Meadowlands La Quinta Has Terrible Staff manners
Written: Oct 27 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: good location within walking distance of the mall.
Cons: Terrible staff attitudes
The Bottom Line: If you have a choice to stay at another hotel in the area, you would want to consider it.
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| akyna's Full Review: La Quinta Inn & Suites Secaucus Meadowlands/ NJ |
The following review is for the La Quinta Inn in Secaucus, New Jersey.
I have stayed at this establishment on four separate occasions to attend a convention. Each time, it has had different ownership. On our most recent stay, it was the la Quinta Hotel. About four months ago, I booked reservations for two rooms. I requested adjoining rooms at that time. I was told that adjoining rooms may not be possible, but that the rooms would be close together. I was given confirmation numbers.
When I made the reservations, the hotel was still known as the Wyndam. After the name change, we convention attendees were informed that their existing reservations would still be honored. I called to confirm my reservations anyway, to discover that the hotel had no record. After searching by my credit card number, however, it was discovered that the La Quinta reservation system had renumbered all of the reservations. I was finally given my new reservation numbers and reconfirmed my request for adjoining rooms.
The folks operating the convention were informed a couple of weeks before the date that the hotel had placed most of the room on a 6 pm hold due to overbooking. The hotel would not guarantee your rooms if you did not check in before 6 pm. We were all encouraged to arrive early to avoid problems.
We arrived at the hotel around 12:30 pm. When we asked if we could check in, the attendant abruptly said we could not check in until after 3 PM because none of the rooms were ready. We could not even get her to confirm that our reservations were in the system. We went shopping and came back around 2 pm to see if perhaps it was possible to get checked in early, as people were starting to arrive for the convention. Again, they refused to check anyone in. As we sat in the lobby waiting for 3 pm, several other travelers who were not with the convention arrived, and seemed to be able to check in before 3 pm.
Upon checking in (they finally let us check in at 2:50 pm), we discovered that not only were the two rooms I reserved not near each other, they were on completely different floors!
We were staying in two of the hotels suites. Each suite is equipped with two televisions, a king size bed, a microwave, coffee pot, hair dryer, and mini refrigerator. The hotel also advertises free internet access, however none of us use laptops and therefore did not test the quality of this service. Unfortunately, the reception on both televisions was terrible, as if it was being received from an antenna. Half the channels were fuzzy, out of focus, or had lines running through them.
The exhaust vent in our bathroom did not work, and with no windows the only way to keep the room from steaming up during a shower was to leave the bathroom door open. In the sink, the drain stopper was broken, so in order to drain water out of the sink one had to reach into the water and pull the stopper up manually. In our friend’s room, the stopper in the bathtub was also broken and rigged with a chain to lift it up.
Otherwise, the rooms were clean and the bed comfortable. And there were plenty of extra towels and blankets in the closet in case they were needed. Also, the hotel has a wonderful location. it is only a couple of minutes from the NJ Turnpike, and their are several wonderful restaurants and a mall and grocery store within walking distance (The Olive Garden is a literally only a five minute walk away, as is the popular Bonefish Restaurant). So once you park your car, you don't need to drive anywhere.
The staff, overall, seemed disinterested in providing any sort of service. At one point, I had to go out to my car. There were several guests smoking directly in from on the entrance, and you had to walk through the smokers to get out. I went back inside and informed the attendant at the counter about the situation. She looked at me and said “Oh, they aren’t suppose to be there.” To which I replied, “I know. What are you going to do about it?” There was a long, pregnant silence, as if the thought of actually having to do something about a violation of state law (New Jersey recently passed a no-smoking initiative that bans smoking in public buildings and businesses and near the entrances of such buildings) was too confusing for her.
Our rooms were advertises with a free continental breakfast. We were given tickets to redeem for our breakfast in the morning. We went down for breakfast around 9:30. The breakfast was supposed to be open until 11 am. The continental breakfast was stuffed onto two 6-foot long tables right next to the entrance of the hotel restaurant. Because everything was jammed into this one area, it created a traffic problem getting into and out of the restaurant, as well as creating a bottleneck in the line itself (there was one toaster available).
The breakfast included mini bagels (not even full size ones), juice, milk, yogurt, muffins, and bread to toast. The muffins were mixed together, causes no small amount of concern for one of my friends, who suffers from a nut allergy. She could not readily identify with muffins had nuts and which ones did not. Considering how common this food allergy is, you would think they would have separated these. There was suppose to be fresh fruit available as well, but staff was slow to bring more out. The bowl remained empty for most of the time we were there to eat. There was butter and some jellies, but no cream cheese for the bagels. And most importantly, there was no coffee. I later learned that the coffee pots were set up in the back of the restaurant near their “full size” breakfast buffet.
The following day, we decided to “upgrade” our free breakfast to the full buffet. We went downstairs around 9 am. So we paid $6.25 each for the full breakfast. The set up was much nicer, to be sure, and included scrambled eggs, bacon, waffles, and pancakes. Unfortunately, they were still slow to fill anything. They had metal serving utensils sitting in the hot metal pans used to hold the food. Because there were no plastic handles on the utensils, they absorbed the heat from the pans. So when I picked on up to serve myself, I suffered a mild burn on my hand.
I went back to the table we had selected, now more aggravated than ever. At this point, I just wanted a cup of coffee. I picked up the cup on the table, to find dried coffee in the bottom of it! Also, the coffee pots were sitting on the coffee warmer almost empty and smelled as if they had been sitting there for some time. I went to the cashier and asked to speak to a manager, and explained that I had burnt my hand AND that the coffee cups on our table were dirty. The cashier said I could speak to a manager and would get one.
No surprise that a manager never came to the table. Moreover, when we had finished eating and I went to find a waiter or cashier to renew my complaint, nobody could be found.
While we were staying at the hotel at the reduced convention rate of $99 a night, these rooms normally cost $149 a night. This is not a cheap hotel. While no one problem we had would have been a big issue, the combination of problems coupled with the complete indifference of the staff made our stay less than positive. For the money one pays, I would not recommend this hotel to anyone if you have a choice to stay somewhere else.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
akyna
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Member: Julie Ann Dawson
Location: Bellmawr, NJ
Reviews written: 27
Trusted by: 3 members
About Me:
Editor of the speculative lit anthology "Bardic Tales and Sage Advice" ISBN 1411660293.
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