Adrian N.
Yelp
Today is the day after my wedding. We selected the Shay as our hotel for our wedding night and for our guests to stay the day before and after. Out of all the vendors we used for our rehearsal dinner, ceremony and reception, this is the one my wife and I regret using.
Summary: The rooms are in disrepair, patched together with faulty caulking and shoddy paint or ignored damage and the staff is haughty and unbothered. We will not be returning.
If you want the long form, strap in.
We set up our block with the Shay about 6 months ago. At the time, the sales rep was kind and flexible. After we signed, she became note difficult to get in touch with unless I emailed and called simultaneously. At the end she started to be more helpful and helped reopen room blocks, but I assume that's because we had more and more people wanted to book. However, when some of guests went to book, they noted that booking direct from the hotel's website and outside of the room block, was cheaper than our room block. When I first brought this up to the sales rep, she tried to tell me I was confused and didn't understand, until I shared pictures of the different rates. It was promptly fixed, but this felt underhanded.
After this was resolved, we started to discuss where to have an after party and despite some apprehension, we settled on their roof top restaurant that was open until 2am because it was convenient. We got pricing for their private space and it was more than we wanted to spend. So we asked if they could make us a reservation for 12 at 11:30. After making the reservation, they called us shortly after and told they would be changing their hours to close at midnight. This felt like a strong arm tactic to get us to rent the private space so we canceled the reservation but the private space could remain open.
We provided welcome bags to the front desk to hand to our guests so that they could get their transportation plans and other thank you favors. This is a service they charge for. None of them were passed out. When I asked the manager about this, she said it was our fault for being last minute and not having their room numbers listed on them. We were never given their room numbers and went back to the front desk and labeled each of the remaining bags.
When talking to the manager about this, it came up that there was a charge for $132 charge on our room for lunch at a restaurant. We did not dine at the restaurant. We talked to them about it they said they would investigate. I checked with them the next morning and they said they still needed to look into it. And they said that they still hadn't determined if it was us or not. I told them I would not be paying for it and that I needed to check out. They removed the charge after that.
Now to the rooms, my now father in laws room had a broken coffee maker, my friends room had a sink that the sink stopper would get stuck if used and the "premium" suite we booked was full of dents, scuffs, cracked drywall and water stains. Pictures are included. When I talked to the manager about these, she asked if we caused them.
When we were checking out, my sister had an earlier check out than we did so she asked if she could leave her bags at the front desk so she could have brunch with us and they told her she could leave them outside. So she brought them back up to our room. When we were ready to check out, we requested a bell boy so that we could check out and it took 30 minutes.
Last as I write this and am checking with my guests, they are letting me know that my aunt was charged for additional lunches. She is calling now to dispute them.