Amway Grand Plaza

The hotel is beautiful and in a great location downtown Grand Rapids. We upgraded to a suite and the room was not ready after check in time. This seems to be a trend based on Google reviews. Our a/c had to be reset manually a couple of times. Overall beautiful hotel.

My stay at the Grand Army was one of the worst I’vs ever had! It LITERALLY was one FECKLESS mess after another! First, it started off with me trying to select my room on Thursday. When I noticed the floors were very low, I called the front desk to see why. I spoke to Chase who could not have been nicer! He mentioned he put notes on the reservation. His kindness, compassion and professionalism made me feel excited to come to your hotel! Unfortunately, this was quickly evaporated when I spoke to Miranda the next morning. I called to verify that I had received the tenth floor luxury suite. She puts me on hold for a very long time, comes back and says “yes they are still there.” It struck me odd that she did this without even asking me who I was. I said “but you didn’t even ask me my name.” She sarcastically replied, “umm your caller ID showed up.” Now mind you, this is the very first time I’ve ever been addressed in such a way. All I can say is….”ok…?” She just hangs up. I was a bit confused but even more, I was taken aback! I wait a little bit and I decide to call back. It’s my guess that she was still watching the caller ID because the phone rang for a minute or two and no one answered. I eventually hung up. It was not until I arrived that I realized that I never received the tenth floor request that Chase put on my reservation. Understandably so that room requests are just that: requests. Meaning you may/ or may not get it. However, I do not think there’s any reason to be disrespectful and rude like Miranda was. When we arrived to the hotel, the dropoff area was too crowded. I could not remember if we had paid for parking for our stay, so I decided to call the front desk to verify. When I called, I spoke to someone named Andrea. I explained to her that I had just arrived, but wasn’t sure if we had paid for parking on our reservation. This time, I immediately told her my last name. In similar fashion, she immediately said “no.” I said, “ma’am, you look me up fast?” She again immediately said, “yes, and I don’t see anything!!! Do you need anything else?!” As if she’s busy and has better things to do. We decided to just brave the traffic and park in the garage. When we arrive to the front desk, I am greeted by a woman named Erin. Similar to Chase, she’s also couldn’t have been any kinder and professional! When she ask if I was ok, she immediately noticed my disgruntled look on my face. She then asked “are you okay sir?” I proceeded to tell her that I wasn’t pleased with my recent two interactions with the front desk. I go on to explain my recent one was with a woman named Andrea. As soon as I said her name, Erin looked to her right. The woman standing next to her said “that’s me!” I explained to her that I didn’t appreciate her tonality nor her professionalism. She immediately became startled, surprised and defensive. Erin was very apologetic and offered a gift card. I outright refused to take it, but she insisted. In my opinion, she did a great job and I’m very for attempt to deescalate the situation. For there, we get our keys and head to the room. Optimistically thinking the issues are resolved, we later find out they are only beginning. Upon arrival to the room, we immediately notice hair EVERYWHERE! And when I say everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE! There was hair on the bathroom countertop, hair on the bathroom floor. Hair in the toilet. Hair on the bed comforter. Hair on the sofa. Hair on the floor. It’s soon disgusting and overwhelming, IMMEDIATELY get on the phone with housekeeping and explain that this room looks as if it has never been cleaned!!! In addition, we requested a few extra items to the (more towels, pillows, robes…which we couldn’t find/get). Fast forward to 20 minutes later……STILL NOTHING!! In addition, we have an ice cream cake and are wondering if your hotel has a freezer. Front desk says they are going to “send a technician to assist.” Instead they send a housekeeper. The housekeeper explains to us that they mixed her up with someone else she leaves. We call 10 minutes or so later. This time we’re going “what is going on?!” So we call back but this time we are not happy. We stress that we need to freeze our cake since it’s ice cream and we MUST have our room clean!! They send up the SAME housekeeper who says “there must have been a mistake earlier because they just sent me a message saying your room wasn’t properly cleaned. By then we were furious! Not only could we not relax after working and driving from Chicago but now we have to deal with all of this terrible service?! We muster up the strength to leave so see can re-clean the room. We decided to deal with management tomorrow. After eating dinner we requested our cake be returned to our room. Robert was nice enough to make it happen. While asking him to bring the cake up to the room, also asked him to bring me the manager info because we have several problems with the room. One of the managers I asked for was the general manager. Even though I did consider Robert a nice and professional individual, I was very crossed that he refused to give me the name and contact info of his general manager. When he finally came to my room, I asked him flat out why he refused. He shakily replied, “ if I did sir, I could get in a lot of trouble!” I’m sorry, but I have never heard of ANY HOTEL where they are not allowed to give out the name and email of the general manager. That is preposterous and something, then I still find not only flabbergasting, but seriously disturbing! After Robert dropped off the cake, he went back downstairs. I later called downstairs, afterwards and let Robert know I was not happy with his refusal to tell me his general manager’s name/contact info. We then had our cake, took a shower and decided to watch some TV afterwards. This brings us to the worst part of the stay! After taking a shower we decided to take a shower. After showering 🧼 , we turned on the TV. My god…..we’ve never seen anything like this! It seemed as if something or someone hit the screen. We immediately called downstairs to explain the issue. Front desk supervisors Mateo and Angie came upstairs to take a look. They themselves were appalled by what they saw. We were too tired to go anywhere else, there were no more suites like ours available in the hotel so we decided to stay for the night and deal with it in the morning. As a result, I typed up an email to the front desk supervisor as well as the director of rooms and demanded that I speak with them first thing in the morning. The following morning, we went downstairs to have breakfast at “The kitchen with Wolfgang Puck.” Unsurprising at this point, without going into too much detail, food was subpar. I will save that review for the restaurant itself. While we were eating, we saw the email coming from Shakira. Upon reading it, we appreciative but also taken aback at the same time. On one hand, we appreciated her sincerity for all the woes/problems we experienced in our room. On the other hand, we were saying to ourselves “are they really only going to offer only half off for the entire stay?” As my girlfriend explained to me that night, the damage to the TV alone gave us some indication that perhaps our safety was in jeopardy!! That’s not, including the other woes/issues we experience with the suite. This is not to even mention the issues we experienced BEFORE we got to the room! The fact that we had to deal with how disrespectful front desk staff members Andrea and Miranda were! We decided that we would finish our breakfast and immediately here to the front desk to talk to Shakira. After breakfast, we arrived at the front desk and met with Shakira, the front desk manager. One thing we can say about her is, similar to Chase and Erin, could not have been nicer and more professional. As I mentioned to her “ this isn’t anything against you, personally. However, we are completely appalled by everything we have experienced!” we explain to her that while we appreciate the gesture to waive the previous night’s stay, we take the fair (and right) thing to do is to waive the entire two night stay. She explained to us that she can’t do that and it would need to be approved by her supervisor Lindsay, the Director of Rooms. I explain to her that if they do not, then we’ll head over to their competitor JW Marriott. Shakira then says something a manager should NEVER EVER do!! She says “we can arrange that for you!” Ok first and foremost, anyone will tell you that you should not offer to send disgruntled guests away. Especially after you screwed up!! Second, I even told her this, we didn’t need her to “arrange that” for us. We can do that ourselves! This told us everything we needed to know and more. We adjourn and then headed to our room. My girlfriend is very uncomfortable, uneasy and upset about the entire situation. She explains to me that she feels they are trying to finesse their way out of the this horrible ordeal and frankly I agree with her. As a result, I called my contact over at JW Marriott to see if they had any suites. They had one available and explained they would hold it for me. I wrote Shakira and explained to her and Lindsay two scenarios: either they comp us for the entire stay (it’s the least they can do) or we leave. We go downstairs…..Shakira explains they her boss offered 1/2 off + champagne. Ok wow. Are you a hotel manager or a used car salesman? After all that transpired they try to haggle / barter with us? Seriously? How offensive to ASSUME a guest drinks alcohol. The proper way to handle this would like have been to say, “ I’m not sure if you drink alcohol or not, but I would love to send champagne to your room.” Irregardless, that’s a moot point for this particular situation. The conversation should’ve went “You know what Mr Austin, we completely fell short of not only our standards of the Curio brand, but Hilton hotels and Resorts in its entirety. Therefore, we would like to completely comp your stay.” it’s as I told Shakira, I can understand if it was just the hair, here and there, but the damaged TV alone merits a comped stay!! Super 8 motels have TVs that work and aren’t damaged. Are they that desperate for money? I said to myself I wouldn’t repeat this, but I think I will. Months ago when I called the hotel, a couple of their front desk people said to me FLAT OUT, “If you want the best luxury hotel in this city, you shouldn’t stay here. You should stay next door at the JW Marriott.” Well I would like to amend that statement and say that I recommend that NO ONE stay at the Amway Grand Plaza! I would even recommend guests go to the surrounding hotels downtown as well. Just avoid this hotel. They are God awful! If this situation doesn’t give you pause, I don’t know what will! I cannot in good conscience recommend this hotel to anyone who is looking to stay in Grand Rapids. I’m sorry.

The Amway was a decent stay. I checked in via the app and I did not have to talk to anyone. I went straight to my room. I took the upgrade for $21.00 and got a king sized bed instead. My wife and I enjoyed our night there. The conference I attended was located right inside the building.

What a great way to spend our anniversary!! We checked in on May 29 for our anniversary (1 night, then on to camping in Holland). The young woman who checked us in was welcoming and smooth, really quick transition to our room. The room was a gorgeous corner with views of the city and the Grand River. My husband forgot his shirt for our dinner, a quick trip down to the shop and he had a great shirt. Dinner was at Ruth Chris's, see my review on that separately. Jenny, our waiter, was very knowledgeable and even suggested the chopped salad. Great recommendation. We decided to go to the Lumber Baron's bar afterward for live music, dessert and after dinner drinks. The bartenders were attentive and Jenny had let them know that we were on our way! That was a really nice touch. Overall, recommend the Amway Grand, can't wait to stay there again longer!

The room was clean and staff friendly. The room had the toilet and shower only as a bathroom. You had to come out and walk past the television to get to a sink for hand washing. The sink area didn’t have a door. Not a good setup when staying with friends.