Disgusting and infested! Do not stay here!!
My husband and I stayed at the US Grant last week for a conference. I was expecting an old hotel, but I figured that it couldn't be THAT bad since it's part of the AmEx Fine Hotels & Resorts program. Wow, I was wrong.
We were initially brought to room 701 (SPG floor). I noticed some things hanging from the ceiling. I had seem something similar in another TA review, so my husband pulled one down to check it out. I thought it was dust or cobwebs, but it started MOVING. I just uploaded a video to TA that shows the bug crawling out of it's pod. There were several of these on the ceiling over the bed. What's really gross is that we were NOT in the same room as the previous TA reviewer... so this is a widespread problem in the hotel. I showed our video and the moving bug to several people (bell, front desk manager, housekeeping manager, etc.) and no one seemed surprised. We were told that we could be moved to either room 702 or 729 (no upgrade) and that they would consider giving us some extra Starwood points. Umm, we just found larvae in our room... and you're offering extra points?! Unfortunately, all of the hotels in the general area were booked because of the conference, so we were stuck at this disgusting place. After a lot of back-and-forth and 3 hours of wasted time, we went to room 702. We thought that the hotel would do SOMETHING... wine? No. Breakfast? No. Upgrade? No. I even told them that this video was going to end up on TripAdvisor and YouTube asap, but they could not have cared less about the cleanliness or reputation of the hotel. The manager that posts on TripAdvisor was nowhere to be found. Upon check-out, my husband expressed his disgust and they offered to reimburse us for about $90 of incidental charges... which is basically nothing compared to the cost of this hotel.
Unfortunately, this wasn't our only problem with the hotel. Everything is dirty... not just old... but dirty. I have stayed in a lot of historic hotels and this one really should be shut down. Several things in the room were broken: lights, furniture, etc. The hotel is extremely dark, as are the rooms and bathrooms. Even fixing the lights in the bathroom didn't provide adequate lighting for getting ready.
It was also difficult to have the room cleaned. We asked to have the sheets changed, and after 3 days of sleeping on the same sheets, I called housekeeping to bring me the sheets so that I could change them myself. See my attached picture to see the sheets that they provided... they didn't even cover the bed! When I called housekeeping to get another set, it took almost 2 hours at night for them to bring them when we were trying to go to bed. Also, forget about turndown service at this hotel. Turndown service happened twice in the four nights that we stayed at the hotel.
I would not recommend this hotel to anyone. I will never, ever consider staying there again. I plan on sending letters to AmEx FH&R, Starwood, and the conference organization that suggested this hotel. I have never had such a gross experience in a hotel. To make matters worse, the hotel had no interest in making this up to us. Please do yourself a favor and consider any other hotel in the area.
PM me with questions or for more information!