4/10 Rating
The Lafayette was probably a grand hotel many many years ago, but today it's a shell of its former self. Let's start with the positives: The hotel is in a great location. It's directly across the street from a St. Charles Streetcar stop, and a block away for the opposite direction. It's very close to lots of shops & restaurants and only a short walk (or streetcar ride) to the French Quarter. In addition to the location the hotel has some great staff.
Unfortunately, the negatives outweigh the positives. Despite having great people work for the hotel the employees are not given the proper resources to do their jobs. This leads to them looking miserable and frustrated, and probably having to deal with a lot of unhappy guests. An example of this is that the hotel runs out of key cards often and there's no way to get replacements. This is an operational management issue and not a staffing problem. In addition to this the hotel has absolutely no amenities. There's no practically no lobby, and no services in the lack of a lobby except for the front desk, which is not always staffed. There is no shop, food, or bar at the hotel. There is a steakhouse on-site, but this is not part of the hotel and they do not provide room service or any interaction between the restaurant and hotel. The rooms are large, but very dark and dreary. Despite our room having 5 windows it was still very dim. Some of the curtains were broken and you could no longer slide them open or closed. The room did not have any amenities either: no cups, very few hangers (if any according to some other colleagues who stayed here as well), very cheap towels, old dim lighting fixtures, very few power outlets, no usb power (technically there was one, but it was broken), no ice container, etc. The toiletries included were all mismatched along with the cheapest & thinest bar of soap I've ever seen in a hotel. There was only one of them too and no soap dish next to the sink. In addition to this one of the towels looked like someone puked on it and the bathroom was dirty. Being that I was working I was in the room often and not once did housekeeping check in on the room. I had to call down for new towels and toilet paper and additional soap. Even the safe in the room didn't work. I was able to open it when it was locked so that's pretty useless for a safe.
Our room had two televisions, but they were useless. I was excited to see that the TVs used Google TV, however the internet in the hotel is so bad that it's not possible to even use the TVs. I kept having them lose connection to either the WiFI itself or it would remain connected with a loss of internet connectivity. It was impossible to use netflix or even the provided Cable TV app. On top of this I was here to do work and I was barely able to do so with the crappy internet. I was able to browse the internet and have some choppy voice-only zoom calls, but that was about it. Attempting to watch any media or have a video-call was painful.
This hotel looks like it's falling apart. Broken light fixtures, peeling paint, stained & torn ceiling tiles, crappy internet, chips and gashes on the walls, especially around the doors, which is a bit unsettling. A fresh coat of paint, new light-bulbs & fixtures, and a little bit of TLC for this building would really go a long way. The hotel has a ton of potential, but if it's what I experienced under LuxUrban's management is typical everyone should run far far away.
I would not recommend this hotel to anyone and would highly suggest you look elsewhere if thinking about this place. This is at most a 2 star hotel; do not let the current ratings fool you. Any proper 3 star hotel would blow this place out of the water.