I just stayed here on Friday night and it was without question the worst SPG stay I've had in the eight years staying here. I arrived at Federal Circle Airtrain Station around 12.45am having waited for a Shuttle bus for 30 minutes. The bus they had running to and from had Hilton Garden Inn on it (which is next door I think) and the person they had directing people to the shuttle had no idea this went to the Sheraton as well. So I finally got to the hotel about 1.30.
I checked in, received an upgrade to the Club Floor (apparently no suites at this property) and a voucher for breakfast. My room was on the 7th floor facing the highway. The room was really hot when I went in so I turned the AC on which made a horrendous noise and seemed to have two settings, freezing and off irrespective of what temperature you dialled in. Then there was the Internet, I tried wired and wireless but I couldn't get it to work right and when I did finally get a connection some sites would work, others wouldn't. I called up the helpdesk and they reset the access point a couple of times, dialled up the bandwidth but still no dice. The helpdesk suggested I wandered around the hotel with my laptop to see if it was affecting the access point or the hotel in general. I tried the lobby and the 4th floor but it was still acting up. So the helpdesk asked the front desk to manually reboot the system but the lady on duty said she was "scared of computers" and there was no one from engineering around to help with this, or the AC problem. She offered to move me into a different room but said that she thought the AC was loud in all the rooms, apparently a common complaint?! As I'd already found that the Internet was broken across the hotel I figured a room swap would be pointless.
Then I went outside for a cigarette with my room key, tried to get back in but the key card lock on the front door didn't work. The problem was compounded by the fact that the front desk lady and the security chap had both disappeared and no matter how hard I banged on the door, no one came to let me in. Foolishly I'd left my telephone in the room so couldn't even call and after waiting for 30 minutes she finally reappeared and let me in.
Oh and my wake up call didn't happen (but fortunately due to the sub-zero temperature in the room I was already wide awake) and then to add insult to injury the "complimentary breakfast coupon" they gave me was only valued at $13. There was nothing written to say that on the voucher, nor was I told this at check-in so I was surprised when the bill arrived. The front desk person in the morning wasn't interested in my problem when I checked out and as I had an engagement that day that I couldn't wait to speak to a manager (whose whereabouts according to the front desk was unknown).
It was a points stay so I'm intending to ask SPG for those points back. This place made the 4 Points Miami Beach look like a palace and I was shocked to see it only opened in 2007!!!
Ok, rant over. Beware this hotel!
While I was waiting for my shuttle bus there were two flight crews in the lobby, one from VX and the other from AA. It was funny listening to them both talking about each other in a quite disparaging way. They all congregated as far away from each other as they possibly could but where I was sitting you could hear them both laying into each other. Not so friendly rivalry I guess.
