Erin K.
Yelp
On New Years Eve, my partner and I booked a room on the 19th floor of the Stamford Plaza, overlooking the Torrens River and beautiful St Peter's cathedral. The views were incredible and the location, right on North Terrace, was very central.
That, however, is where my praise for this hotel stops.
When we first checked in, we decided to hit the gym in an effort to burn some calories before the night's revelling. We lasted about 20 minutes in the smallest, dingiest hot box of a gym I've ever seen. The room was tiny, the tv didn't work, and the two treadmills were facing a dull beige wall. As it was the end of December on a warm day (around 38 degrees, if I recall correctly), the lack of cool air or fans was stifling and we had to give up and go back to our room. The nearby rooftop pool, on the hand, looked lovely and cool, though we didn't have the chance to take a dip.
Of course, a lame gym is no reason to dislike a hotel as a whole, so we disregarded that experience and tried to focus on our amazing view. We went out for dinner and drinks in town and returned to our room to enjoy a bottle of champagne and count in the new year together while overlooking the fireworks that were set to go off in the park below.
Cozying up in the white robes that the hotel provided, we sipped champagne and looked down at the crowds enjoying the outdoor concert. My partner got up moments before the countdown to visit the toilet so that he wouldn't miss any of the build-up to the new year. Seconds later I heard his voice call out from the bathroom and I went over to investigate.
Crawling over the bathmat was the biggest cockroach I've ever seen. Without exaggeration, this thing was at least 10 centimetres long, and was moving quickly across the bathroom floor. We chased it out into the main room, trying to clobber it with a shoe. It ran under the bed. We called the concierge up to 1) help us track it down, and 2) see the monster insect with his own eyes so that we could file a proper complaint with the hotel.
To make a long story short, we missed the New Year's Eve countdown because we were scrambling around our hotel room with a concierge, each of us armed with a shoe while we hunted down our extra hotel guest. We finally cornered it and killed it in the closet, where it remained, presumably until the cleaning crew removed it when we checked out.
The main problem here is how the staff dealt with this issue. The concierge offered us a bottle of wine for the inconvenience, but at this point we were tired, annoyed, and had missed the pivotal moment of New Year's Eve. We declined but asked that he leave a note for the morning manager so that we could discuss the issue when we checked out. He agreed and quickly left.
The next morning we asked to speak with the manager and explained the problem to him. He didn't acknowledge any note in the computer, and wouldn't apologise for the problem. We asked him for some sort of compensation; after all, we had booked a premium room at full holiday pricing on an expensive night of the year and were unable to enjoy it. He refused to refund us even part of the room expense, didn't offer a follow up stay or even a complimentary lunch so that they could show us how the hotel is meant to be run. In short, he was dismissive, curt, and implied that we had made up the cockroach, even though we had called up the concierge so that we could have an eye-witness.
In the end, the manager had someone bring our car around for us, at no charge. We were extremely disappointed in the way we were treated and felt as though the problem was ignored, and even treated with disdain and disbelief. We will never return to the Stamford Plaza and remain, months later, disgusted at the lack of customer service and effort put forth to ensure a pleasant stay.