AC Hotel New Orleans Bourbon/French Quarter Review

By Ramon

Ramon is the creator of Travelling Companion. He focuses on flight review, hotel reviews, and helping stretch your travel dollars, miles, and points further. ​​

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AC Hotel New Orleans Bourbon/French Quarter Review
Active in New Orleans

Location
MSY airport is located about 15 miles outside of the city of New Orleans and you should expect to pay about $30-35 for the approximately 20 minute Uber/Lyft drive to the city. The AC New Orleans was the first AC Hotel to open in the United States and has 220 rooms across 8 floors. The hotel opened in November 2014 and occupies the historic Cotton Exchange building in New Orleans. The AC brand is a Spanish/Catalan Brand with a large presence in Europe, however, Marriott continues to expand the brand in the United States and this was my first stay at an AC Hotel.
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The hotel has a great location just a block west of Canal and Bourbon street. We found the location to be ideal because it was in walking distance to many of the major New Orleans attractions and offered access to the nightlife on Bourbon Street/French Quarter without the crowds and noise. 

Hotel Entrance

Check-In
We arrived at our hotel around 2 pm about an hour before the standard check-in time and the front desk attendant informed us that the hotel had limited rooms available. He gave us a choice between two of the worse rooms available at the hotel, an interior room with no windows or a room with a view of a parking garage. Because we wanted to rest before heading out to explore the city we chose the interior room instead of the room with the view of the parking garage or waiting for a better room. As we waited in the lobby we had two sets of bachelorette parties come downstairs into the lobby and the front-desk attendant informed us that hotel was hosting four different bachelorette parties that weekend. However, we were never bothered by any noise during our stay, though I am unsure how much that was a factor of having an interior room. 

AC Hotel Standard King Guest Room

The room was a standard Guest Room with no windows. I was initially impressed with the sleek and modern design of the room which featured modern finishes and recess lighting. On each side of the bed were two standard and two USB plugs which I thought was one of the best features of the room because it allowed us to charge multiple devices at once. This is a feature that I wish more hotels had as a standard offering. The bed was large, soft, and very comfortable. The bathroom featured AC Hotel unbranded toiletries. The bathroom had a glass shower and no tub. The best feature of the bathroom was that it had both a handheld and rainforest shower head both with good water pressure. The room had a mini-fridge which contained two bottles of water that were not complimentary. However, I appreciated the fact that the hotel provided crafts for water next to the ice machines. 

Shower

The biggest problem I had with the room, other than having no windows, was that it lacked a real closet. The “closet’ did not have a door and  significant space was taken up by the presence of a safe and a coffee maker. The room also lacked an all off/on switch for the lights and the placement of the light switch on the interior of the bathroom meant that every time you entered the bathroom it was dark and the light streamed into the dark room. Another design feature which could have been improved was the placement of an ottoman below the television. While I appreciated the ability to use the ottoman to put on or take off shoes its placement meant that most times using it you would block a portion of the television. 

Service
The service at the AC Hotel New Orleans was good and most of the staff were friendly. When we had a leak from the shower the staff sent up a maintenance worker quickly to resolve the issue and when we let the front desk know that our coffee maker wasn’t working they offered Christina a free cup of coffee from the AC Kitchen, though they never replaced the coffee maker.

Take Away
Overall I enjoyed our stay at the AC Hotel New Orleans. The hotel offers a good location at an affordable price with a friendly staff. However, if I had to stay in New Orleans again I think I would try out another hotel, such as the Q&C Hotel, which I believe offers better standard rooms and amenities at a similar price. We are planning to stay at another AC Hotel in Barcelona, Spain during our upcoming trip in February and it will be interesting to compare the experience of the AC Hotel brand in its home region of Catalonia, Spain.