I spent Saturday night there.

My impressions.


W-ness.

Too Dark. Too Dark. The hallway on the seventh floor was absurd. Our room did not have enough light and the wall facing the small window was black, as well as the trim in the room and dark purple bedding and couch. DARK. TOO DARK. Other than that it was standard W stuff. Nice and tasteful and stylish.

Rooms:
We were given a parlor suite. It was 2 narrow rooms on the seventh floor. Nicely decorated and clean and new, but DARK. Also, the suite had 2 bathrooms. BUT...

These were the smallest bathrooms I have ever seen in a hotel. Puny. Miniscule. Too small. I'm serious. Maybe 5.5' by 7 feet each. The bathrooms combined were small than the the separate little room for the toilet in the master bath of an executive suite at the St. Regis LA.

Service and Misc.:

Hit and Miss Big Time.

The Good:
The bell staff was incredibly helpful and referred to me by name from the tags on my bags, and even remembered 10 hours later who I was, greeting me in the lobby as I passed. That's the first time I've had this at a Starwood hotel. Very impressive. The concierge was friendly and helpful. FREE SUNDAY PAPER! WOOOOOHOOOOOOO! Amenity was a nice plate of little bite sized dessert type things.

The bad and Ugly.

Room Service. We had breakfast. Let's start with the menu. It was on fax paper, not in a binder. The cover sheet had an apology on it for the presentation. This was worded incredibly awkwardly and did not create a good impression. There were SERIOUS REPEATED GRAMATTICAL ERRORS- kind of like one of my rushed FT postings, but without the spelling errors. The food was o.k. and came in about 25 minutes.

But here's where it bugged me. We ordered what seemed like about $25 of food along with the 19% service charge, $3 delivery charge and 11% or so in taxes. I figured it should be about $35 or so.

When the food came, the server was nice. But she only had 1 copy of the bill- none for me. When I looked at it, it looked overly high. But, in a robe, I was not about to go voer it with a line item comb. I then noticed there was no butter for our english muffins (I know, I don't need it ). So I called down and aked if they could shoot some butter up, along with a copy of the bill for my records.

THey were incredibly reluctant to send up the bill, and explained that it would be on my account at check-out. I explained I thought that we had been overcharged somewhat and wanted to check it. I mentioned I thought the OJ charge was higher than stated on the menu.

She put me on hold, and told me I couldn;t have it, and that, indeed, "The price listed on the menu is wrong, and you were charged the correct price".

Now- It't only a total of $2, but this pissed me off. The correct price to WHO? I nicely told her that now I wanted the itemized bil for review, and that they could photocopy it for me. I also said that I wanted the OJ price adjusted accordingly. To which she replied- "We can't do that... it's already on your account." I finally said- please just send up the itemized reciept with some butter. She said "O.k. It wil be up shortly" Meanwhile, my eggs are cold and I'm annoyed over their attitude about corrective the overcharge and giving me a copy of the bill.

So we eat, but no butter ever comes (I know I didn;t need it , nor the receipt. So I, now very annoyed, call SPG and ask them nicely to call the hotel and have them give me copy of the itemized reciept. They do so, and when it comes, they explain to me they have adjusted the prices to reflect what the menu states.

KEY POINT- NOONE EVER (other than SPG) EVER APOLOGIZED for the discrpancy.

THIS HOTEL IS A MONTH OLD! THERE SHOULD BE NO DISCREPANCIES BETWEEN THE MENU AND PRICE CHARGED! AND WHEN ONE IS POINTED OUT- THE HOTEL SHOULD NOT GO TO WAR OVER $2... $2... ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY ARE CLEARLY IN THE WRONG!

I mean, when I go to the grocery store, their policy is that if an item is miscoded, and it rings up as more than priced in the store, you get it for free, no questions asked. This is because we trust to be charged what we are quoted, and if that trust is broken, the customer is unhappy even if the discrepancy is fixed. The fact that it took me 15 minutes to get thsi resolved with EXTREME RELUCTANCE by the hotel is bad form.

Maybe they thought I was silly and cheap for wanting my $2 back, but I'd rather be silly and cheap and poor and trampled on.
The way they handled this will cost them business if they keep it up. I know they are new, but this was absurd.

And I swear- I was very nice and polite the whole time.