Long Beach Hotel

Sarah Piazza
8/10/19
reviews

3.2 out of 5

Quality of Service:	3.0 out of 5
Responsiveness:	2.0 out of 5
Professionalism:	3.0 out of 5

Value for Cost:	5.0 out of 5
Flexibility:	3.0 out of 5

Planning our wedding reception here was definitely stressful, but the party itself was perfect. I wrote out the whole saga, but if you want the short of it- yea. I recommend a wedding here if you want Long Beach but don’t wanna pay for the Allegria. Just keep the original copies of your contract and do all communication in writing and you should be fine. Our wedding was honestly the most beautiful and perfect day ever. Little things: the room block was not full but when a few guests tried to get on it, they were told that it was full. Also some guests said the hotel itself was a little run down. The room we stayed in was absolutely adorable though- staff even made a heart out of rose petals on the bed. I grew up in town but moved to Buffalo and was planning the wedding from Buffalo. We began planning over a year before the event. We worked with an event planner named Sharon. We drew up a contract, put down a deposit, and began an email thread. A few months down the road, Sharo... Read moren stops answering the emails. We’re still about a year out from the actual reception, so I don’t think too much about it until about when the next payment is due. Sharon never answered my emails, so I call the hotel. Turns out, Sharon quit months ago. New event planner is Heather. I was a bit surprised no one reached out to let us know or even put an automatic reply on Sharon’s old email address, but Heather was professional and nice and had our contract on file. We met with her, put down another payment and she gave us some excellent recommendation for vendors. We go back to Buffalo and all is well. A couple of months pass and then I get an email from Heather saying that she’s leaving the hotel. I’m a lil nervous, but she assured me I’m in good hands with the manager. Instead of hiring a new event planner, Erika the manager would be assuming the event duties. So now I’m working with Erika. Meeting with her in person was a bit trickier- she never wanted to meet before 1pm and because she was also the manager, was frequently busy and changing meetings last minute. It wouldn’t have been a big deal except we were traveling 8 hours from Buffalo and also had to attend important family events. Our original contract was still on file but Erika was very insistent that certain payments should be done early and wanted to change the open bar from 5 hours to 4 hours, despite what it said on the contract. She tried to sell us security guards because we were insisting on a 5 hour open bar. We explained that it was a low profile, child free wedding and security would not be necessary. I get it from her stand point- it would make things easier if we had a shorter open bar and security because it would make the bar more $ and she’d have more staff on hand, but it annoyed me because this contract was signed over a year ago and the wedding was now less than a month away. Anyway- now we’re days before the wedding. We go to check on everything and meet Erika’s Assistant Cynthia. Cynthia is the bomb! She decked out the banquet room, listened to everything we were saying, and was energetic and positive. I felt a lot better about everything after talking to Cynthia for a few minutes. Day of the wedding- honestly everything was PERFECT! The party was so fun! The cocktail hour in the Surf Room was a perfect start- food was awesome, the bar was efficient, the room itself was perfect for moving around to socialize with everyone. The banquet hall was also perfect! Lighting looked great, food was set up in captains stations and was absolutely delicious! The staff checked in on me and my husband throughout the night and even prepared us plates so we’d have a minute to actually eat something. It’s been a few months since the wedding and people are still telling me it was one of the best weddings (if not the best) wedding they’ve ever been to!