Ridiculously Tiny Room, Incompetent Management
Upon entering the room, I was quite shocked to discover that the combined size of the room and bathroom was actually smaller than the size just a regular hotel room. It was essentially a large walk-in closet. Poor, but manageable.
Then my friend used the valet service to park his car on Saturday morning while we toured Boston. He generally isn’t comfortable leaving his car with valet services so we returned Saturday night to park it on the street. After being told that they could not retrieve his car and that they could not take him to where the car was parked, he finally was able to convince them to take us to his car.
When we arrived, we found his vehicle parked in a lot with another guest’s vehicle in front of it, running with the hood open. They claimed that the battery of his car died while it was running (which is not possible) and the portable jump starter they typically use was dead (one can only assume that it was dead because they were forced to use it recently on another guest’s car). They did not have jumper cables to connect my friend’s car to the guest’s car. While we stood with the manager discussing the situation with the hotel manager, the guest’s car continued to run for what I would estimate at more than 30 minutes. Were it my vehicle that was used to attempt a jump start of another guest’s car but was simply left running in the parking lot without my permission, I would be very upset.
Anyway, we were finally able to convince the valet service to park the guest’s car and then stood around waiting for them to rectify the situation. Requests that they call AAA were denied and we were continually lied to about the nature of the situation and how the battery had died. They finally found a cab driver who had jumper cables and used what looked like the vehicle of a valet attendant to jump my friend’s car. The manager’s solution for more than an hour of dealing with this ridiculous situation very late at night? Two $10 breakfast coupons and two free appetizers coupons for the next evening.
I was completely appalled by the way the Commander Hotel handled the situation. “Ridiculous” is the only term I can use to describe it (perhaps “criminal” may apply as well).