I have been debating whether to write this for a while now, but I thought I'd better. I used Admiral for a few months and then stopped when one of my favorite things came back torn into pieces.
Basically, if you have regular clothes with no special needs, this place might do fine. If you have anything designer, anything delicate or anything that needs attention to detail and care, don't leave it here. I would never leave a wedding dress with these folks, for instance.
They offer a big discount for military, but I think the rest of us make up the profit because the prices are a bit high. They deliver, and I am sure folks like that, but I haven't used the delivery service. Most of all, the staff are very nice, and this is a big plus.
Unfortunately, the chemicals used are very strong. My clothes always came back smelling intensely, and I usually aired them out before I wore them. Once, my pants were noted as having bomb/explosive residue chemicals on them when I went through a TSA screening at the airport. The pants had just been put on from the dry cleaning bag and driven to the airport, nothing else, so I suspect it had something to do with either the chem or maybe someone else's clothes. Dunno. But the smell was always way too much, IMO.
They permanently heat tag your clothes with a small tag that will not come off. I find this invasive. And you get paper tags in your clothes with at least 3 or 4 of those plastic price tag attachers per side of the tag. You have to cut them out of everything since they cannot be torn away. So annoying.
What finally killed it for me is my favorite scarf, which had tassels on the end, was ruined here. But it didn't need to be. They put my load into the cleaning drum and nothing else, knowing it might be ruined, because I had asked to have the clothes back the next day. These drums need 100 lbs of laundry or bad things can happen. No one bothered to mention that or I would have said "the following day is fine, please don't ruin my stuff". I bought this gorgeous piece in Italy and I loved it, and it came back with a big chunk missing and torn off. The manager "was supposed to call you" according to the clerks, and did not. She never did. What a coward. One of the ladies there said if she'd been on duty, she would have had my sign a liability waiver for the scarf since it was delicate. WTH? A waiver? For you to do a job that you say you can do: cleaning? I was astounded by that. What about ladies beaded evening dresses, fringed throws, and things like that? These garments need cleaning sometimes too. But not here??
On the plus side, Admiral did send me a check and a short letter of apology, which is why I am not completely panning them. I would never go back here, but probably if you don't have anything special you need done, you don't mind extra tags in your clothes, and you don't mind the strong smell, you will be fine. read more