Degas House

Josh Travels Sometimes3 years ago

1/5

I am in disbelief over how poor my experience was at the Degas House. Normally I wouldn’t take the time to write a review over normal hotel issues but since the management at Degas House went above and beyond to make our short stay extremely unpleasant I feel compelled to tell everyone all about it. First, the good things: the building is lovely to look at and take photos of. The kitchen staff were also very nice and accommodating. The tour guide is nice and the tour itself is kind of interesting though Degas is more of a minor character in the story (he lived there for six months). The management also, though seemingly begrudgingly, provided us with one hypoallergenic pillow after an email and a follow up phone call requesting one prior to our stay. We checked into the hotel in July which is very hot and humid in New Orleans. The hotel seemed cool enough thanks to central air conditioning which, of course, did not extend to our room (the Desiree Room). The Desiree Room at first seemed quaint but as we began to settle in we began to notice more and more was awry: the window AC unit could barely keep the room below 85F/29C, the large ceiling fan above the bed didn’t work, the mantles and bed frame hadn’t been dusted, the bathtub hadn’t been cleaned, no batteries in the TV remotes, and small piles of black dust on the floor indicated the presence of termites or some other insect. Our first night was very unpleasant. We had alerted the manager Kathy that our ceiling fan didn’t work but they took no steps that day or indeed at all during our stay to look at it. The window unit AC did its best but we could hardly sleep, at times even considering sleeping on the floor in the dining area downstairs which was significantly cooler than the room above. The next day, we asked management again to either look at the ceiling fan, move us to another room, or perhaps lend us a fan to help cool down the room. Having received no response by midday we ended up ordering a box fan from Instacart and debated checking out early. The box fan helped keep the room at an acceptable temperature overnight but hardly comfortable. Then the third day the power went out. Management were not in the office and didn’t answer the phone, so we went about our day. When we returned a few hours later the power was still out though it seemed someone was looking at a fuse box. At this point we were ready to cut our losses and spend the rest of our time in New Orleans elsewhere. We found the manager Kathy who, during a pandemic was in office with a cold, and told her we would be checking out early. She acknowledged our frustrations, apologized, and told us she would be in contact with the owner of the hotel to compensate us for the additional nights and our trouble. We checked out and had a lovely time thereafter at the ACE. I wish it ended there but it didn’t. After a couple weeks, after we returned home, I emailed Kathy to ask about our refund. No reply. I sent a follow up email, this time to the short reply of “I explained to you it will take time to do this reverse…”. A week went by and I followed up again, this time again to no reply. At this point I filed a dispute with my credit card company which the hotel was very happy to respond to. They quickly challenged our dispute, saying that due to their refund policy and the rate we booked at, they would not be honoring the refund agreement we had with Kathy. Thankfully, the credit card sided with us and we can finally put this dismal experience to rest. My advice to anyone looking at the Degas House would be to walk by it on a nice day and take a photo of it. Staying there completely spoils it. My advice to Degas House would be to drastically improve on your customer service, maintenance, and cleanliness. We should not have been treated the way we were treated by Kathy, and all of this could have been avoided with some attention paid to the condition of the room. If the room is not fit for a guest to stay in, don’t take the money. And certainly don’t squabble about it after the fact.