The Garden City Hotel — Hotel in Town of Hempstead

TLDR; missed my uncle's funeral due to their valet "services."||||I arrived while guests were arriving for a wedding. I was told that I could not park my own car and had to get into the valet line, and when I asked if I could please park elsewhere, since I just had to run up, change into a dress, and run back down to my car in order to get to my uncle's funeral, I was told that they weren't allowing anyone to park their own cars anywhere on the premises because of the event. I waited in line, then gave my keys to the valet. I checked in, went to my room, the key didn't work, so I had to go back down and get another one. ||||Once I came back down, I went to the valet. In a matter of about eleven minutes they had lost my keys. I was pretty polite for the first ten minutes of them "searching," but, as previously stated, I had a funeral service to go to. There was NO sense of urgency with the first gentleman who was "looking" for my keys, who picked up a few sets of keys, then put them down, then picked the same ones up again, then put them down and stood there. I asked him after a bit if we could please get someone else to help him look, since I really had to go to a funeral. He just shrugged. Finally someone else came up, and when I told him I needed to find my lost keys, he shrugged and said, "well, we're really busy tonight." Both were quite rude and dismissive, despite the fact that I was literally just asking for my personal property back so I could pay my last respects to a deceased relative.||||A couple things: I absolutely understand being busy, but being busy doesn't have anything to do with misplacing my HOUSE AND CAR KEYS. There should absolutely be a sense of urgency to give a guest ANY part of their property that the hotel insists on collecting for seemingly no real reason except for their own convenience, but especially someone's CAR and their KEYS. Finally, the two were able to locate my keys.||||But not before I missed my uncle's funeral service. So I guess he's just gone forever and I don't get to say bye. So that's awesome. ||||I conveyed this to guest services, and they were kind, but told me since it was booked on Expedia there was nothing they could do. When I pressed, they returned the "service" fees to me that were put on the debit card I had given them--I'm unclear what these service charges even were and why I would have been charged, and ESPECIALLY why I wouldn't have gotten the charges back when I asked the first time for any kind of refund, something I have literally never done at any other hotel, just for context.||||The Garden City Hotel is obviously a well known establishment on Long Island, and though we were planning having our party there in the coming months, as we did a few years ago, we will now absolutely be going with a different venue, and I unfortunately have to make sure that anyone considering using this establishment knows about this experience as well. In good conscious I have to dissuade ANYONE from having anything to do with this hotel.||||I'm sure the hotel makes substantially more money from weddings and other events than it does from us lowly guests paying for a single room for one night, but if they're going to call themselves a hotel, it is very disingenuous to not give guests any heads up that they'll be surrendering their property to some chop shop customer service operation who doesn't care at all, simply because it makes it easier for the venue to funnel the event guests in and keep the people renting the venue for events happy. ||||I don't pay to be treated this way, and when I was prompted for feedback in an email, I provided it. Guest services apparently followed up with my mother to get her version of the events, who told them she wasn't present for any of the incident, I guess because her name was on the original booking. Since that was the end of the follow up questions, including taking a statement from a person who wasn't even there, the whole mess sounds like something that would definitely happen again. Proceed with caution. Or better yet,...

TLDR; missed my uncle's funeral due to their valet "services."

I arrived while guests were arriving for a wedding. I was told that I could not park my own car and had to get into the valet line, and when I asked if I could please park elsewhere, since I just had to run up, change into a dress, and run back down to my car in order to get to my uncle's funeral, I was told that they weren't allowing anyone to park their own cars anywhere on the premises because of the event. I waited in line, then gave my keys to the valet. I checked in, went to my room, the key didn't work, so I had to go back down and get another one.

Once I came back down, I went to the valet. In a matter of about eleven minutes they had lost my keys. I was pretty polite for the first ten minutes of them "searching," but, as previously stated, I had a funeral service to go to. There was NO sense of urgency with the first gentleman who was "looking" for my keys, who picked up a few sets of keys, then put them down, then picked the same ones up again, then put them down and stood there. I asked him after a bit if we could please get someone else to help him look, since I really had to go to a funeral. He just shrugged. Finally someone else came up, and when I told him I needed to find my lost keys, he shrugged and said, "well, we're really busy tonight." Both were quite rude and dismissive, despite the fact that I was literally just asking for my personal property back so I could pay my last respects to a deceased relative.

A couple things: I absolutely understand being busy, but being busy doesn't have anything to do with misplacing my HOUSE AND CAR KEYS. There should absolutely be a sense of urgency to give a guest ANY part of their property that the hotel insists on collecting for seemingly no real reason except for their own convenience, but especially someone's CAR and their KEYS. Finally, the two were able to locate my keys.

But not before I missed my uncle's funeral service. So I guess he's just gone forever and I don't get to say bye. So that's awesome.

I conveyed this to guest services, and they were kind, but told me since it was booked on Expedia there was nothing they could do. When I pressed, they returned the "service" fees to me that were put on the debit card I had given them--I'm unclear what these service charges even were and why I would have been charged, and ESPECIALLY why I wouldn't have gotten the charges back when I asked the first time for any kind of refund, something I have literally never done at any other hotel, just for context.

The Garden City Hotel is obviously a well known establishment on Long Island, and though we were planning having our party there in the coming months, as we did a few years ago, we will now absolutely be going with a different venue, and I unfortunately have to make sure that anyone considering using this establishment knows about this experience as well. In good conscious I have to dissuade ANYONE from having anything to do with this hotel.

I'm sure the hotel makes substantially more money from weddings and other events than it does from us lowly guests paying for a single room for one night, but if they're going to call themselves a hotel, it is very disingenuous to not give guests any heads up that they'll be surrendering their property to some chop shop customer service operation who doesn't care at all, simply because it makes it easier for the venue to funnel the event guests in and keep the people renting the venue for events happy.

I don't pay to be treated this way, and when I was prompted for feedback in an email, I provided it. Guest services apparently followed up with my mother to get her version of the events, who told them she wasn't present for any of the incident, I guess because her name was on the original booking. Since that was the end of the follow up questions, including taking a statement from a person who wasn't even there, the whole mess sounds like something that would definitely happen again. Proceed with caution. Or better yet,...

I came here to leave a review after an atrocious experience at The Garden City Hotel and am sitting in utter shock that many of the existing reviews have been my exact experience word for word. I’m sensing a strong pattern here. Reviews here also seem to be responded to just as customers are treated in person with a rude, condescending tone. In no particular order we checked in and the front desk staff had a nasty arrogant tone with us from the get go. The room was humid, damp, and smelled stale and moldy. I called down to the front desk and was told the AC is motion activated so when there is no motion in the room aka- when you leave the room and are asleep the air turns off. You can imagine how this felt while there was a heat wave and 95 degree plus temperatures on Long Island. Waking up to a sweltering room doesn’t seem conducive to a luxury stay. The very first day we put “do not disturb” signs on our doors. Sure enough, the staff entered the room and moved our belongings around. This in itself is an area where there should be zero tolerance for error. It is a direct invasion of guests privacy. We immediately brought this to the staffs attention and they actually tried to insinuate that we did not hang the sign on our doors. This is 2022 and it is critical to document everything. We took a picture with the date and time on it before heading out for the day and I’m so glad we did. Each day we were greeted by condescending front desk staff who had a flippant and disrespectful attitude towards us as two females. They would talk over us, cut us off etc. In particular Gary Matthews was unprofessional going as far as asking very loudly if we would like housekeeping services after the housekeeping staff entered without permission. He had a mocking attitude about him when we had made it crystal clear we did not want housekeeping for our entire stay. While we were eating breakfast that we bought in the hotel shop and he asked if he could throw our garbage away while we were mid bite eating breakfast in the lobby. There were so many more awful things that took place during our stay at what is supposed to be a luxury hotel (as a long time LI resident I can testify that this is no longer close to a luxury hotel) that I decided to reach out to the property manager whom I was told is Roccio Jiminez. As of today 8/4 a week after our stay I have left three polite voicemails for Roccio letting her know I had some urgent matters to discuss. She has never once replied to a single form of outreach. Today after a week of no correspondence I asked for the hotel owners information. Once again I was transferred to more condescending staff who kept transferring me to “their superiors” who would then have no idea who they were speaking to. It’s seemingly a game and common practice when you call this hotel. This hotel has the most foul and deplorable customer service I have ever experienced. At one point I was put on hold for 28 minutes (and then hung up on) after being assured by “Anthony” that would never happen. I was also told Roccio Jiminez did not have a superior but then suddenly transferred to yet another voicemail of someone named Grady who was magically Roccio’s boss. As it stands it is 3:47 pm and I was assured someone would call me before end end of the day. I was assured of this multiple times already. I am unsure how any institution conducts business this way and gets away with it in 2022. It’s appalling and disgusting. I would not reccomend this hotel to anyone, and recommend staying far far away from such a despicable place. Still waiting for a phone call back Roccio, today makes 7 days and counting. I will continue to update this thread and do everything possible to make sure people are aware of what is going on at this...