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Old Jan 3, 2010, 10:28 pm
  #47  
RichardInSF
Moderator: Luxury Hotels and FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Palo Alto, California,USA
Posts: 17,857
Well, they certainly didn't honor all of the free amenities on that Westlake list. The things I noticed: They never delivered a newspaper unless I called and asked for one, the "juices" in the lobby each afternoon consisted of empty pitchers of apple cider and ice water when I checked, there was no frozen fruit selection at the pool, and the free fitness classes were pretty much canceled for the Xmas holiday period.

None of these (except the failure to deliver a newspaper) were bothersome IMO, but if you're going to claim them, shouldn't you do them?

This is due to having inexperienced staff, something that characterizes both of my last two stays at a FS hotel. These are the people who have been taught to apologize a lot and always be friendly to a customer, but have no idea how to actually set things right. You'll never get even an "apology" fruit bowl in your room from the staff I encountered, for example, and that includes the managers on duty.

I only recently started trying out FS again, and two recent stays is hardly statistically significant. Rooms do tend to be quite nice, but I have so far experienced nothing that convinces me that FS is a cut above in SERVICE from the upscale subsidiaries operated by Marriott, Sheraton, Hilton, or Hyatt.
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