Envue, Autograph Collection — Hotel in Weehawken

Wow, how I wish I had a better experience with Envue's staff. The lack of accountability and professionalism is quite disappointing. If you're trying to get a hotel block at this location but not holding your actual wedding there, I wouldn't recommend booking with Envue. Otherwise, the hotel is beautiful and the rooms are really nice. Which is a shame since I really tried to make things work.

When I initially sent out a request for my wedding block, I was connected with a specific sales associate. Upon arriving for a tour, we only spent about ten minutes looking at one room. He seemed uninterested and didn't offer us any additional details of the hotel's offerings. My MOH and I left unimpressed because we drove in the rain (35+ minutes) and paid for parking to check this place out. Our sales person didn't follow up until over a week later. Really hoping that it was just an off day, I decided to proceed with my wedding block. However, during our correspondence, our sales contact addressed me by the wrong name (called me Belinda), got the dates wrong on the contract as well as the number of rooms. What made things even worse was that I asked him to confirm the rates the day he sent me the contract as the seven day period for the original rates provided to me had expired. He let me know they had stayed the same. The contract showed they increased. I let him know I did not want to move forward, explained my concerns and asked to speak with his manager to provide my feedback. He gave me a gentleman's information - only to find out later that this was not his manager.

His actual manager sends me an email stating I was asking for the sales manager. Confused, I forward her the email chain and my initial feedback. I let her know I've moved on from the situation but thought that the feedback should be a learning lesson as the hotel lost out on business (we were interested in their biggest suite!) and we were so excited to host our guests there. I added that I had nothing else to add but that if she needed me to further explain anything, she could give me a call.

After a day or two, she gives me a call to apologize and explains that my concerns were 100% valid. I expressed that I was looking forward to the hotel and she promised me that she would handle everything moving forward. I let her know that I would not want to work with the original sales associate as I did not want added stress to my planning. She follows up with an email and expresses that during the time I initially visited, they booked a wedding making their rates go up but that she would honor my original rates. I let her know that moving forward was contingent on the suite being available (she mentioned is was unavailable but needed to confirm). She confirms two days later that it is available and asks if I want to add it to my contract and for which days. Despite confirming the day of, she never responded. Friday comes and goes, which is the deadline she provided me to fill out my contract.

As I didn't hear back, I let her know my bridal party didn't feel comfortable moving forward as they saw just how disappointed and concerned I looked. Her response was to say that she was appreciative of me giving them a second chance and wished us well. Her follow up still provided no apology for dropping the ball and instead went into detail about her busy schedule. If she was too busy to follow up, I wish she didn't oversell us or promise that she could take us on.

As a bride, there are too many pieces I have to focus on. And this excuse is disrespectful to me and my partner, who also have full time jobs - even working overtime most weeks - to make this wedding a reality. I understand busy schedules, however, when people over commit or ask me to follow a deadline/timeline, I wish they would respect ours as well. During this time, I could have reached out to my other hotel block to double my rooms. Now I am struggling to find another hotel with availability in the area that...

RATING: negative 10

If I could rate this hotel with 0 stars I would. I had my wedding here in September and they made it such a horrible experience. To make a long story short, I never had a consistent Director of Sales and Marketing (x3 total in 1.5 years because the turnover at the hotel is very high) or a wedding day coordinator (as promised in our contract). They consistently tried to charge us fees that were not in our agreed contract - one example is they advised they didn't have espresso machines for a wedding our size (200 people) and they advised we outsource. We did and then months later we were told we had to pay $55++ as a corkage fee, because the hotel is unionized and we shouldn't have brought in a vendor. Another thing was amperage, if we used too many electricity amps then there would be a possibility to charge us; plus, they wanted to charge us $5 for a welcome bag. We even had to pay for ceremony chairs....

The only helpful person (and sadly was caught in the middle between client & hotel) was Rob. He came with over 30 years of experience in hospitality and was the only person that understood our challenges. His goal was for us to have a special day and he made it happen, even though he was brought onto the hotel team as a consultant. He was AMAZING.

The first time I connected with Rob was after I hadn't heard from my 2nd Director of Sales and Marketing (DOSM) in weeks. We had just sent out our save the dates and guests advised us they weren't able to book a room because our block was filled. Rewind to before we signed, we asked about adding more rooms to our contract because we had a lot of family from out of town both nationally and internationally, but were told they would inform us if rooms started to be booked so they could hold more for us. Well that never happened, and so I was forced to book rooms for more than half of my guests. It was embarrassing because I had to reach out to guests, some who didn't even know at that time if they were able to attend or not since we had only sent out the save the dates. Rob thankfully worked with the hotel and was able to get us the 30+ rooms we needed.

Because of all of the issues, I ended up hiring a day of coordinator who supported us through all of the venue challenges. With her years of experience and credibility, she along side Rob, helped us with these challenges that we pushed back on. What also helped was that I had everything in email and put together a 30+ page document, proving they couldn't charge us more than what was contracted, couldn't add fees, etc.

On the day of the wedding my coordinator and DJ had challenges working with the hotel team.

After the wedding, about 3 months later they came back to us advising we owed more money because they had forgotten to include a fee. Funny enough while I was at the bank, I confirmed with the DOSM the amount and was advised it was final.

To say the least, it was a DISASTER and such an UNENJOYABLE EXPERIENCE -- with certain parties at the venue -- not only as a bride but as a client. Thankfully we had a great wedding day - food was delicious, music was great, view was beautiful overlooking the NYC skyline - but it could've been so much smoother if the venue actually had...

I'm perplexed as to where to begin. Note: Vacation and we paid for a corner room with fabulous views of the Hudson River and NYC. The view is forever burned into our memory! The room was very clean and we liked the contemporary design. Literally right across the street, is the ferry terminal and they leave promptly every 20 minutes for the 39th Street terminal in the city.

Unfortunately, here's where the Two Star rating is applied to this review...NOISE and minimal concern by the staff. Two of our three night stay, we absolutely could not relax and enjoy the view from our room...until the strike of midnight. Friday night and Sunday night there were private parties...RIGHT BELOW OUR ROOM!!! The music was so loud, you couldn't relax after exploring NYC and watch TV, the utensils jumped in their cup and the metal towel rack on the bathroom floor vibrated! This noise penetrated down the hallway (of the rooms with a river/city view) halfway to the elevator Friday night and to the elevator Sunday night. Rooms without a view of NYC, were far enough from the DJ's music.

The staff got off on the wrong foot as we were in line to check in. Almost immediately, a gentleman approached us and snidely asked "do you need help" as he scans us up and down. Several minutes later, from the opposite direction, a woman repeats the question along with her scan. So we weren't dressed in an evening gown and coat n tie as were the wedding guests who were checking in. We were anxiously looking forward to our "room with a view" and two days in NYC! As we are seasoned travelers, we have NEVER been approached with an attitude resembling "why are you in my hotel". Once in our corner room and taking in the fabulous views, we put aside the belittlement from the two in the lobby.

Upon returning from dinner next door, we couldn't believe the increasing sound as we walked down to the end of the hallway and entered our room. The entire room was vibrating from the music! The front desk apologized, offered another room (without a view of the city!!!) and promptly handed us a ready-in-the-drawer $45 voucher to their bar. Made us wonder...is this is a common occurrence? We exiled ourselves to the bar area, where we had to talk over their loud (albeit not DJ volume) "background" music...until midnight! Repeat this entire scenario two nights later on our last evening.

As group leaders for several decades, we are accustomed to seeing if a property can handle our 250 - 350 attendees. So, during our Sunday evening exile, we went exploring. This hotel has an outdoor tent with sides (which could be air conditioned) and an adjoining inside banquet space. WHY are these two facilities not being used, when management knows very well that THREE FLOORS of paying guests WILL BE disturbed until MIDNIGHT?!?! Yes, the front desk said the noise penetrated from the 6th floor party to the 10th floor rooms.

Enough said...and there is zero exaggeration of the facts. We enjoyed our "room with the view" tremendously, but it unfortunately came with two extremely disruptive evenings to our 3-day holiday...