voco St. James Hotel by IHG — Hotel in New Orleans

If you’re exhausted (or super drunk) from the day’s activities, this may be a great place to stay since you’ll be so tired that a global catastrophe couldn’t wake you. The room we were in (rm 128) was on the corner next to the alley and smoking area where they like to pick up the trash/recycling at around 230am/4am. We thought they pick up the trash once a week. Nope. Every. Single. Night. It’s not like the constant white noise of the city. It’s somewhat quiet (aside from the occasional traveler butchering biggie smalls lyrics at the top of his lungs in the alley at twilight), but the loud banging of the trash disrupts sleep in the wee hours of the morning.

The room was quaint and tidy, but after closer inspection it has issues. The carpet was disgusting underneath the bed. The bathroom was pretty gross. There was dead bug in the corner that wasn’t cleaned the duration of the stay despite room service coming thru. The shower door was missing. The shower spout lock thing needed some intricate finessing of the handle and spout before it would lock and give full pressure to the shower head. The bathroom fan didn’t work so the shower moisture (among other things) wouldn’t vacate the room. And the bathroom door handle was hanging on by a thread, presumably awaiting one good turn before snapping out of existence.

Walls are paper thin so if you get this room, pray for just mice or ghosts in the next room otherwise you’ll hear everything above a whisper. This goes for everything coming from the room above as well.

There are windows at the top half of the walls towards the ceiling that do not have curtains on them, just a mesh for “privacy” from a tall adjacent building. (Does this really obscure from prying eyes above?) Because of the lack of blackout curtains, the room is like daytime at night—super bright. Bring a blackout mask or try not to suffocate yourself under the covers/pillows.

To be fair, we didn’t bring this up to the staff as we assumed that there would be no way to accommodate on a busy weekend, but honestly, we doubted they would have helped much other than saying “Hey, here are some earplugs.” Maybe this feeling was because of the lukewarm welcome coming in from a long flight.

The hallway door that we use to enter our part of the building is in disrepair. Once you use your keycard, the handle has to be twisted a certain way to open the door, else it catches requiring a hefty pull to open the door. The door closer doesn’t do a good job of damping the door shut, so it just slams, reverberating down the hallways that can be heard through the room door.

There isn’t an on-premises gym (they should just convert our room to a gym). You have to go to another hotel about 2 blocks away to use their basic facilities. The cables have handles but they’re almost completely broken—they have no other attachments. The dumbbell stack is missing weights. There aren’t disinfecting wipes or towels available, just sanitizer and a giant roll of paper. Still, it’s better than nothing, especially if you are familiar with programming your own workouts. Also, it’s best if you’re there alone as there could be some waiting, unless y’all are cool with sharing.

In the end we chose this hotel as we liked the charming architecture and decor displayed in the photos. But the equivalence is like seeing the juicy fast-food burger in the ad/menu then getting the smushed...

When we arrived, there was nowhere to park. My husband let me out in the alley to go check in, while he circled the building. David the nigh desk manager, advised me to have my husband park in the front. But there was nowhere to park. The valet at the restaurant next door kindly moved his personal vehicle and said they are quick to valet the cars so it wouldn't be out there long. The space was tight, and the tail end of our truck was sticking out. We were concerned it would get hit. No one offered to come get our bags. We had the sip and valet package, and David wrote us a ticket for it to expire on the last night of our stay. When we presented it to the bar tender, he stated it was good for ONE drink for the entire stay. My package gives me free valet for the duration of the stay why would it not give us 1 free drink each day of our stay. He stated we weren't the only ones that misunderstood the package....but he's the bar tender and not the manger who wrote the ticket. He did say he would "take care of us". We get to the room and our room is right at the pool. My kids were excited, except it was so sooooo cloudy! I mentioned it to David and he said he would check with maintenance, in the meantime "you could put your feet in it." It was so gross that was not an option! We left the hotel 2 hours later and our truck was still in front of the building with the tail end sticking out. The valet at the restaurant then says "that's what happens when they don't have enough staff!" It was in the garage when we returned 2 hours after that. The next morning the pool was still cloudy so I mentioned it to the day manager and she picked the phone right up and called maintenance. They were going to work on it, and we should be in the pool but 4pm. As we were leaving for an outing at 3pm it was still just as cloudy. I said something again and the maintenance manager was standing right there. He offered to have us moved to their sister property, a mile away, on a different side of the city than we wanted to be on. When we returned, we spoke to the night manager, David again, about getting out truck the next morning (there was a 10k that was shutting down the road and we didn't know how it would affect us getting our truck from valet. We were told we could walk to get it out ourselves if the road was closed, with our luggage.) The next morning on our way out to get breakfast before we checked out the morning manager was shocked to see us leaving as she left us breakfast tickets for the pool inconvenience that the night manager was supposed to give to us.....advised her were not informed and already made plans. When we came back from breakfast we asked for our truck as we were leaving and asked for a cart to get our belongings. We were told they have bellhops and would send one to our room. They didn't offer that on check in. As we were leaving I was told they gave my 5,000 bonus points for the inconveniences. 3 days later they still haven't been credited to me. Room was clean and it really had the old timey feeling without being old. The bathroom was meh, there was mold in the caulking around the tub. The doors slam shut. There were children in the room next to us. we could not hear them in the room but could in the hall way as we passed so the rooms are very quiet, but we could hear the people running above us and the doors slamming shut when people...

STAY SOMEWHERE ELSE - NO AC, NO AMENITIES, TINY ROOM, POOR CLEANLINESS (amongst others).

Pros: Friendly staff and location is good if you want to be downtown.

Cons: No AC working, this was an absolute nightmare in the middle of summer. If you want to cool off with a cold shower, that’s too bad. Only hot or extremely hot water is available. The rooms are very dirty. We found hair all over the shower walls and in the bedding. The walls are extremely thin. We had someone in the opposite room slamming the doors and swearing at midnight because he was drunk and angry at not having AC as well. We were moved to another room and still had no AC. There was a strange gooey residue on top of the TV stand. Many surfaces were not properly wiped down. The room was small and tight; not great for lounging around in. For the wifi, you have to sign up by giving your email address which is unnecessarily complicated and typically means you will receive tons of marketing emails, even if you opt out. I decided to not sign up for the wifi since it was insulting this was not readily available for the guests already. We also did not have charging outlets available on both sides of the bed which was frustrating. You get one tiny bottle of complimentary water your whole stay. Only one. The coaster that the glass was on was dirty. It’s a cheap black paper coaster with no logo that could very well be easily swapped out with a fresh one every time for a new guest but it was not. This seems to be a common theme with the hotel for going with the cheapest option rather than considering the guest’s experience. The toilet paper is single ply. The rug is greyed out from all the dirt. There was no drain cover for the shower so we just had to see the unpleasant rusted hole/pipe. There were marks in the toilet. The tiles needed to be re-grouted. There seems to be little investment towards the upkeep of this old and dated building. The potential is there but the priority does not seem to be the customer’s experience. The courtyards are also where the trash and garbage get disposed so the smell is not pleasant and at night you will see cockroaches and rats there. The TV was poor quality if it did work. Water pressure was not great. I will not be staying here again.

3 hours into my first night here I was already searching for other hotels to stay at because it was absolutely horrible and not up to any standards any hotel should put up with. My fiance and I decided to tough it out for another night because we were kindly moved to another room, but again the same issues persisted. We have a large dog who also needs proper AC and cooling but we did not have this here. No mention of this either. During my two-night stay here, I slept maybe a total of 6 hours. It was too hot and too uncomfortable to sleep. I have no idea how there are positive reviews here.

There was no mention prior to my arrival that the AC would not be working. There was no decency to inform the guests of this and instead as a guest, you just have to suffer through the heat.

This hotel was not worth it; you’re better off...