Manhattan, Hotel Gansevoort

We recently stayed at the Hotel Gansevoort and were extremely disappointed with the service.

On arrival I gave reception my credit card, but as a friend and myself were to be staying in the room I requested that they swipe her card too when she arrived in an hour or so, which they did, but this was not to be the end of this saga.

On booking I requested a corner room with balcony and view of the Hudson, "no problem..!" I was told - but when I got into the room we had a room at the back with a view of an advertisement board, a tiny balcony and not on a corner. I called to reception and the answer was "nothing we can do about that, nothing was confirmed on the booking" - no apology or possibility of moving to a better room.

I then noticed that the adaptor I had purchased in the UK wasn't working properly so I asked if I could borrow one for my hairdryer and GHD's - "no problem - we will send someone up in 15 mins" 1 hour later, I had to leave the hotel, I didn't want to waste my time in NYC waiting for a plug! So I went out, but on the way past reception requested that someone put one in my room by that evening for me - "no problem - that will be done."

On return to my room, some 3 hours later nothing was there, I called again, and so it goes on. Suffice to say I waited for my friend to arrive and used hers.

That night we went out on the town and received fabulous service at restaurants - which we incidentally had to book tables for ourselves as the concierge had booked us in on the wrong dates/times and restaurants!

On return to our hotel, we went into our room, it was boiling hot, the A/C was clearly not working, the beds hadn't been turned down and there were some warm bottles of water by our bed with $8 scrawled on them. for $455 per night (+ taxes etc) maybe the odd bottle of water could be thrown in!!!! Suffice to say that nothing was done about the A/C and after reporting it several times we gave up and melted!! Sleeping with a balcony door open was not an option with it being so loud (and I was going to bed at 3/4am!)

2 days later we were going shopping and before we left I called AMEX to check my balance, to my horror, over $1800 of charges had been made to the Gansevoort Hotel which when my share of the room was $800 for the entire stay I was a bit upset!

I went straight to reception and asked that they refund the $1000 to my card ASAP, they said that this would take 10 working days! My friend's card had had no charges put onto it. So we then had to arrange between ourselves, that she would use her card to pay for my shopping, which wasn't the best solution by as the Gansevoort didn't seem at all bothered - that was all we could do!

All in all, I don't care how many celebs stay there, it is a monstrosity of a hotel, with horrible staff, rubbish breakfasts and I would never recommend or stay in this hotel ever again. I couldn't wait to leave.