I stayed here in October '11 for the week of my wedding. The hotel itself is pretty nice, not spectacular but not bad either. For the most part the staff was very friendly and the accommodations were good. However, what would've been a 4 or 5 star review drops to a 1 star based on one factor: the overnight front desk employee. Let me explain:


As it was the week leading up to my wedding and I was out of my comfort zone (it was a destination wedding in CT, we're from California), my nerves were slightly fried. My then-fiance's parents live in the area so she was staying with them, while I, a few groomsmen, and other friends and family from out of state stayed at the hotel. As the day approached, we found ourselves spending a lot of time at the hotel lounge and wandering around the hotel grounds, talking, reminiscing, and discussing the upcoming wedding. Every single night that week, without fail, as soon as the day staff left for the day, a disgruntled old man took over the front desk for the overnight shift. This guy found a number of ways to creatively ruin our time, crush our spirits, and treat us like criminals.


I'd like to interject a few points here: First, nobody in attendance was under the age of 30, and second, my wedding brought this small little hotel well over $5000 dollars in room rentals over the course of a mere five days, based on OUR recommendation of this hotel. Now on with the story of Grampa Grumpus, the graveyard shift front desk worker. This guy would literally follow us around the hotel grounds, watching our every move as though we were hoodlums scheming to cause trouble, when in fact we were nothing more than grown, mature adults who were disturbing nobody while my friends counseled me in the 72 hours leading up to my wedding. We are a reserved group of well educated people, the opposite of rowdy, and we were always very conservative in terms of volume.


The night before my wedding, myself and two friends wandered in to the hotel pool area around 9pm at night, talking at length about the wedding less than 24 hours away. We had no intent to swim (as we were all fully clothed), but the moment one of my wife's bridesmaids rolled up her jeans and dipped her feet in the water, Grampy Grumps burst through the door screaming we weren't allowed to be there at night (even though our room key cards unlocked the pool door.... hmmmm). He then noticed that one person in our party of three had a Bud Light from the bar. This is important, it was a single bud light. Not a bottle of vodka. Not a 40oz of malt liquor. Not a crack pipe, not a 4 foot bong, not a pocket full of pills or even a 22 oz bottle of heavy ale. It was a single bud light. The old man's eyes turned to slits as he gazed at the 12 oz single bottle of bud light, and as he ushered us away from the pool area, he called it "the devil's brew." I'm not making this up.


There are plenty more examples of how this guy ruined our stay, including at one point accusing a member of our party of vomiting in an elevator, even though nobody in our group was sick or drinking. Adversely, there was another group of people in the hotel bar drinking heavily and being rowdy until 1am, but to my knowledge he didn't accuse them of the vomit incident, likely because they were all in their 50's and we were the younger group. Rather than go into any more details, I'll cut to the point of my little rant here.


This employee of the Crowne Plaza Southbury clearly failed economics when he was in school fifty some odd years ago. He treated us as though we were dispositions, liabilities, annoyances, and criminals. He never made the connection in his head that my group of traveling friends and family were quite literally paying his salary that week. Proper customer service ettiquite would dictate that he treat us like patrons, customers, and welcome guests. He instead treated us like common 15 year old punks who were out to vandalize some hotel in the middle of nowhere and harass its patrons. I realize quite well that Connecticut has more conservative social conventions than my home in California, but this guy took it way too far. Completely ruined what was otherwise a wonderful and memorable trip back east for the biggest day of my life with all my loved ones in attendance.


And P.S., just as a point of reference, we honeymooned in Hawaii. The Grand Hyatt Resort's ENORMOUS pool area was open 24 hours, without a lifeguard, and even hard liquor was allowed in the pool area so long as it was in a plastic container. My wife and I quite literally brought a six pack of plastic bottled beer to the pool at 2am, and were greeted warmly by the night staff and just told to be safe. Heads up Crowne Plaza Southbury: all you need to do is include a liability release form at check-in, and you have no excuse not to let your customers dip their toes in your extremely crappy and poorly maintained pool at 9pm. Don't worry, you'll still be the most conservative establishment in the country. You should fire Father Time and replace him with someone who doesn't treat your customers like nuisances. "The Devil's Brew"... you've gotta be kiddin me.