Brenda Brown Review of Embassy Suites Raleigh-Crabtre...
We stayed at the hotel Aug 2-3, 2014. First of all...
We stayed at the hotel Aug 2-3, 2014. First of all, everything about the physical accommodations was fine. The rooms are amply sized, clean, and inviting. The evening desk clerk, however, left something to be desired. Our family booked several rooms in the hotel because we were there for our annual family reunion. The reunion was actually held off-site. We can back to the hotel after the reunion concluded, and asked the desk clerk if it was okay for us to sit in the lounge area and have some drinks. We had about 20 people and didn't want to crowd into a single room. Anyway, we were given permission and all was well for a while. Then the security guard came to our location and asked us to take it down a couple of notches and we did. Though we didn't see the need for him to say anything, we did not want to give him a hard time. Mind you though, the only thing that may have been a few decibels above a normal conversation level was our laughter. There was no profanity, no yelling, or anything of that sort. Throughout the evening there was a group of young men running around the hotel yelling and banging on the walls. I can't say that they weren't approached by the security guard, but I didn't observe him talking to them. About 15 minutes later, the security guard approached us again, and this time threatened to call the police. We were flabbergasted. There was nothing about our behavior that warranted such a threat. After we got over our initial shock, we went to speak with the desk clerk (this was between 10:00 -11:00, so the desk clerk had changed). The woman occupying the desk at that time was the epitome of rudeness. She was inarticulate and unprofessional. This woman stated that she sent the security guard to our location because several guest had called complaining. However she could not remember how many or what rooms called. There were other small groups in the area not including the young men roaming around the hotel. She was unable to see us from her vantage point. When we inquired about the threat to call the police, she informed us that it was hotel policy. Even if we had been the rowdy group, it would have made for better guest relations to simply ask us to disperse. The police? Really? We told her about the young men roaming around the hotel, and told her that our group was not being rowdy. The desk clerk made an erroneous assumption, and was too arrogant to admit that she could have possibly made a mistake about which group was actually being rowdy. We did disperse and return to our rooms because we were so very offended and no longer in a festive mood. The following morning I came out of my room for breakfast, I was surprised to hear gospel music wafting throughout the hotel. A group of people were conducting their church service there. To do a test, I went back in my room, closed the door, and listened to see if I could hear the music. I could not. This group was certainly louder than we could have possibly been, yet they could not be heard with the door closed. At this point I was even more offended and hurt. It was obvious that no one called the hotel clerk the night before. She was simply trying to wield some imagined power she possessed. Oh, the young men running around the hotel were white, my group was African American. This was clearly a response predicated by a preconceived notion based on a stereotypical attitude.
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