Ambassador Hotel - New Orleans, USA     

I stayed at the Ambassador Hotel this past weekend. I have never, ever experienced such poor customer service. Let's just start at the beginning... upon arriving to the hotel, I was informed that they did not have a reservation in my name. I booked my room directly through the hotel's website, so this did not make much sense to me. The manager then advised me that I needed to show proof of my reservation. I pulled up my email account from my BlackBerry and allowed the manager to read the message. It then took another 15 minutes for the staff to "verify" my information. During this time, I witnessed the hotel manager snatch keys from another patron's hands and tell the patron to "get out of my face". After finally getting to my room, there were several other issues. The room smelled like a sewer, the air conditioning did not work, the room had three windows that all looked out into the hallway, the toilet would not stop running, and the bathroom lights did not work. When I returned to the front desk to ask for another room, the desk person was rude about moving me. When I got to my second room, the key card did not work. The same rude manager told me that it must be me and sent me back upstairs to try again. Of course the key card still did not work. So I had to go back downstairs again to have it reprogrammed. The hotel's website also quotes valet parking at $26/day. When you check in to the hotel, valet is quoted at $40/day. The hotel staff refused to honor the advertised price on the site. I would not recommend this hotel to anyone for any reason. The staff is rude and housekeeping is sloppy.

My husband and I decided to save some money and experience staying at an independent hotel, rather than a large chain. We thought the hotel pictures and many hotel reviews would lead to a pleasant and affordable stay. We figured since we are city explorers, we wouldnt be spending much time there anyways. I called the hotel directly and reserved a room for three nights after seeing the Summer Sizzler promotion the hotel was offering. We requested a room with a view of the front street and 1 king size bed, which was noted when making the reservation. Upon our arrival at 10:30pm, the hotel stated that our reservation had been cancelled. We were dumbfounded at how this could be possible. The staff did nothing to accommodate our stay until we insisted that they find us a room. The manager was not available to speak to. We finally got a room that was a maze to get to. The uneven floors did not bother us, neither did the maze...it was quite comedic and gave us some lighthearted fun. The room was ok, although a bit dusty on the floors, a dinky window in the corner of the room without a view and ability to be a natural light source...in addition to not one, but TWO kingsize beds. Throughout our stay, we had to call to have the safe replaced/fixed and ended up with a dirty iron, which left black tar on my husband's dress shirt for the suit he brought to wear to the wedding we were in town for. The tar melted on the sleeve of he shirt, and he was unable to wear it. The housekeeping service did not give us clean coffee cups or refresh our coffee supply. It was headache after headache, and we do not plan on staying at this hotel if we return to New Orleans. We did mention the shirt/iron incident to the manager when we were leaving the hotel and after breifly making excuses that they were not responsible, he agreed to have it laundered and sent back home to us. Just today (a month and a half after our stay) we have not received the shirt of a phone call from the manager. I called him today and reminded him of the incident, so he is now crediting our credit card for the expense of the shirt. If you want some piece of mind and enjoy your stay, I suggest looking elsewhere and finding a hotel/flight bundle on expedia or similar site...we learned the hard way! (p.s. Do NOT go to Mother's for food either. The hotel suggested it, and it was absolutely horrible. go to the art district, a wonderful spot called Cafe Beignet...it's definately worth the walk!)