Currently staying at this hotel and want to give a detailed explainer and review for all who have questions. SPG Gold.
First of all to address the complaints about service. In general I found the employees here to be friendly, helpful, and genuinely interested in solving problems we encountered. The bell hops, bartenders, etc were all very friendly and put a great face on the hotel. The front desk dealt with me numerous times (see below) and though I was not always happy with their results I felt as though they were always trying to solve the issues at hand.
But - the issues.
1. Room was not ready until 5pm on check in date. Checked in at 2:30pm and was informed room was not ready so we left to drop off our rental car, knowing that it wasn't yet check in time. But upon return at ~4pm it was still not ready. There were no exaggeration probably two dozen people in the lobby in the same situation. They comped us 5 drinks at the lobby bar while we waited but we were not pleased at what was clearly a housekeeping failure.
2. The room was a old, smelly, tired excuse for a Le Meridien room. See below picture that explains how to handle requesting rooms at this hotel but the initial room we received felt like a [albeit large] converted Four Points Sheraton that had been smoked in for 20 years. After ~30 hotel nights this year this is the only time I've asked to be moved rooms. The room reeked of old, musty cigarette smoke and it only got worse when turning on the bathroom fan. It was very, very unpleasant. I will say that the furniture itself and the bed were nice and new, but it couldn't make up for the tired structure and disgusting odor.
3. The solution (which took awhile). We slept in the room night one because we were in a hurry to get to dinner and couldn't deal with it because we didn't have time. So woke up the next morning and made our concerns known to the front desk. They were nice, offered to move us by having us leave our bags while gone for the day and the bellmen would move them to a new room for us. Seemed easy enough. That was at 10:30am. We came back at 5:15pm and, sure enough, they didn't have a room for us. After making my unhappiness very known to the front desk attendant he offered a room on the 6th floor and said the bags would be delivered in ten minutes. So we went to the new room which was perfect, so nice, fresh and clean with no smell. But no bags 20 minutes later. Sure enough they sent them to the wrong room and only after I went downstairs and was waiting in line at the desk to complain did they finally show up. The bellman apologized profusely to my girlfriend saying he'd been given the wrong room number.
So - the summary on this hotel. Many have noted it was a 4Points, then a Sheraton, now a Le Meridien, which is true. But the reason for the mixture of complaints and compliments on this thread is lately due to this fact:
There are two buildings in this hotel, one old and one new, and they are "seamlessly" joined so that unless you know your room number you wouldn't know which building, old or new, you were in.
Our first room which was old, smelly, and disgusting, was in the old building. Our second room was in the new building. It was perfect. If we'd gotten this room to start you wouldn't have heard a single complaint from us about this hotel. So the key is to ensure that you are booked in the new section which can be done as follows:
- Ensure your room number is above 25 aka 325 would be on the third floor but in the old building but 326 would be in the new building. X26 and above are all in the new building. See attached picture for explainer (taken from the fire escape plan in our room).
Bottom line, if you stay here, make sure you're in the new building and you probably won't have any complaints (as long as you know the property is a 5 minute walk from the beach).
