I’m going to have to agree; I’ve always stuck by the Westin because of the good food, nice grounds and the service [including service recovery when things go amiss... not so infrequently, as it were] but this stay is a negatively different experience.

I eventually got the mystery amenities - a bottle of wine and a platter of dates/dried fruit that the hotel usually/graciously provided me every time I checked in before. A nice gesture, but I would be remiss if I didn’t say that it had lost its luster after the experience of trying to figure out what it was beforehand. Other ways the tangible quality has dropped are in the toiletries [I’ve never experienced a branded hotel with consistent brand standards to be so inconsistent with its toiletries - they’ve gone from the standard Westin white tea and aloe amenities in the plastic cylinders to the tubes to Azzarro-branded stuff to a new product which smells nice but comes in bottles that are absolutely impossible to squeeze out], the types of guests [many older men with very young, scantily-clad company, screaming and badly-behaved children in the lounge and restaurants, aforementioned guests coming to the lounge in swimwear] and - as I’ve noticed - many cheap deals to get visitors to come to the hotel [i.e. lots of deals for free drinks for meals at low prices at the hotel’s restaurants, weekly pool parties with booming music you can hear in your room past 10 PM, etc.].

It really is unfortunate as I’ve had many great experiences here, but the only thing consistent about this hotel is its inconsistency. I know that change is the only constant, but I’m going to give the Westin a pass on my next visit to Doha and hope that it gets better.

Safe travels, @SanDiego1K! Let us know how the Marriott is.

khabah