Dwight Gaut

Review of Le Meridien - Minneapolis

Nothings sadder than an aged hipster and that desc...

Nothings sadder than an aged hipster and that describes this hotel. The charm comes from being small but with great amenities. When you allow the amenities to fade, you only have small and tacky left.

Terrible place to stay. But let's start with the good points. Best feature is the shower. It's a large diameter rain showerhead. Tons of hot water, blue-tiled walls, glass door. I like the coffee maker: an Illy pod espresso machine. It worked pretty well.

The very first night of our stay, the toilet would not fill. I removed the top and jiggled the handle but, despite my best efforts, I could not get it to start filling. I called downstairs, they told me all the rooms were full and they could not move us until the next day, and then at that moment the toilet stopped. They did not move us from the room. Service, as I've said, is not a priority.

Now for the negatives: Nothing ages faster than tech. What was a cool clock radio with an iphone charger is now a clock radio (unless you are still using an iphone 4 or earlier). The flat screen tv is large but mounted wrong because the room is too small. You can't watch it straight on, you have to watch it at a 45 degree angle (at best). But what's worse is that they do not have digital feed. They have channels 0-99 in low res. It looks like crap. Plus, without a built-in tv guide, you often can't tell what is being broadcast because long tv commercials mean it could take a day to figure out what's actually on. When I called service to complain about the tv, they offered to send in a maintenance guy. I said it wouldn't do any good unless he can swap out the signal. Service was clueless, unhelpful and even rude. The staff is very nice as long as you praise them but if you've got issues with the room, look out. They're rude. The bathroom also has a tv: it looks like a 12" LG made more than a decade ago. It's wall mounted, the image is dull, pixelated and unwatchable.

The room is tiny and sound travels easily through the door so people talking as they walk buy sound like they are in your room. The windows are double-paned but they can't block the noise when street parties are going on. On the weekend, it was very noisy until very late both nights. It gets tolerably quieter on the weekdays.

The towels are a mixed bag. About 80% are in need of replacement. Two of the towels, in our 4 day stay, where fluffy and soft. The others were flat and rough. All the cotton had been left in the lint filter, leaving just the poly in the poly/cotton blend. The cotton robes they offer are likewise shriveled and hideous to look at. They look clean but their thin shriveled profile looks like a museum piece.