The Barnett - JDV by Hyatt — Hotel in New Orleans

Note: I am not the target demographic for this place. I am late middle-aged Midwestern guy traveling with my similarly-aged wife. We stayed six nights. This place is definitely a 30-and-under, single vibe. LGBTQ+ friendly, which we appreciated.

Public spaces are loud. Every surface is hard. There are no carpets or wall hangings to dull the acoustics anywhere. The music playing seemed to depend on the workers' vibe du jour. Some mornings, mellow, other mornings definitely louder and more assertive. It's January, so we didn't do the pool and top deck. Bartenders were good, Dusty especially, in the lobby bar. Top-shelf liquor, cocktails were $15 and up.

On-site restaurant served excellent food. Staff was uneven. Breakfast food was great, service was more of a challenge. Dinner was terrific, and the newer (self-acknowledged) server tried. She seemed unable to "read the cutlery" and left a plate on the table well after the meal was completed. I finally had to ask her to remove it. Not the end of the world, but an indicator that the place isn't as polished as it seemed to want to be. It is clear that the kitchen staff is excellent at Josphine Estelle. Kudos there. The peanut butter mousse and the apple/persimmon tart were fantastic.

The room... Let's get this up front: would be a great place for an unplanned overnight, with or without "companionship." Fridge was overstocked with booze options, as was the storage cabinet with every liquor glass imagibeable. The very $pendy honor bar did offer free condoms! The room-darkening curtains and noon-standard checkout would be great if sleeping off a night of partying is your need. However...

Being disinclined to take the party upstairs with a previously unknown companion... The practical use of the room itself was impacted by the fact that the design vibe being sought had no relationship to function. Example: the beautiful TP holder was too narrow to fit a roll that you intend to use. It looks lovely, but you can't pull the roll to get the tissue. In making the effort, you shred the edges of the roll, making TP confetti and shreds. Very pretty; not very helpful when attending to "duties" at 3 a.m. with no glasses in an ALL BLACK bathroom. There is no place to place your own toiletries in the shower, should that be your thing. It is, mine.

Let's talk about color scheme. The room is DARK. It is very deep, as a converted office building. The ceiling is black. The drapes are thick, black imitation velvet. There is a UV shade, too (obviously a smart thing with southern exposure in heat). The overhead light fixture, above the bed, did little to brighten the room. The light switches themselves (for the sink area, too, which is hidden behind more black velvet) were obscured behind the headboard of the bed. We spent a number of frustrating minutes on arriving, finding them. The sofa, a converter, was black, bucket-like and VERY firm. I could sit there, but my wife found it very uncomfortable. It was very low. There is no other chair or desk/table in the space: bed or sofa. Period. For a one-night stand, no big deal... for a week's vacation, frustrating. The black baseboard needed dusting, as did the window sill. Remember: black is an unforgiving color.

This all sounds like you "can get off my lawn." Let me pile on, briefly: the retro, plastic full-sized fridge was clearly not intended to store our own stuff, like leftovers or yogurt. It was FULL. There was no microwave (not a crime, but a nice convenience) and no hot water/coffee maker (a crime).

Given the convenient location--near Amtrak, Lafayette Square, St. Charles streetcar, Superdome, WWII Museum and quick access to the French Quarter--folks are likely to consider this hotel. It was fine, but the quirks of the place's bones and the overlaid vibe may not be what you want.

In the end, I wanted to like this place more than I did. The staff was cool. The coffee shop (Lovage) had great caffeine options and cafe tables outdoors.

Staff: 10/10 Public Spaces: 7/10 (bar +; noisy in off...

$2000 charge for a pre-paid booking

In February, we booked a 5 night stay for 4 people in 2 rooms at The Barnett when it was still The Ace. This was done via a third party booking company. Reviews looked solid, Beyonce had stayed there - what could go wrong? Before staying we were informed it had been bought out and the hotel would be refurbished. Presumably that's a positive too right? Oh how wrong we were.

On arrival the staff only had records for one room, when I said I had booked two the receptionist bluntly challenged me to "prove it." She had all the grace and charm of a Soviet prison officer. I showed our booking and as I was doing so she asked for my card for "city taxes." She then proceeded to charge $2000 to my card without telling me or showing me a breakdown of the charges. As she was booking the second room she did the exact same thing to my friend's card. When we noticed she said it was for the cost of the room, but the booking confirmation she was holding in her hand said we'd already paid in full.

Thoughout this experience she was aggressive and combatative, but agreed to authorise a refund. No apology was made.

The rooms themselves were a bit tired, the brand new TVs didn't have functioning Chromecast, and each room had a weird noisy fridge next to the bed. It was fine but not fantastic. But anyway...

On checkout we confirmed that all was good with our booking and the $2000 hold was released from my card but not my friends. I was told this would be done later and we stressed that we needed the funds as this was the first stop on a fortnight of travels around America. We were reassured it would be sorted.

Reader, it was not sorted.

The Barnett continued to hold the funds and we entered into a never-ending cycle emails and phone calls where they told us they could not find our payment. In a digital dialogue reminiscent of Kafka's trial, we were accused of faking a booking and questioned whether Love Holidays, which she called Love Handles, was a real company (they are the third largest travel booker in the UK...). I was asked to provide bank statements, which I did, send my booking confirmation as a pdf, which I did, and ask Love Holidays to step in which I did. Love Holidays stated they would take 30 days to help as we had now checked out and were no longer entitled to immediate help as we'd waited until after our stay ended.

Eventually with the overwhelming evidence that we did have a booking instead of releasing the funds, they stopped responding to my emails. After 5 weeks of back and forth, the money was returned not because they had decided to find a semblance of common sense but because the legal hold limit had timed out.

Genuinely, every interaction I had with the Barnett was incredible unprofessional and rude. They did not care at all. They did not even pretend to care. It took two weeks to receive an apology and then my friend was told she did not get an apology because they'd already apologised to me! One apology per booking apparently. I don't expect everyone to be the embodiment of Southern hospitality but they were aggressively, unbelievably hostile. Perhaps they should consider retraining into Traffic Enforcement, or as DVLA employees, as there their lack of charms and critical thinking would be commonplace.

Don't bother booking, cancel your booking if you can, and go choose one of the hundreds of New Orleans hotels with a modicum of...

Ok I admittedly have never flown first class on Spirit Airlines, but The Barnett has got to be same vibes 🤡

In all sincerity, Miss Barnett, I’m not sure who awarded you four stars. Let the gays tell it straight:

The impression from the common areas, which are furnished with custom and hardwood pieces, is truly vintage, but you can patronize these without an actual stay, as many of us locals do. This effect is quickly lost when you get off the elevator for an actual stay.

The room felt like a college dorm that won an apartment.com award for its Mad Men makeover on the part time six flags summer stock budget I earned freshman year of undergrad. There’s certainly an eye for design in the room aesthetics. She’s cute in pics, truly, but the underlying shoddy craftsmanship makes you feel catfished. The furniture was clearly upcycled from a Big Lots liquidation 5 years ago, and I’m sure was passable when fresh, but no one took the time to sand before resurfacing and particle board is peeking through everywhere. The bed, side tables, the retro pleather bench, the beautiful pastoral landscape hand painted by Meghan * (signed) on the bargain $69.99 entertainment center-turned wardrobe. The lighting is custom and pretty swanky, albeit blinding AF (dim light hides a multitude of sins, hint hint) The walk-in shower glass was impressively clean, but didn’t extend past the toilet where the spray hits a floor of loose mismatched and missing penny tile. There’s no vent in the bathroom. There was however still some painters tape around some of the trim. Ironic, no? We could tell another gay designed the boutique soaps, they smell great, but we are also are also 99% sure the base for all of them, including the shampoo, was dial antibacterial hand-soap 🧐 The TV at first appeared to be broken, but we finally figured out that the remote simply needed to be making contact with the TV screen for it to receive signal. Fine, no biggie, but when you turn it off to go to sleep is when you really notice the travesty that was the choice of retro “cork” laminate flooring. Genuine cork would be sound proofing. I want to believe that a discussion on environmental impact of deforestation in the tropics vs forever plastics informed their ultimate decision for the latter, but you need to know that the effect it made in concert with the uninsulated walls in this sizable hotel was that you will hear Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. Regardless of where you land on the political spectrum, I think most folks will take issue with the fact that it took most of the night for the room to cool down to a modest 70 degrees, which one could argue was probably typical of the period the hotel is trying to evoke— but I hope it’s obvious to everyone by now, Miss Barnett is not evoking.

I think the crown jewel of this budget airline experience sat on the side table next to the mega bar (a nearly full-sized SMEG fridge chock full of every genZ seltzer imaginable): two $6 bottled Aquafina that were free for “Elite Members”. A generous proffering for loyal patronage, Miss Barnett. I’ll round out my analogy and liken it to offering an upgrade for a whopping 3 additional inches of legroom on this flying airbus that is now twice delayed and though we haven’t even left the gate yet, has already managed to lose...