Fairmont New Orleans

I absolutely love The Roosevelt! I’ve stayed here several times, and it never disappoints. The hotel is not only beautiful, but the staff is always incredibly friendly and helpful. Its central location makes it easy to get anywhere in the city, and Christmas time is especially magical . The decorations are stunning, and the Christmas Brunch is absolutely delicious. I can’t recommend this place enough!

The suite we stayed in was very high quality and comfortable with excellent, fast service. We attended the Christmas brunch which was full of a wide variety of foods, all of which were very high quality. The valet service was expedient and professional. Overall, every aspect of our stay was highly satisfactory.

For the hotel overall and the staff, I give it 5 stars. But I don’t recommend staying for the holidays. We used points, but if we’d have spent thousands of dollars for a room, I would have been very unhappy. The lobby and all bars and restaurants are INSANELY crowded with non guests jamming the lobby to take pictures with the lights. You can barely walk through. Bars were inaccessible with too many people. So for Christmas, stay somewhere else.

We were excited to come to the Roosevelt to see the Christmas lights. We had a reservation and had a nice time. Until our 15 year old daughter, who is a pianist and plays the Vince Guaraldi Trio Snoopy Christmas song, sat down at the piano and played the song beautifully for 30 seconds. An aggressive security guard literally ran through the hotel. My daughter had already stopped playing after 30 seconds. He aggressively confronted my wife in front of all the guests who were clapping for her. I understand if she wasn’t allowed to play the piano. Rather than aggressively getting in her face, a polite conversation asking her to stop would have been appropriate. (Granted she had stopped playing 15 seconds before he arrived and had already gotten up and left) I understand he has a job to do, but this wasn’t a drunk New Orleans reveler. Needless to say the response from the security guard, whose name tag said F. Stevenson, was inappropriate. It really should have read Scrooge. Won’t be heading back to the Roosevelt in New Orleans any time soon.

Although we'd walked through the glorious lobby many times in our decades of travel to New Orleans, we'd never stayed at The Roosevelt until this week. We were so excited when our corporate travel agent booked us here for the week as one of us attends a conference and the other works from the hotel room. Sorry to say, but the grandeur of the lobby is about where it stops here. We're here for two more days. As I write this, I'm sitting in the small cafe off the lobby, where I've had breakfast (cold) and am waiting for our room to be cleaned. When we arrived for check-in on Monday afternoon, we were met at the front desk by blank stares from three men behind the counter (two black and one white). Literally, they looked at us but did not say a word. They were all employees of the hotel because they were dressed in suits and wore name badges. There was no line of other guests; we were the only ones waiting. Eventually, a young Asian woman asked if she could help us. We checked in. I took a key and went upstairs while my husband worked with the bellman to collect the luggage from our car. The room key is required to make the elevator work, and this is finicky. The door finally closed and I went up to Room 21025. That's Tower 2, 10th floor, Room 25. Complicated. Then I opened the door to our room. As my initial shock over the tiny size of the room wore off (we're talking New York City tiny), I began to notice the niceties--and the missing pieces. Lighting consisted of one table lamp on a small bedside table with no drawers and one overly bright ceiling fixture right above the door. The desk, which doubles as a nightstand with one tiny, shallow drawer, had no lamp. How am I supposed to work at this desk all week without a lamp? Very nice clock, extra power outlets, beautiful portfolio containing fine stationery--but no lamp for working or bedside reading. Seating, other than the bed, consisted of one very large, low club chair shoved under the desk. When I sat down in it, my chin was just above laptop keyboard level. This was clearly not going to work. I had to call someone to fix these gaffes. I pressed every button on the phone--personal assistant, concierge, guest relations--to incessant ringing and no answer. I pressed zero and connected with an operator. I told her there was no desk lamp and no desk chair; she sounded horrified and said she'd send someone right away. Within a few minutes, a nice young man came to the door with a chair he'd obviously borrowed from a conference room. I moved the big club chair to the other side of the room by the window and put the conference chair at the desk. Not pretty, but functional. In the interim I had noticed that the lampshade on the one lamp was flopping around in the breeze of the AC because it was missing its finial. I showed this to Garth and he said he'd be right back with a finial and a desk lamp. Meanwhile, the very nice bellman came with our luggage, unloaded it, hung coats in the closet, offered to fetch ice, etc. Very gracious and dignified. Then Garth returned. He installed the finial, then brought in the very modern-style desk lamp (with a dimmer!) that looked like something he might've found up the street at the Aloft Hotel. It looks very out of place amid the more ornate, traditional-style furnishings, but again, it's functional. It was time for my afternoon coffee, so I found the Nespresso machine and two sizes of ceramic cups and saucers: Lilliputian and thimble. I chose the larger and brewed a cup, which wasn't full, and the machine sounded like a lawn mower. We had a new things to refrigerate, but the refrigerator is one-half filled with wine, beer, etc., leaving the usable side a little larger than a shoebox. We unpacked our clothes and were delighted to find a pair of luxurious bathrobes in the closet as well as just the right amount of wooden hangers to hold our business attire for the week. The generous drawers in the combination dresser/TV stand/coffee stand/bar/refrigerator easily held our folded clothing. The bathroom was another story. The vanity is too small to hold much, so I took the luggage stand out of the closet and placed the stationery portfolio over the top of the webbed straps to make a flat surface for our shaving kits and loose toiletries. Snacks, sunscreen, cologne, and other sundry items went behind the TV on top of the multipurpose dresser thing. Let me pause with a warning here: Two adults cannot navigate this room at the same time without a lot of conversation or advance planning. For example, the door to the Nespresso machine does not open all the way back and the Nespresso slides out on its own shelf, completely blocking passage between the bathroom and the closet because the door and the Nespresso take up all the room at the foot of the bed. While I'm on that topic, if one person is at the desk and the other is outside the room, the latter should knock before entering to avoid banging the door into the person who is sitting at the desk. Yes, the room is that small. This is a historic building so all modernities have been retrofitted. One downfall to this is the lack of ventilation. There is of course air conditioning; however, the large antique windows have been painted shut a hundred times over, so reliance on the AC is required to work overtime, especially after showers, which turn the bathroom into a steam room, and then when that door is opened, the rest of the room becomes humid and much warmer. Our first visit onto the toilet revealed that it wobbled disconcertingly. That was our first evening here. I decided that we could not--and should not have to--deal with that in any hotel, much less a Waldorf-Astoria! So on Tuesday morning, I began trying again to reach someone by phone--anyone--to report this wobbly toilet. Again, after pressing every button, I gave up. I heard noise in the hallway, where I found the housekeeper cleaning the room next door. I asked her if I could be next and she agreed to clean my room in 10 minutes. Again, I tried calling someone about the toilet. No answer anywhere. Ten minutes passed, then 15. No housekeeper. I looked into the hallway and she had disappeared. So I went downstairs to the front desk. I admit that I spoke very firmly to the lovely woman with perhaps a Russian accent. I reported the toilet and asked for my room to be cleaned. I expressed my extreme disappointment so far in my experience with this fine hotel. The front desk manager Brittany overheard this and came over to ask me what was going on. I told her the Russian-accented clerk could fill her in, as I had ordered breakfast and needed to return to the cafe. After a long, leisurely breakfast and some work on my laptop, I went back to the front desk to confirm whether my toilet had been fixed and my room clean. The Russian stepped away to check, then came back to say the toilet had been fixed and the room cleaned. So I went back up to the 10th floor, needing the restroom and ready to work. I opened the door to find the housekeeper hard at work and a long way from being finished, so I rushed back to the lobby for the restroom, then back to the front desk where I reported the room NOT clean yet. The Russian say, "Oh, I said the room is BEING cleaned." Evidently, my Southern ears had misunderstood. I worked from the lobby for another 45 minutes before going back upstairs. The room was spotless, with a sweet thank-you note from the housekeeper for the tip I'd left, and the toilet did not wobble. That is, it didn't wobble until late last night. This morning, it's worse. I've now been in the cafe for 90 minutes. I'm going back upstairs shortly to see if the room is clean. Before that, though, I'll report the toilet again. And I'll ask for another dozen Nespresso pods so I can make a travel-cup amount of coffee tomorrow morning before this cafe opens so I can drink it while I work out in the very well hidden fitness center. Bottom line: If you want to stay in a beautiful, historic hotel with high-end toiletries, a very comfortable bed, a view of the Mississippi River if you're up high enough, a convenient location, and the cachet of saying you're staying here, then book a room ASAP--especially if you're NOT coming here on business. The Roosevelt simply isn't the best choice for the modern business traveler. The wifi cuts in and out a few times a day, you might or might not have a proper desk chair with lighting, you can't get anyone to answer the phone, and there is no such thing as complementary coffee in the lobby for hotel guests. Oh, and unless you spring for one of the larger rooms, come by yourself.