Poor Service, Dirty, Overpriced
I was extremely disappointed in my recent stay at The Grove Park Inn. From the moment me and my party arrived we faced hassles and rudeness from your employees. My reservations were not ready when I checked in at 6:30pm, I had made these reservations in October. The attendant at the check in desk, a younger man, was very rude and acted like it was my fault that you had messed up my reservations. He finally got the 'manager', a younger girl who informed him (in front of us) that someone else was already checked in under my reservation and had done so at 8am that day. This person was already charging spa packages and other items to the room. When one of my travelling companions asked how that was possible since check in was not until 4 pm according to your signs, the man said that it was that way at all hotels and we were stupid for not knowing that.
The 'manager' used my credit card to look something up in the computer and did eventually set me up with a room, overall it took over 20 minutes just to check in. It was a hassle and I was not apologized to or looked in the eye by this 'manager' person. There were 2 other ladies traveling with me and there was a total of 12 women from my company there for a Monday conference. When we got to our rooms on the 5th floor of the historic portion of the inn, there were dirty dishes that were obviously from breakfast outside one of my traveling companions rooms. It was disgusting that something would sit out in the hall all day and never be cleaned up, it was definitely not a good impression of your establishment.
Our party went to our rooms which were, quite frankly, very disappointing. The furnishings were cheap and mass produced, the bathroom was dusty/dirty, the overall quality in the room was nowhere near what I would expect of a nice hotel. I felt like I was in a roadside dive motel based on the quality of the room, not a four or five star hotel. When we left our rooms to go to dinner, we were asked if we wanted turn down service by two employees in the hall (one of which was lying on the couch when we walked out). We all replied that we did, but when we returned from dinner there had been no turn down service, no chocolates on the pillow, but the dirty breakfast dishes had finally been removed. Other people from our company did receive turndown complete with chocolates, but we certainly didn't.
The area of the conference we attended was beautiful and the food that we had for lunch was delicious with excellent service provided. I wonder why this service was only for the conference and obviously did not extend to your establishment's other areas. Overall this was a terrible experience and I had been looking forward to staying at your hotel for months based on your reputation. Everything I had heard was the opposite of what I experienced and I have told my co-workers and friends of the experience that I had. I believe that you need to take a strong look at the quality of service in your hotel and start providing the service and quality that is commensurate with a 4 or 5 star establishment.
