Think twice before you stay at Gansevoort Park Avenue NYC
They have a very bizarre policy in the summer to limit the A/C use. The thermostats in the room are programmed to go only to 75 degrees no matter what temperature you set. Here is the message I sent to the night manager, he is actually a nice guy.
Hi XXXXXX –
This is Santo Politi from Spark Capital. I was hoping to talk to you before I left but I did not see you. It sounds like you asked your hotel manager to see me before I leave but I could not talk to her either as I had to leave for a meeting. You have been extremely nice to me in all my stays at your hotel and I wanted you to know that I really appreciate it. The A/C problem in the guest rooms on the other hand have been persistent and I finally came to the realization that this is not a problem with your systems but a hotel policy – for some reason to conserve energy your disregard your guests’ comfort and limit the use of A/C to a min of 75 degrees – so it was not a surprise to me when you confirmed this as I was checking out.
You have to understand how disturbed and angry I am about this. In my last stay there, I spent $587.57 for the night but did not get a good night’s sleep because of this bizarre policy, and as you know this is not the first time. Limiting the A/C is no different than telling your guests to limit their use the bathroom or not to turn on the lights in the room etc., it just does not make sense. I’d appreciate if you can send me a copy of the room contract where it states that guests are not entitled A/C use. If this is not part of your guest contract, I just want to make sure that you make it a policy to disclose it to every guest that checks in – just like you disclose when they are staying in a non-smoking room there is a penalty if they smoke, you should tell them that they are not allowed to lower room temperature below 75 degrees even if they wanted to.
I am not sure if you can do much about this, but I intend to do the little I can and at least take your suggestion in the hotel receipt and write a review on Tripadvisor.com (and other travel sites). At least if anyone considering to stay at your hotel happens to read my review, they’d have a chance to decide for themselves if they would want to sleep in a hot hotel room in the summer of NYC.
Thanks again for all your kindness and good luck
Santo
