Review of Grant Plaza Hotel 2*

I'm not normally someone who submits reviews, but my stay at the Grant Plaza was almost comically bad. Although I read through the reviews before my stay, I was in no way prepared for what would happen when I arrived. When I first arrived I was pleasantly surprised at how nice the lobby was. It had clearly been recently updated, and care was taken to make sure that it was warm and comforting. Unfortunately, this is the only place in the entire hotel where that care was taken. The first big surprise was the elevator. It is INCREDIBLY small, and feels crowded with more than two people in it. As if that wasn't enough, you get a Tower of Terror style drop every time you reach your floor. After a few rides in it, I opted to use the stairs for the rest of my stay. Next, I arrived in my room, which was smaller than a very small college dorm. When I walked in, I was shocked to see that my windows were all wide open, in the middle of February. It was about 55 degrees outside and in, which prompted me to try to turn on the heat. And here arrived the next problem. The rooms are heated by old fashioned radiators, for which the controls are located in the basement of the hotel. That's right, you can't control the heat in your own room. I went down to the front desk to ask them to turn up the heat since my room was so cold, to which I was told that "the heaters come on at night". So I waited, watched 7 pm, 8 pm, and 9 pm slowly tick by, without any heat. I went down again, complaining that my room was still freezing. The man at the front desk came up, put his hand near the radiator, said "it's putting out heat, but I guess not enough", and went and got a space heater for me. Which was kind, but I can't imagine they have enough space heaters for everyone. Then I decided to take a shower. It would be the only shower I took for the duration of my stay. The shower stall is TINY, with barely enough room to turn around. The water also varied from freezing cold to burning my skin throughout my short shower, to the point where I actually had to step out of the stall twice because the water was so unbearable. I finally was ready to end the day, and got in bed to go to sleep, which is where I discovered that all the reviews about the beds were painfully true. The bed felt more like a pull out sofa sleeper than an actual mattress, and left my back aching for days. On top of the uncomfortable beds, the walls are paper thin and the windows are single pane, meaning I could hear everything happening inside and outside the hotel at night. At the end of my stay, as I was checking out, I was told I had an additional $60 charge applied to my room for "fees they forgot to add to my reservation". I would have fought it, but I just wanted to be done with my experience at the Grant Plaza. The moral of this story is that it is worth the extra $40 a night to stay at one of the nicer hotels in the area, so don't be a fool like me and stay here. The location is great, but it is not worth the problems you will encounter.