The Vendue

Beautiful hotel in the perfect location! Great amenities and wonderful staff! We will definitely go back! The complimentary breakfast and welcome champagne were a very nice addition! The art displayed in the hotel was beautiful!

On a recent trip Charleston we spent two nights at the Vendue. The hotel is first class and so is the staff. Your are staying in an art gallery with an artist in residence. The art is amazing. We had an awesome stay and will definitely return to the Vendue for future stays in Charleston.

The location is excellent. The room was attractive. The hotel provides nice touches like milk and cookies and a fresh fruit bowl in the lobby plus a decanter of complementary sherry in the bedroom. However, the included breakfast buffet kept running out of spoons, bowls, coffee because it was understaffed. There needed to be more help to clear tables and keep up the level of service. We had a very disappointing late supper in the bar area comprised of food we chose not to finish. The concierge and sightseeing service could have been better too. It is a pity that this nice facility could not perform better.

Spent three fabulous nights at a luxury hotel on Wentworth and decided to extend our stay in Charleston by one day. Unfortunately, our current hotel was fully booked so we looked for another hotel in town and came across The Vendue. Shame on us for not looking at the Yelp and Tripadvisor reviews and booking our one night stay solely on the ratings given by Travel & Leisure magazine. Hand to god we have had better overnight accommodations at Doubletrees, Best Westerns and Days Inns. The good: - friendly and helpful staff from bellhop, guest services and front desk check-in - great location if you want to be near the water and close to the tourist spots - cool hotel concept with modern art everywhere The bad: - The hotel is separated into 2 buildings located across the street from each other. If you stay in 26 Vendue you will not have out your front door access to the rooftop bar, the drawing room (restaurant/bar) and the breakfast served each morning to hotel guests etc. This building also does not have an elevator and has many steps. - There is little to no sound insulation in the 26 Vendue building. We heard the HVAC sounds all night, next door's use of their hair dryer at 6:30am and the ice machine down the hall. - The only room they had available on the night of our stay was an interior queen which was tiny (100 sq. ft) and cost $400+. If you have 2 full size pieces of check in luggage you will have no room to put them anywhere except the bed. The room DID NOT HAVE ANY WINDOWS except for a 1 ft x 2 ft sky light with closed blinds. Yes, we knew going into the booking about the lack of windows as it was stated on the hotel website however we felt the website photos were deceiving and did not provide approximate square footage. The queen interior photo shown on the website had wood floors, painted walls and just looks far nicer than what we had for the night. The ugly: (You can refer to the attached photos) - Serious issues with general maintenance and cleanliness of the room in the 26 Vendue building (Room 259). Our room was flat out dirty from carpet with unidentifiable stains, to stained bed linens, a dirty headboard (dirt/stains came off when I used a wet wipe). There was also dirt, dust, hair and smudges on all the doors and trim work. Our bed was set on a platform and as I wiping the headboard stains off I looked down where the bed meets the platform. There was dust, dirt, hair, an earring etc. No one had throughly cleaned our room in a long, long time. Even the "do not disturb" door hanger was dirty. Maintenance was another problem. Our bathroom door didn't close properly, the glass ledge in our shower slanted down due to being loose, our desk lamp which was a lava lamp didn't work. Also, due to the way the shower glass is installed water pools on the floor and the grout needs to be redone. It just goes on and on. What was a wonderful much needed relaxing vacation ended on a low note at the Vendue. Seriously, the room was so dirty that I kept my socks or shoes on every time I had to walk on the carpet. Full disclaimer that we contacted the front desk manager the evening our of stay and showed photos taken from our room. We also sent an email to the general manager attaching photos. The following morning we met with the general manager who apologized and said all the "right" things. He comped our room for the evening and gave us a certificate to stay at the Vendue for an evening in one of their premier rooms. Based on all the negative reviews you can find on Tripadvisor and Yelp there are serious maintenance issues that were never addressed in the past and continue on. Simply put I would never stay here again.

Pros: great location, lively rooftop bar, decent breakfast included; wine and cocktail hour in the buzzy lobby every evening. Cons: they hype a daily "art tour" but cancelled it while we were there; room was small and fairly average; no coffee/tea facilities in the room. Lacks darkening window shades so light and noise a problem at night - we identified the problem but it was not addressed. Front desk poorly informed (didn't know the charge for phone calls, didn't know if they had a room for an extra night....). Very expensive (US$500/nt). If you can stand the bland decor, my advice is to stay across the street at the Harborview, which offers the same location, comfort and services at half the price - you can still visit the trendy Rooftop Bar for a drink.