Let me start off by saying I am a very fair reviewer and always try to give the benefit of the doubt. Rockstar can respond and color up what I say here, but I will be honest like I am with all of my posts. I post a lot of reviews.
I chose this experience for my birthday. I was very excited to bring a big group over to Rockstar from Virginia and celebrate our only night in NYC with them, especially given the amazing reviews. I have done similar crawls before, so I understand how these things go.
We got to the Irish Pub (no cover if you came without Rockstar) at 8:45pm, 15mins late. It was pretty empty, but I know this is just the first place where you warm up for the rest of the night. No problem. We were passed over to Eric, who checked us in and gave us bands. We grabbed a table and started getting our drinks. Yes, they were house wells, crappy, and that is expected. No problem there either, the crawl gives a fair option to upgrade to more premium options.
After 45mins, I realized we never got welcome shots. First strike in my opinion. I had people in my group who were expecting a way livelier experience. I kept apologizing to them all night, even though it was my birthday.
I went to Eric and had to remind him about the shots. Also, our guide, Jimena, was still not there. Eric said she was running late. I took the shots from the bar and walked to the back to our table myself, serving the group. Jimena finally came an hour late and introduced herself. She spent the rest of the time at the pub talking to Eric and texting a lot on her phone.
We left the pub promptly at 11pm. I was so pumped because we were supposed to go to Monarch, a cool rooftop bar with a view of the Empire State building. I talked it up a lot to the group.
As we walked to Monarch, Jimena said we were not going to go there because they had a special event for the night. Yes, the website does say this can happen, I understand that. But why wouldn't they know ahead of time? If it happened the day of, I would tell my customers so they know what to expect and give an option to cancel. I tried to stay positive.
It turns out we walked five blocks and two half long blocks, losing our buzz, to a bar called Celon (free cover even without rockstar), which Jimena said she has never been to. We walk in and we were the only people there! A group came later but wow, it was dead and very dark and disappointing. Literally any other bar would have been better. To make matters worse, Jimena was isolated and texted the entire 1.5hrs we were there. She spent 0 seconds attempting to entertain us. We tried to make the best out of it by bothering the DJ to play better music and tried to dance some.
We left that disappointment to get in the limo. I had two girls in my group who were so hyped up for the limo, as they had never been on one before. We got in and there was no AC for 90% of the ride. Also, Jimena couldn't figure out how to play music in the limo. The lights were also off, so we sat in the dark and used our cell phones as a flashlight. Some guy ended up figuring out the music and Jimena rolled down the windows for air. It started raining and those of us by the windows were getting wet!
To top it off, the limo driver began to cuss us out when we reasonably asked him to turn up the air and turn on the lights. When we were waiting for umbrellas to get out and go in to Hudson Terrace, he yelled at us to GET THE F*** OUT!! Happy birthday to me right?
Jimena reasonably felt bad, so they arranged for my party to have bottle service. The gesture wasn't unnoticed, but the bottle was undrinkable and random people wouldn't even drink free drinks without taking a sip. We were also asked to tip $30 for the service, which we didn't ask for in the first place. We decided to leave within 45mins at Hudson Terrace. The owner also threw the bottle service gesture in my face the next day via text when I complained and added "Your welcome" to close out his point. Wow.
To save my night, my friends decided to walk over to the Press Lounge at Ink48 nearby. That was the only nice part of the night.
In the future, I recommend people to avoid this place. Go to playwright pub yourself for free, go to Celon for free, and go to the Press Lounge (next to Hudson Terrace) for free. For the Option B $45, all you are paying for is a welcome shot (which you have to ask for, not very "welcoming") and a poor limo ride to Hudson Terrace. You could get much more for $45 a person in NYC.
If you don't believe me, send me a message and I will be more than happy to plan a trip for you and save you a poor night.
Відповідь від хоста
Jul 2018
Hello Riaz Dahanani from Richmond VA, first of all let me thank you for your review and your feedback we appreciate it and we will take your experience to make our future guests's experience better.
For our future costumers although unlikely sometimes venues are changed last minute but we always try to find the best venues available as we did that night.
A very important part to understand is that our host is not there to "entertain you" he/she is there to make sure she/he guides you throughout the whole night and put on a silver plate a great night where all you have to worry is having fun, is up to you to enjoy the night and have fun by your self.
Without any doubt you have been one of our most challenging clients, as we responded more than 50 text messages through the night which in turn I was relaying to Jimena which might answer your questions of why she was so much on the phone. It seemed you where more interesting in texting us than enjoying the night.
We are happy that we were able to provide everything as advertised, a welcome shot, entrances to 3 top venues and a limo ride for 45 USD per person (only a limo ride would be more than that price), an awesome host and awesome group to party with and we are sorry you were not able to enjoy that, we will take the experience of the rest of the guests that night which had an awesome time.
Thank you!