Habitas on Hudson — Hotel in Town of Hyde Park

TLDR:||Complete disorganization from the top, price gouging, uncooked chicken served, ran out of food, was not served dessert, 2 bartenders for 200 people, terrible attitude. Don’t host your wedding here unless you’re prepared to bring in a construction crew and specialists and if your guests don’t need food or drinks!||||When planning our wedding we really wanted to make it a special experience. Serendipitously, Habitas had just opened its doors, and the venue happened to have been owned by my grandparents 50 years ago, so we thought it would be the perfect place. Understanding that this was the first wedding that Habitas was hosting in its new iteration (after the property had exclusively been an events venue for 20+years), they assured us that we would work through any learning curves and kinks collaboratively. However, it was a battle planning with Habitas from the beginning. ||||They “required” us to book out the entire hotel at almost double the room prices that are usually offered to the public( we negotiated from $575/night for the smallest rooms to $475/night before taxes, normal rates at the time were $300). 2 weeks before the wedding they sent us an unexpected “required” bill for cooking supply rentals for over $6k, separate from the rentals we were required to provide in our contract (tent, tableware, etc). The power requirements they gave us for our generator were wildly inaccurate and all power went out 30 minutes before our ceremony. My stepfather had to get an extra generator with a trailer and delay the ceremony in the rain. We were offered no help or solutions from Habitas. My cousin who’s an electrician installed a new circuit breaker. My family spent the whole day preparing the site for rain, including purchasing and laying down a walkway so guests could get to the tent safely. Without these people, we would have had no food, no music, no lights, and no wedding. ||||Once the power was restored (no thanks to Habitas), we were met with disdain and rudeness from the kitchen. While we understood that the circumstances delayed food production, we did not expect perhaps the worst offense - entirely uncooked chicken was served 2 hours late to the entire party (photos attached) (it was grilled required no power to cook). When asked, the chef told my brother “get the fck out of my kitchen” and called us “entitled rich prcks”. This is a health hazard, and our guests were severely underfed. The other other dishes quickly ran out and we ordered pizza from Rhinebeck Village Pizza.||||They refused to bring our wedding cake from the kitchen to the tent down a slippery 200-ft walkway in the rain from their kitchen to the wedding tent, forcing our pastry chef (who happened to be a guest) to carry it alone. If she hadn’t also been in attendance they would not have brought the cake out at all. On top of that, they did not prepare or serve the additional dessert that they promised on our menu and which we paid for, nor did they apologize or mention it. ||||The bars were so understaffed (2 bartenders for 200 people) that one of our guests got behind the bar to help. Their coordinator Charlie was fantastic with the limited resources she had but the general manager didn’t even introduce himself (to a client paying over $100k for 2 days). ||||To top it off, the day after the wedding, my husband was charged an unauthorized $8k without warning for hotel rooms that were already paid for. ||||We have spent the past month going back and forth with Habitas and painstakingly fighting for a refund for the entirely inedible dinner, in addition to the lack of service (we paid over $10k for service alone- they hired 8 front of house staff total). We were forced to engage legal counsel, but after agreeing to a settlement they have gone radio silent. Nobody has taken responsibility or even apologized for any single incident beyond saying “we are taking this very seriously”. We have also spent the past month apologizing to guests who traveled far and wide to attend such a disastrous event. We feel deeply ashamed and embarrassed. This was a huge expense and supposed to be the best day of our lives. ||||The beauty of the property and its potential makes the situation even more disappointing. We highly recommend you explore other venues for your...

In response to the wedding review. As someone who was in the tent with Chef, yes, he was angry. Although he did say get this kid the f—- out of the tent, not whatever nonsense and direct insult was fabricated.||Please keep in mind, the wedding party hired two wedding planners that were never introduced to the hotel staff until during the event. These people contradicted each other, they both thought they were the star of a wedding planner show, and neither had any hospitality training. Among other things like throwing kitchen knives at team members to “speed them up”, smoking and drinking while working, in front of guests no less; using their bare, dirty nicotine caked long press on nail’ed hands to lift pieces of wedding cake, yelling at the dishwashers to speed up the cooking (the infamous chicken was then carted to the tent in something we normally use for garbage transport, Richmond (one of the two wedding planners) obviously didn’t know this nor was he confident enough to ask Chef, who had updated a cooking plan that had previously started at 11am for a 7pm dinner to one where we had heat at 5pm for a 7am dinner. Richmond was drunk on assumed power and he wouldn’t accept anything otherwise. I can’t speak to all the other problems with Habitas itself, , and there are a multitude, but be careful of slander as people’s lives depended on this job. The whole staff was mislead and I’m sure that you were mislead by habitas as well.||It is extremely important to note, that when chef was yelling at the top of his lungs, it was because the event he had planned to work for five months had been taken apart by people too cheap to rent the required equipment. (They cut the equipment in at least a third), refused to rent a toilet trailer (we had three stalls available. It’s a six room boutique hotel, the only reason that this contract was accepted is because Habitas at large is a scam, switch and bait etc). When it became apparent a full week before the wedding that we would have a torrential downpour, they were too cheap to rent $800 worth of rigging to move the tent to the adjacent tennis court. So, we were all standing in a foot of mud after getting a generator at 5pm when habitas put one on the quote in march.||The singular thing that made the day decent was the mvp from Provincetown, the nephew of the boyfriend of the mother of the bride. He showed up with a generator. Reminded me that there is still good in the world, even if somehow they’re intertwined with ruthlessly...

Overall, beautiful hotel in a beautiful location that misses on service. If it were $200 less a night it'd be a 5 star review, but not worth $600 a night as is.

Positives: Amazing location with so much to do around there. We went in late October and the foliage was beautiful, with so many nice towns and parks nearby. We did Kingston, Rhinebeck, and Montgomery Place Estate. The property is really cool and nicely decorated. Room was spacious and VERY CLEAN, and bed was comfortable. We stayed in the manor and had a terrace with a beautiful view of the Hudson and Catskills. Fire pit with s'mores was nice and a great way to finish off the nights.

Negatives: Never really felt welcomed. Maybe it was because it was the last weekend of the season, but the service just really felt off and impersonal. Found out in passing on our 2nd day that breakfast was included, still don't know if that was everyday or just weekends. There was a soundbath session happening as we were leaving, were we invited?? They had espresso machines but every day told me they were out of espresso. Heard the staff say to a guest "drip only right now, first world problems!". The drip coffee was just full of grounds and not good. I just don't understand how a $600/night place isn't running to the store to get more espresso beans for multiple days. Food at breakfast was just alright, the buffet of pastries was excellent but the on site prepared food wasn't great - poached eggs overcooked. Made us decide to seek dinner elsewhere during our stay. Same with the bar, cocktails not very good and yet cost ~$20 each. 12oz can of beer was $10 - made us decide to skip the cocktail class. While the s'mores were great, they just left out jars of ingredients and never refilled them through the night, so that area got pretty messy and ran out of stuff. Room was great but shower was terrible. I understand it's an old place with low pressure and small spaces, but the rain shower head was 7ft up and clogged, so it was difficult to get wet. Would make sense to put a detachable hand shower in such a tight space.

While it was a beautiful property, they just didn't make it a place I wanted to spend time, so we mostly spent our time off site. For $600/night, I was expecting more of an experience. Again if it were like $400 I would have said 5 stars and not really cared about the service flops, but the price set an expectation they...