Lovely hotel......... but shame on the afternoon tea effort
My wife and I stayed in the Palmer House Hotel for 4 nights in early August 2012. The hotel was very nice and the staff were very accommodating, when we asked for a quite room, we got one on the nineteenth floor away from the noise of the train going by.
We were in Chicago a few times in the past and we like that city very much. This time we decided to do something special and invite my 2 sisters and their husbands for afternoon tea in the Palmer Hotel. They live 40 miles outside the city.
My wife booked the reservation for six people at Lockwoods by phone from Ireland just to ensure everything was O.K. We then looked forward to a very special little event which we thought our U.S. folks would appreciate a lot, as we have similar in the Shelbourne Hotel Dublin and the standard is of the highest.
We checked at the desk at 2 o'clock and were asked to take a seat. We did not realise that the table wasn't even ready. Finally at 2.15 we were shown to a small oval coffee table not big enough to hold the cups and saucers. When the teapots arrived we had to move side plates to make space. Milk arrived 30 minutes later, which we had to ask for. I spoke to the person at Lockwoods. She quickly vanished and was not seen again. When sandwiches arrived the waitress wondered where she would put them so my wife had to hold them while she got a small table to put beside her, so she could dish them out. At this stage, we were highly embarrassed and hurt. The bill arrived with an 18% cover charge. I did not think it was the fault of the waitress, but the Supervisor, who was informed from the beginning.
We complained to the Duty Manager of the hotel who was "shocked" and got the manager of the restaurant to ring us. He offered a bottle of wine, which my wife declined. He gave us 20% off, which did not mean anything as the afternoon was totally destroyed.