By Beatriz Tasso Fragoso, special contributor
Andrew Harper is the famously anonymous hotel inspector who sells his independent reviews in a newsletter called The Hideaway Report.
As Travel + Leisure magazine explains, "In his 30 years of traveling incognito with the mission of reporting the world’s finest hotels, resorts and restaurants in his members-only newsletter Hideaway Report, no one has ever guessed his identity. (...)
The first issue of his advertisement-free Hideaway Report appeared in 1979 and grew by word of mouth. Today, tens of thousands of members pay $195 annually for a basic membership or $400 annually plus a $500 initiation fee to be part of the Premier Class, which offers upgrades and other perks to travelers."
He recently launched an edition on New York, which we were very eager to get our hands on.
The much-respected Harper travels incognito and always pays his own way, so that his opinions can always be counted on as unbiased.
Harper focussed the New York newsletter on the new and noteworthy hotels that everyone's been talking about: The Crosby Hotel, The Plaza and The Pierre, along with a few recently opened restaurants. "I'm glad to report, although battered by the financial meltdown, the city has lost none of its incomparable gift for self-reinvention," Mr. Harper remarked.
He was concerned with making his voice heard amid all the noise: New York hotel reviews are on a million free websites, for example. "So much has been written about the city and so many opinions are widely available," Mr. Harper said, "It forced us to work even harder to try and present some unique viewpoints."
I read the newsletter in full and, to sum it up, Harper loved the Plaza and the Crosby, loved Marea and Corton, yet disliked The Pierre, pictured above, of which he wrote:
The best feature of our moderately sized room was its
side view of Central Park. Decorated with anodyne good
taste, it provided a large desk fitted with the panoply of
electronic gadgetry required by today's business traveler.
(We formed the distinct impression that The Pierre is
primarily targeting the business rather than the leisure
market.) We found it offensively cheeseparing to be
charged an extra $12.95 a night for Internet access, and
from the painfully audible tantrums of a man in the
adjacent room, we gathered that the hotel's fax machines
don't always work flawlessly. It beggars belief that so much
money could have been spent on renovation without
ensuring better soundproofing.
Overall, we found the service to be poorly drilled and
off the mark. We requested a copy of The New York Times
and received a Wall Street Journal instead. And a rather
unappetizing Japanese breakfast (soup, grilled salmon and
rice) was delivered to our room instead of the continental
breakfast we had ordered. It took two more phone calls
to obtain milk and sugar, and the hotel had no cream
cheese for our toasted bagels. In New York!
Since the Manhattan branch of London's Le Caprice
restaurant had yet to open, we went out to dinner. On our
return, we were surprised by the lively Mexican wedding-
party music that the chambermaid had selected for our
evening listening during the turndown service. The Pierre
has a fitness center but no spa, which again ranks it behind
other New York hotels in the same category (especially
the Four Seasons and the Mandarin Oriental). Checking
out the following day, we mentioned the soundproofing
problem to the woman at the front desk, whose only
response was, “New York is a noisy city.”
If The Pierre lacks important amenities and a
well-trained staff, its most serious shortcoming is an
almost total absence of charm.
Ouch! :)
To buy an annual Andrew Harper membership, click here.
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