We’re here as part of a trip to America to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary
We’ve had Boston, and the Fairmont, on our list for a long time and have been looking forward to this element of our stay
It has been a truly underwhelming experience and I wouldn’t recommend anyone to stay here
Let me start with the good things
The hotel is a beautiful building in an great location
The concierge team, Joe and Vicky, have been very welcoming and helpful to two Brits trying to make the most of our trip to Boston
The team on the gold lounge welcome desk are lovely and friendly
Cornelius who brought our bags to the room was very friendly and knowledgeable about the room
Now let me share some of the more disappointing elements
We emailed the hotel before our stay to ask a couple of specific questions and to let them know we are staying here for our silver wedding trip. We got no response or recognition of our anniversary on arrival or during our stay
Our room is tiny, now this is on us for the room we’ve reserved, but it barely fits us and 2 large cases in. Given it’s in the gold club I presume this came with a decent room. Don’t fall for this.
The shower pressure is poor and is an over bath shower, with a shower curtain. Eugh. Haven’t had a shower curtain in a hotel in 23 years. And there’s no shower caps provided. The hair drier doesn’t have a nozzle (so I look like a sheep - ladies you know)
Room service trays are left outside rooms until 1030pm when there is a sweep to pick them up. So returning to our room after our evening meal is an unpleasant experience. Our room key failed so when I was getting it reissued I mentioned this to the lounge team and they just shrugged and said room service would do a sweep at 1030 (it was 10pm). I find it very poor that the process overrules guest feedback. Surely if a guest has noticed that a process needs to happen this should get a better reaction than ‘there is a scheduled remedy to this’
Similarly turndown service is at 6pm…surely this has a high likelihood of people being in the room getting ready for the evening and hence missing turndown. Ticking the box of turndown process but at a time that doesn’t work for guests is pointless.
There is no recognition of hotel guests in the bar, just a ‘first come first served’. The Savoy in London (part of the Fairmont) always makes a fuss of hotel guests and makes getting them a table at the bar a priority
The gold lounge service once you are in the lounge isn’t particularly good. You are left to find a table, left to find the food, it’s all a bit chaotic at breakfast. Unusually in these lounges you can’t get a mimosa as part of the breakfast. And you can’t get a coffee made for you. This is the 4th hotel we’ve stayed in during our stay in America and all the others have had someone making coffees and mimosa in the lounge at breakfast.
We returned to the hotel last night to an alarm going off, and unintelligible tanoy announcements being made. As I couldn’t hear the tanoy announcements clearly I asked the door team what was happening ‘we don’t know’. I asked the front desk what was happening ‘we don’t know’. The lifts were still operating and being used for people to go up to their rooms. So, hang on, the alarms are going off, nobody knows what is going on but it’s OK for people to go up to their rooms. What? After about 10 minutes of the alarm going off the FD cleared the building as safe and the all clear was given. It was crazy that no one was managing guests.
Having written this what I’ve realised is that process and infrastructure is what breaks the experience in this hotel and it’s the people who attempt to make the experience pleasant despite the processes and building limitations they have to work with
We leave tomorrow but are back here for our final night in America before we fly home. Really not looking forward to it. Which is a shame.
