MO St. Louis Millennium Hotel Downtown

[nsxtasy]

This is my review of the Millennium Hotel in downtown St. Louis, where I stayed 7/23-26, 2012.

Other reviews here have described this hotel as a disaster, and warned people away. I can understand why that might be said; however, I would not describe my stay as a disaster, but rather a series of minor aggravations. Whether you want to stay here (by bidding on a 3* property in downtown St. Louis) may depend on your tolerance for minor flaws/aggravations and especially a very low level of service by the front desk staff, and whether that risk is worth the savings versus a 3.5* or 4* hotel.

They were definitely understaffed at the front desk, though, which is one of the frequent complaints I’ve read here. I checked in around 3:00 pm, and I had to wait ten minutes in line to do so. By the time I was done, the line was twice as long, so I would estimate a twenty-minute wait. Even though they had 4-5 check-in stations, only two employees were on duty. Around 4 pm on another day during my stay, I noticed even longer lines. They really need to increase their staffing of the front desk during the busy afternoon check-in hours.

The property consists of two attractive, nicely-decorated towers. I was in the south tower, the shorter of the two, and all the rooms surround a sunny central atrium. The room itself was mostly fine, with nice linens, reasonably spacious, etc. Perfectly normal for a 3* hotel. However, there were some flaws too. Several of the items in the room (lamps, alarm clock) were unplugged, and the lamps didn’t work even when plugged in, so I had to call maintenance. The air conditioning was rather inadequate, although it seemed to improve after my maintenance call (in which I had also mentioned the A/C). And the bathroom had a dinky shower head, which I hate. So those were the flaws I experienced with the room itself – not a disaster, but they could have done better.

When they slipped the bill under my door at the end of my stay, I noticed that there were long distance telephone charges on my bill. My only calls were charged to credit cards, and I don’t usually encounter any telephone charges on my room bill. I went down and talked to the clerk at the front desk, who told me they charge guests for calls, even for free calls. Many hotels had such policies years ago, before the advent of cell phones when telephones were a big source of revenue for hotels, but most have long since abandoned that practice. Also, at most hotels, if there’s a small incidental charge for something that is normally not charged elsewhere, they are happy to remove it from the bill if you object, even if only as a courtesy to make a customer happy. But not at the Millennium! The front desk clerk staunchly refused to do so, causing more aggravation on top of that of the initial charge. I asked for the front desk manager on duty, but he was tied up elsewhere dealing with another problem (as noted below). A bit later, he had returned, and was happy to remove the charge from the bill (and actually asked the previous clerk to do so for me :P ). As someone familiar with customer service industries, I can tell you that this indicates problems with the Millennium Hotel’s front desk staff training; either they don’t tell the staff that it’s important to do what it takes to make guests happy (especially something minor as a courtesy), or they don’t empower them to make minor decisions themselves. In any case, it was one more minor aggravation during my stay.

Some of the complaints here on the forum had to do with parking. I did not have a car, so I cannot comment on that from personal experience. But I was told that when the front desk manager on duty wasn’t available, it was because he was busy dealing with a guest whose car was stolen from the garage, and another whose car was broken into. Also note that these garages are also used for the sporting events at Busch Stadium, so that could be the source of the various parking-related problems. (The hotel is a short block from Busch Stadium, where I was attending games, so for my personal purposes, the location was extremely convenient.)

So that was my experience. What you have in the Millennium is a decent hotel in a convenient location (especially for Busch Stadium), where the front desk staff is inadequately staffed and poorly trained. There’s a good chance you too may encounter aggravations during your stay, hopefully minor ones like mine. But it may also be significantly cheaper than you would have to pay for a nicer property downtown, as it was for me. So you’ll have to decide whether it’s worth paying more to avoid the aggravation and poor service.