The Ameritania Hotel in New York’s mid-town is the worst hotel I’ve ever stayed at in New York City and I’ve been there hundreds of times and stayed for weeks at a time. While conveniently located (the hotel is located in the Theatre District on the corner of 54th Street and Broadway….Penn Station is 20 blocks, Central Park is five blocks, New York’s Museum of Modern Art is just two blocks and Times Square is five blocks away), it’s one of those places that looks a lot better from outside than in.
Even though it was clear that they were renovating while I was there, a couple of the nights rates were around the $330 mark, which is high considering that it was only a 2.5 star hotel. It’s also significantly high considering the renovation inconveniences which definitely impacted my stay, not to mention the fact that their website says they have rooms starting at $129 and my rate was nowhere close to that despite there being major renovations. If you don’t have your absolutely drop dead lowest rates when your hotel is being torn up, when might you? All that said, there were annoyances and issues with the hotel that had nothing to do with the renovations.
Let’s start with the bathroom. The first room I checked into was fairly spacious (by NYC standards) yet the floors (carpet in the bedroom) and the slate-like floor in the bathroom were filthy, so much so that I figured it perhaps had not been cleaned. When I called downstairs, they had a hard time moving me to another room (or perhaps didn’t want to move me to another room given that I booked using online rates). I later learned from someone who used to manage the place that the 2nd floor wasn’t one of their best and I was originally booked into a non-renovated room.
And so, after a bit of fuss, I was moved to a floor that was clearly going to be noisy, facing the street where not only their own renovations would be a problem, but outside construction as well, not to mention the fact that it was the size of a shoebox. Really. I realize that many mid-town hotel rooms are small but given how much work I had to do, it was unworkable and the Internet didn’t work.
So I moved again, this time to the 11th floor in the back, a shift that that took a lot of begging, pleading and insisting. During this time, the staff was friendly and as responsive as you can be when you’re understaffed and you have builders running around what appeared to be every hour of the day. (and night). Staff isn’ t the issue, the “broken” hotel is…which is a shame given that the hotel lobby itself (and bar) has a funky look-and-feel. 
My 11th floor room was a renovated room in the back to ensure the least amount of early morning disruption from the outside….or in. That said, guys with big blue rollers were outside my room at 1:30 am in the morning emptying garbage. On the same floor, there was broken wood splinters splattered in the hallway, in front of the “working elevator” a stone’s throw from my room, extending into the hallway itself. It was there for a few days, so shocking that some manager didn’t notice the mess and tell them to clean up after themselves and regardless of what “star” hotel they were, left over crap in the hallway isn’t something that was acceptable if you had a hotel full of guests. Seriously. can you imagine opening your door to find guys doing work at close to 1:30 am in the hallways?
Let’s move back to the bathrooms, shall we? The -un-renovated room on the 2nd floor just had filthy floors, but I didn’t stay long enough to discover how many bits and pieces just didn’t work. Every night, it became a tradition. I’d return in the evening to find that my toilet wouldn’t flush…I’d call downstairs on my cell phone (did I mention that my internal phone didn’t work and despite telling them about the phone three times, it was never replaced), and up they’d come with a plunger. The bedside lamp didn’t work either btw, but they did manage to replace this within the first day.
So while the toilet plunger went on every night, and the phone didn’t work and the lamp had not worked for a day, and I couldn’t get connected, the hotel seemed to be ticking away oblivious to this despite the renovations. Then one morning after waking up later than normal feeling under the weather from a oncoming bug, I went to the bathroom but no water could be found.
The sink was spluttering but nothing came out and the shower was completely dry. After calling the front desk (from my cell phone), I learned that there was no water in the building. Really? Yes, really. The whole hotel so it wasn’t just my room or floor that was affected. Would I mind walking to another hotel (their sister hotel – Moderne) a few blocks away on West 55th Street. Would that be inconvenient? (photo far right is the Moderne Hotel’s hallway on the 7th floor taken on my iPhone. Funky for sure).
Hmmm, what do you think? Pack toiletries and a change of clothes, walk over to another hotel, shower, change, drop things off and THEN get to my meeting. Given that I was already late for my conference, this extra step would ensure that I missed two talks and an on-site meeting.
Hotels may say I’m sorry when things like this happen but sorry doesn’t get your important business meeting back nor does it make up for the frustration, aggravation, lost sleep, lost productivity, lost work time, the list goes on. It’s not about what hotel star you are, it’s the fact that hotels are in the “service” business, not the bed sleeping business. I’ve found more knowledgeable and helpful salespeople at Walmart and Home Depot than I have at Macys and Bloomingdales. If a hotel doesn’t “get that” they shouldn’t be in business.
Unfortunately I had no choice, so off to the Moderne I went with a change of clothes, my toothbrush etc etc. They sent me up to Room 711 or 701 (one of the more spacious rooms) which was significantly nicer than any of the rooms Ameritania sent me to despite the fact that its a sister hotel and in the same category/class. No doubt, they sent me to one of their nicer rooms given how bad things were going, but rather impress, it only reminded me how bad my stay had already been to-date. But alas, a working shower.
While the staff may have been “pleasant” and didn’t get “snarky”, not once did I receive a message from a hotel manager saying “I’m so sorry for all this inconvenience and oh by the way, this very inappropriate list of things that should never — ever — happen to a hotel guest in town for…business, vacation…” Not once, even after accidentally meeting a former manager of the hotel at a networking event who sent an email to the current manager asking them to “take care of me.”
Taken care of I definitely was not and while I try to give hotels and restaurants a break after a “first time” experience if there’s something that goes awry, this is far far from awry. While they did discount my room stay when I checked out, no apology, no “this was outrageous, please come stay on the house next time you’re in New York to make up for it”, no common service management act that could turn things around. And, to top it off, one of the things I do is write about travel. And yes, at some point during my stay, this became known to them. What on earth are they thinking or do they simply don’t care because they’re a hotel based in mid-town and think this kind of thing is acceptable because of their location and demand?
A stay like this is nowhere close to acceptable and frankly it was so bad, that you might even find a variation of it in some Chevy Chase comical movie about the vacation that went south. Very far south. Speak up when service and your stay goes south. If we don’t, then mediocre, complacency and disrespect is what we’ll continue to get with high prices and a crappy time to boot. Did I mention that New York’s Ameritania Hotel is the worst New York hotel I’ve ever stayed in? It’s not the worst hotel I’ve ever stayed in, but that one was a one star on the wrong side of town in Delhi India. Yes really.
Renee Blodgett is the founder of We Blog the World. The site combines the magic of an online culture and travel magazine with a global blog network and has contributors from every continent in the world. Having lived in 10 countries and explored nearly 80, she is an avid traveler, and a lover, observer and participant in cultural diversity.
She is also the CEO and founder of Magic Sauce Media, a new media services consultancy focused on viral marketing, social media, branding, events and PR. For over 20 years, she has helped companies from 12 countries get traction in the market. Known for her global and organic approach to product and corporate launches, Renee practices what she pitches and as an active user of social media, she helps clients navigate digital waters from around the world. Renee has been blogging for over 16 years and regularly writes on her personal blog Down the Avenue, Huffington Post, BlogHer, We Blog the World and other sites. She was ranked #12 Social Media Influencer by Forbes Magazine and is listed as a new media influencer and game changer on various sites and books on the new media revolution. In 2013, she was listed as the 6th most influential woman in social media by Forbes Magazine on a Top 20 List.
Her passion for art, storytelling and photography led to the launch of Magic Sauce Photography, which is a visual extension of her writing, the result of which has led to producing six photo books: Galapagos Islands, London, South Africa, Rome, Urbanization and Ecuador.
Renee is also the co-founder of Traveling Geeks, an initiative that brings entrepreneurs, thought leaders, bloggers, creators, curators and influencers to other countries to share and learn from peers, governments, corporations, and the general public in order to educate, share, evaluate, and promote innovative technologies.
