This review will encompass my several stays at the Ritz CPS in 2026. I’ve stayed here for well over 20 years, and am very familiar with this hotel. I’m sad to write this review.
Positives: Incredible doormen, particularly Felix and Joe. Excellent location on the park. Great concierge. Enid at front desk is the (only) star of the front desk IMO - he needs a promotion.
Negatives: Where do I start? The rooms are falling apart - holes in sheets, tears in furniture, cheap towels, broken marble. Hotel corridors always have housekeeping carts stored there, and many of the doors/walls have significant damage. The service from the front office assistant manager was atrocious after one of my stays - see the attached email from him after I wrote a 4 star review, but very respectfully asked for some compensation for the numerous issues. His response was a perfect example of the hotel’s continued downward trajectory in service - I bet he came from a Marriott. Staff in the lobby lounge is hit or miss - will the waitstaff roll their eyes at you and then ignore you (like they did with my daughter and I), or smile….you never know! On a recent stay in an avenue suite, my daughter found old, gross food in between the couch cushions - clearly not cleaned. Also the couch had stains and the room was showing its age. (I actually never mentioned any of this to the staff because the suite was an upgrade and I didn’t want to seem ungrateful). The spa is very small, but nice; however, multiple things were broken in the spa (lights flickering above the urinal, broken tiles and mold in the steam room, broken thermometer in steam room, rust on the towel rack near the steam room, and other weird safety things like the sprinkler heads being painted so if there’s a fire they may not work properly.) Even where they tried to fix things (like toilet paper holders falling out of the wall), you can see it was haphazardly done by someone who’s not too handy.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard the same phrase from management and corporate - “we will make sure this doesn’t happen again”. I swear it must be their other motto or something…but in reality it’s just empty words. Nothing ever gets fixed. Same rude employees are there, sheets still have holes in them, etc. (remember, these rooms go for over 2k/night).
I remember the days when the beds had Pratesi Italian linens (now they’re made in India), Hildon glass water at your bedside during turndown (now it’s the cheapo Ritz water that tastes like Dasani), a substantial turndown service with a nice gift (now it’s a small Ritz-branded chocolate square on your pillow if your lucky), Bentley house car (now your lucky if you get a Mercedes, but they’ll remind you to tip since they’re technically not a house car and are private cars!!)
The Club Lounge is totally hit or miss - our last time there was good, but the time before was…..quite bad. I asked the club employee what the food was for my daughter who has allergies (since there were no placards), and he started getting very upset in front of my kids and yelling about how horrible the club management is, that they’re never there, and that he basically hates the place. I was astonished what he said to me and my kids. To management’s credit, they handled this well - but the fact it even happened is insane. And he’s still working there…can anyone say “Union”?
Even the staff knows the hotel is going downhill (of course I won’t provide names), but they see it too.
Perhaps they need to take a page from the Plaza and close for several years to really get things back to where they were. They also need to stop being SO cheap with everything, especially since hotel prices have tripled - bring back the little niceties that used to make this hotel special and stop nickel and diming.
My last stay in August with just my daughter was overall nice, but that was also likely due to the fact of the numerous prior issues. It’d be lovely if we can have a great experience without needing management’s intervention or a “promise of a good stay.”
Will I be back? Probably, because this hotel holds a lot of memories and is a special place for my family. But for the incredibly high prices, I just don’t understand why little things are taken away instead of providing more nice touches.
The hard product here isn’t all that great (small public spaces, no pool, one ok restaurant, small spa and gym)…which means they really need to work on the soft product (service, extra little touches, NEW bed sheets, etc).
Will things change? Probably not - I’m sure the hotel is doing fine with the rates they’re charging and perhaps the owner doesn’t see a need to get back to their former grandeur since I’m sure they’re saving a pretty penny on what they’ve taken away.
With hotels like Baccarat (with a gorgeous pool), Four Seasons (consistently good service always), and many others - it’s hard to justify the price when other options have drastically better hard and soft products.
Side note: this hotel is still better than the horrible Nomad location - avoid that fake Ritz at all costs. Been there several times and each stay was worse than the last - and it’s a huge local hangout which makes it feel like the Plaza (and not in a good way). At least CPS is quiet and has a great atmosphere. Finally, Nomad is in a horrible location, unlike the Central Park location, which is just perfect.
I truly hope this hotel gets its glory back - I miss it and I’m sure many others do as well. Thank you.
