleans as a city was handling the pandemic but this hotel did not seem to care much at all about enforcing basic safety protocols for their guests.

Everything else was fine...the room we had was the smaller footprint, and we were fine with it because we weren't in the room much, but know that the bathroom in particular is TIGHT. We have friends who would not have been able to comfortably fit in the bathroom. It was tight enough for my 6 foot tall husband, and he's not a particularly big guy. And the courtyard room was nice but their central air units are located there so you go to sit out in this nice "peaceful" courtyard and all you hear is those loud machines working. I guess that's the price you pay to have much-needed central air in a French Quarter hotel but it definitely detracted from the experience.

We didn't look that closely at other hotels in the area to know if they all face similar issues, but we will definitely at least consider staying elsewhere...