Liberty Hotel, an Ascend Collection Hotel

The building has amazing bones, and we were told they’re working on a complete renewal. I hope they follow through. Our room was clean and the bed comfortable, and the beautiful old building has real charm. It was too cold to use the pool, though it looked clean and well cared for. The curtains double as blackout blinds but couldn’t be raised except by folding or rolling them up to the window ledge. Breakfast was AWEFUL.

This is a lovely hotel with history and old-time charm, and the young man at check-in was very helpful and did his job well. In the morning there was no coffee ready, so we had to wait for it to be made. The little details are slipping: all the shampoo, conditioner, lotion and soap were different brands, which looked cheap for such a beautiful place. The walls also had scuffs and stains and could use fresh paint. These may be small things, but details like that affect whether I want to return. A little TLC would make it great.

The last picture was of a bug in the new room. After that night, I checked our suitcases for bugs when we got back, and my son came down with flu-like symptoms after the trip. It was supposed to be a father-son trip, and I’ve never had bed bugs in 45 years. We checked in and went to an event. At 9:45 I found expired chicken salad in the fridge and threw it out. About an hour into sitting on my bed, I spotted a bug on the pillow and killed it with a Kleenex, thinking it was random. Forty minutes later there was another; when I tried to kill it with the same tissue, blood splattered on the sheets. I reported it around midnight. The worker said there were no rooms, then remembered one without AC. I woke my son, moved him to the King bed, and the worker said he’d look for a cot. At 12:45 I found him in the breakfast room and he’d forgotten. I finally got to bed at 1:30 with a provided box fan pointed at my son. In the morning, while changing, another bed bug crawled across the cot I’d slept on. I asked my son to get breakfast while I spoke with the worker. He said breakfast had closed at 0900, and it was 0905. I asked for an exception just for my son and said I wouldn’t eat. He reluctantly let us have whatever remained, but there was only cereal and the waffle batter was already put away. They said they couldn’t refund the whole stay and took $40 off.

The room was cute and the staff were nice, which about sums up the good parts. None of the lamps worked when we arrived. Then we found the shower was one of the coldest I’ve had in a hotel, with very low pressure.