On my drive home from work today, I pulled up the most recent episode of the Miles To Go podcast. Ed Pizza and his regular guest Richard Kerr were doing their usual banter when Richard suddenly asked, “What’s up with Gild Hall?”
Richard then went over the details of his recent stay at this Thompson Hotel, part of the World of Hyatt program, and gave several reasons why he thought it was a terrible hotel and a bad representation of the brand.
You can go and listen to the episode but his complaints were:
- The hotel elevators were old and rickety
- The carpeting was red and looked old
- His suite (awarded to him as a Globalist) was dark and depressing
- The hotel gym was the size of a closet
- They skimped on the Globalist breakfast and only provided 4 options, including an insulting option of eggs & bacon
Ed offered some pushback from his pre-COVID stay, saying he was given a huge 2 & 1/2 room presidential suite and the hotel offered entrance into a gym a few blocks away, which was plenty nice for his needs.
We just stayed at this hotel and I thought it was a great place for us to use our Hyatt category 1-4 certificate from the World of Hyatt card.
I realized that I couldn’t fault Richard for his complaints. It’s just what he was looking for when staying at Gild Hall wasn’t the same as what I was looking for.
I agree that the hotel elevators were a bit old but I wouldn’t call them rickety. The other things he mentioned mean nothing to me.
Sure the hotel was very red. That’s a design choice that I’m not a fan of but it’s not something to ruin my stay. I didn’t even include this photo in my review because it was so unremarkable that it didn’t even deserve mentioning.
Even in our small room across from the elevator, reserved for the lowly Discoverists, there was plenty of room to relax for a long weekend.
Finally, we enjoyed our hotel breakfast which included me ordering the previously mentioned eggs and bacon (which was fantastic.)
To be fair, we didn’t spend much time in our room. For most of the weekend, we were in the theater district seeing shows. We only stayed in the room to sleep in the amazingly comfortable, overly large bed.
We didn’t look for the hotel gym. We only ate breakfast at the hotel one morning because we slept in and didn’t have time to go to eat before our shows. The other day we headed out and found bagels for breakfast and brought them back to the room to eat.
You could say that both of our opinions about the hotel are accurate. It all depends on what you’re expecting from your stay. If you’re like us and just need a place to stay in Manhattan and want to use up your Hyatt free nights, this is a great place. If you’re a Hyatt Globalist and are looking for a fantastic free hotel breakfast, state-of-the-art gym, and modern design that you’ll find at other Thompson properties, then you’re bound to be a bit disappointed.
Sure, it’s not the Park Hyatt or the Andaz, but you’re also not paying those prices to stay at Gild Hall.
I try not to overuse this, but in this case, Your Mileage May Vary.
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
2 comments
I’m with you here. I can’t fathom being disappointed at being able to stay here with certs.
To each their own, but I find miles and points, vloggers and bloggers are very over the top. YMMV is a little more down to the earth. While everyone hates on Tripadvisor, the average person is more likely to tell the nitty gritty than either vlogger or blogger. And it isn’t my expectations are too low, but instead way more realistic.