Not A Legendary Experience
We have had very pleasant stays at the Driskill in the past. Our most recent visit, however was not one of them. We booked into the Renaissance suite for my birthday, calling two weeks ahead for a Wednesday stay and made dinner reservations at the same time. Six days later, we received an e-mail that the Grill was having a special “throw down” and beer tasting event and that they would still honor our reservation if we chose to attend. This should have been known to them at the time we made reservations. Not wanting that as our fine dining option, we changed our reservation to the following Thursday. While the GM in the Grill did comp us a bottle of wine, we had numerous other annoyances which did not live up to the Driskill’s promise of “legendary service”.
First off, the table on the balcony was filthy with old spilled liquid and bird droppings and I managed to clean it off with numerous wet tissues. The tile on the balcony had also not been cleaned and there was actually a dead and decaying baby bird next to a chair and this was long past nesting season. This would not have been an auspicious omen had a newlywed couple had booked this bridal suite and it should not have been necessary to call housekeeping over such a thing. While the suite was very beautiful, details like no door knobs on the outside of the balcony doors, non-functioning can lights over the bathtub, and a half bottle of Voss water on the service table (which they charge $6.00 for) were also bothersome details.
At dinner, we were pleased to receive a complimentary bottle of wine, but a server managed to topple a nearly full bottle of Pellegrino water all over our table and the grilled bread part of our appetizer. I declined to move as it was the most intimate table there, so we endured a lumpy table top when they inserted terry cloth towels beneath a new table cloth. Service continued and not overly apologetically or attentively so. In fact, the check was so delayed that I chose to go back to the room just to use the restroom and write off the whole birthday experience as quite disappointing.