As the image on this post indicates, my Legalweek hotel has closed down, making this my worst Legalweek hotel story ever. What’s yours?

While I have stayed at different hotels over the years when attending Legaltech/Legalweek, I’ve stayed at the Warwick the past few years. But, with the conference occurring later this year, the Warwick was much more expensive per night and (since my hotel expense comes directly out of my own pocket) I decided to search for a cheaper hotel to stay at this year.

The hotel that I found on Booking.com was The Blakely by LuxUrban. Nothing special, but a solid rating of 7.4 and only a block from the Hilton. So, I booked it.

My first clue that this would be my worst Legalweek hotel story ever was when I checked in and found that my TV had no signal. So, I decided to call the front desk and picked up the phone, only to find that it didn’t work either. With no other way to notify the front desk about the problem, I headed back down to the lobby…from the tenth floor. I reported the TV outage and then said: “Also, your phones don’t seem to be working either.”

One of the two ladies at the front desk said: “Yes, the phones are out.”

I asked: “Out? Like for a little while?”

She asked: “How long are you staying?”

I said: “Until Thursday.”

She said: “Yes, they’ll be out the whole time you’re here and you’ll need to come down anytime you need something.” From the tenth floor.

Oh boy. I went back up to my room to try the workaround to get the TV working. Of course, it didn’t work. So, naturally, I had to head back down to report the TV still wasn’t working, at which point they said they would send up a technician, who arrived within a few minutes and used a different workaround than I was given to get the TV working.

Other challenges included: no coffee maker in the room and no coffee available at the hotel, an ironing board with no iron (they did bring one up), no hair dryer, etc. There were also a couple of black dots on the bed that I studied for a while to make sure they weren’t moving. Thankfully, they weren’t.

Still, I thought to myself: “I’m going to give this hotel the worst review ever.”

While this was bad, I wouldn’t call it my worst Legalweek hotel experience ever. Until yesterday.

After a busy day at the conference, I went back to my hotel to drop off my laptop and a friend and colleague (Aubrey Owens) was sitting in the lobby. I said “hi” to Aubrey, who proceeded to tell me: “You’d better go talk to the front desk – they’re shutting down the hotel.”

What?!?

So, I did and asked the man at the front desk if it was true, and he said it was. Then, he asked for my name and room number (which I gave), then he proceeded to review a list of guests that was printed out – and didn’t find me on the list! He asked for my info again, still didn’t find me and asked me to write my name and my room number on the bottom of the list, as well as how many days I was staying. I did so, and asked: “Will I need to find another room?”

He told me: “You can stay here tonight, but you’ll have to leave tomorrow.”

I told a few people about the mishap at one of the happy hours yesterday. One of them was David Horrigan of Relativity, who proceeded to announce at the Media Dinner that Relativity hosted later that night that there would be an icebreaker question: “What’s your worst Legaltech/Legalweek hotel experience ever?”

We went around the room relaying our stories (there were some pretty bad stories) and I was the last one to relay mine, which (of course) I was the only one going through mine at the time. Pretty sure that my story was the worst experience of the bunch.

When I got back to the hotel room last night, I found out the reason for the sudden closure: the hotel was being evicted.

And this morning when I went out to get the cup of coffee that wasn’t available at my hotel, there was a wooden bar across the door handles to keep people from coming in. The security guard asked me if I was coming back and I told him that I was, so he let me remove the bar to go get my coffee and then had me put it back when I got back. That gives new meaning to the phrase “hotel bar”! 🤣

After 35-plus years of traveling for business (including trips to Legaltech/Legalweek most of those years), I have had a lot of bad hotel experiences over those years. But this is the first time I’ve ever stayed at a hotel that got shut down in the middle of my stay. So, this qualifies as my worst Legalweek hotel story ever.

So, what do you think? What’s your worst Legalweek hotel story ever? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

P.S.: I did find another hotel to stay in for tonight. Wish me luck!

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