Scott S.
4/5
Stayed at The Laurel while attending a swim meet and on balance, the experience was very good. The service was friendly, personable, and very professional. They did seem to have some staffing shortfalls, which I attributed to not having enough people available to do things like answer the phone at the concierge or front desk. Although they did not answer phone calls consistently, they would always call back quickly, which was nice.
The property is beautiful, and a partnership between staff and students. Part of the hotel is in fact occupied by visiting instructors, which makes it interesting. Students and staff were on different floors than the guests apparently, and it was not a distraction in any way. Super interesting concept in fact. We hardly saw any other guests until we went up to the rooftop bar after checkin (they have a beautiful pool!) but it was at breakfast on our checkout day that we realized there were actually a significant number of guests.
The rooftop bar was beautiful, and has a working garden. In fact, one of the students, apparently tasked to find a particular type of herb, was up there with his instructor/mentor trying to find the right item. The rooftop bar had food which was a mix of quality. The Mezza platter was very good, while the Shishito peppers were done in a very heavy and doughy batter, and did not taste very good. We did not finish them. These peppers are typically prepared with a very light batter, if at all, which results in a little bit of crispiness in some recipes from being blistered on high heat. This was missing in the peppers we sampled, as they were soggy and covered in batter. The drinks were very well prepared!
The room was luxurious and extremely well appointed. The welcome amenities in the form of snacks were quite excellent. Truly. There were some problems in the room, which we ended up reporting as we found them. The coffee maker, a Nespresso, would not work properly, so the front desk sent a container of coffee up to us. The phone would not work at all, which was quite frustrating. They sent someone up to our room to try to troubleshoot it, and found out it was plugged into the wrong jack! Not sure how that would have happened, but not being able to use the phone was irritating. The handset would also not charge, so the only way to use the phone, once we got it working, was to use the speaker feature. Lastly, the high-tech switches for many of the things in the room were irritating. Not intuitive, and overly complicated. Paint was also worn off a number of the switches, making them hard to read. We basically just ended up randomly pushing buttons, trying to get certain features to work.
Breakfast was exceptional. Both in variety, taste and visual appeal. They had a good amount of staff, appropriate seating, and a dazzling variety of high-quality and tasty options. One of the best hotel breakfasts Iāve had anywhere, and I have stayed in some very nice hotels. Bravo.
All of the staff we encountered were friendly, professional, and generally very knowledgeable.
My reason for not giving the property an overall rating of five was due to the odd combo of things which were undoubtedly five star, mixed with a number of problems that you would just not expect to encounter at a five star property, which I have articulated above. I think the switches need to be examined in the rooms to see if the wear and tear was unique to our room ā I suspect not ā or more systemic. Also, perhaps re-labeling the types of switches that you have would be more user-friendly. In reading other reviews, I see we were not the only people to mention this. I think an additional person available to handle calls at the front desk or concierge would also be useful, as it seemed like staff was pulled in multiple directions or had multiple jobs. I would enjoy staying at this property again, and do realize that it is an unusual mix of professional luxury hotel with academic training facility. I look forward to my next visit. With a few tweaks, the hotel would be really exceptional.
