7 on Strath

As with most hotel stays there is the good and the bad. First the good. The Staff at the Strathallan Hotel were uniformly wonderful. They were pleasant, accommodating and cared about their guestsnotably the Assistant Front End Manager, Ryan Wade. He went the extra several miles to solve our issues (see below. As to our suite: The mattress at 7 on Strath was wonderful. It is the+ sort you want to buy for your own home. Sadly that is the end of the good. 7 on Strath describes itself as "a luxurious private oasis in the heart of Rochester's Cultural District. It is in the Cultural District, so that much is accurate. We stayed in the Strong Todd Suite which certainly did not live up to the pictures on their website. It does have a bedroom and living room, but you can only get from one to the other by (1) leaving the suite, going into the public hallway, and entering the suite, or (2) by walking through the bathroom. We were surprised to find that the heat/air return was choked with dust so much that up to 20% of the open space was blocked. It took two days of requests to have someone "turn on the heat in the building" and allow us to bypass the presets. The fan was on when we arrived, and I finally had to stand on the mattress and reach up precariously to turn the fan off without turning off the light as well. And they need to take the dead bugs out of the fan’s light globe at some point. Both rooms had flat screen TV's as promised but they were somewhat haphazardly mounted on the wall and in the bedroom the cable box (you get basic cable from Spectrum) sits perched on top. In the living room it sits on the desk with bundles of wire showing above it. And there is no phone in the suite at all. The bathroom, was described as a “state-of-the-art oversized bath". The room is small, with a sink and a basic Home Depot vanity, a toilet and a shower. There is an oddly large piece of weatherstripping on the threshold from the bedroom. There is no place to put toiletries and the amenities that are in the bathroom are on a tray that overhangs the edge of the vanity so things are falling off regularly. I noted the first night that the shower dripped continuously, which is not conducive to peaceful sleep. After reporting this twice the hotel "engineer" came and tried to stop it. He did reduce it but it remained dripping for the entirety of our stay. He said he would later repair the toilet paper holder which was hanging by a thread. There was mold or mildew around the base of the shower and the shower door would not open easily and one of the two doors twice fell in the shower while doing so. And there is a single towel bar mounted over the toilet so there is no place to put a wet towel other than on the shower door or the single hook on the door to the living room. The room is so small that you cannot open the door to the bedroom while standing at the sink since it opens against the sink. And the living room side door is so swollen it closes and opens only w

Situated in an old house next to (and affiliated with) the usually excellent Strathallan hotel - and advertised as luxury suites - we felt fine booking a room here even though the cost seemed quite high ($200+) Our room was instead worth about $89 on a good night. Here’s what was good: -A/C worked well and room was cool. -Nice front porch on a walkable street. -Bed was fine; standard Hilton fare. The end. Here’s what was bad: - Dark, depressing rooms with mismatched old furniture. There’s old charming and there’s old crappy. This is old crappy. - Sofa was about as comfortable (and as clean) as my son’s frat house. Lumpy and gross. - TV didn’t work the first night. Called over to Strathallan- on cell phone, no phone in room - very nice maintenance guy comes after 30 mins, has to reset the whole thing, still doesn’t work. - One of the 2 doors to the bathroom didn’t fully close. Ok for an old married couple I guess, but not good. - Shower doors didn’t move in their rails, constantly stuck and hard to close. - provided with only two thin, scratchy bath towels. Like one of those really bad motels. The opposite of luxury. - microwave was, I think, one of the original versions from 1979 or whenever, I’ve literally never seen one so old. - Walls and doors are thin so lots of noise as other guests enter the house. Overall, this was a really bad experience, unexpected given their affiliation with the Strathallan. They seemed, at least, receptive to feedback. But I would do a lot of due diligence before staying there again.