Bek H.
Yelp
I am on my 6th day of 11 but I've seen enough to write a solid review. My first impression of this hotel was AMAZING. The lobby is nice and I was blown away by the size of my standard king room. I've stayed in about 8 different hotels in DC over the last year and this is the biggest room I've had. I like the laminate wood flooring (except that it's very creaky), the big rug, the generous pillows, the chaise next to windows that actually open, the many outlets and USB ports, the huge sink, the fancy Nespresso coffee, the refrigerated drawer (way better than a mini fridge), the big armoire (instead of a dark closet), the steamer, the glass carafe and glasses and mugs, and much more.
You're probably confused by my 2 stars after I've raved about how great the place is. The issue is that my privacy is much more important to me than these little luxuries. I put much effort into making a hotel room perfect for myself, placing each item in exactly the best spot, untucking the blankets, and so on. But housekeeping has instructions on where everything should be that don't account for guests' preferences. Also, I just don't like anyone coming into my room. I clean up after myself just fine.
So. I arrived on Monday and immediately placed the privacy sign outside my room. The hotel designers thoughtfully placed a wooden knob next to each door to hang the sign on. I was thrilled by that, since the sign always falls off the door handle, and this door handle in particular is very rounded and smooth. Also the sign always flaps around and interferes with the door closing. It's obnoxious, so again, kudos for the little sign-hanging knob.
When I arrived back at the hotel Tuesday after work, my sign wasn't there and my room had been "cleaned." The housekeeper had removed my sign and placed it back inside my door, along with undoing all of the work I had put into setting the room up for myself. ARRRRGGGHHH. I called the front desk immediately. I was told "I'm very sorry you are upset. I'm putting a note here to ensure this doesn't happen again."
On Thursday when I got back from work, guess what? Yep, it happened again. Sign moved inside, room altered, I have to start over from scratch setting it back up for myself. This time, instead of calling the front desk, I grab my privacy sign and bring it down to the front desk in person to ask what this sign even means if it's going to be ignored. The lady at the front desk doesn't bother hearing me out, she cut me off by picking up the phone and saying that she is calling housekeeping. She said she'd have them contact me.
I go back to my room and someone from housekeeping calls me. She launched into this lengthy discourse about how Nancy was doing something and Suzy didn't tell her that my sign was up, and she said "the guest isn't here right now so I'll just go in and clean it."
First, I don't care about your excuses, I just want to know what you're going to do about it. And second...how did you know I wasn't in my room? That's creepy.
The conversation ended with the housekeeper promising that it wouldn't happen again. And it hasn't, yet. But they keep moving the privacy sign from the wooden knob to the door handle, so I have to move it back every damn day so it doesn't flap around or fall off. WTF, Canopy?
So overall, I'm finding it very difficult to relax here, despite the nice accommodations, because I can't trust that housekeeping won't just ignore my sign and barge in. I happen to have sticky notes with me, so I wrote "no housekeeping" on one and stuck it to my door at eye level. I'm also furious with myself for not demanding to speak with a manager, and for allowing the front desk staff to be so dismissive of my concerns.
Another hotel guest who was only here for 2 nights also told me that his privacy sign had been ignored. He didn't bother complaining since he was checking out the next day, but it indicates to me that Canopy housekeeping staff must be trained to disregard housekeeping signs.
One more observation. It's pretty standard in hotels that they will only replace towels that are on the floor. Hanging up a towel is an indicator that you don't need it replaced. But at Canopy, they replaced the towels that were hung up. What a waste of water! The Hilton brand should be ashamed, for all that they advertise being eco friendly in their other hotel lines.