pbiflyer

I’m staying at the aloft new Orleans downtown. From 1:30 AM to now at 6:30 AM the fire alarm has gone off over a dozen times. At first it was followed up about 10 minutes later with a message saying everything’s fine. Now they don’t even bother with that. It has been basically torture at this hotel. I would think a full refund would be fair minimum compensation. But I doubt they’re going to give up an entire night of revenue. This is obviously uncharted territory. They’ve basically ruined the weekend. I’m exhausted. Any ideas on what to do?

NDN

Request the night, contact customer care as well, and then chargeback the credit card.

duhe

Wow. This happened to me as well a couple of years ago. Same property, same experience. Except the first time it happened we had to evacuate by stairs from the top floor.

I called customer service during a subsequent event and asked (a generous characterization) that they pass on the message that I would not be paying for the night. I didn’t. I was also issued a free night certificate usable for one year. Good luck and sorry about your experience—I personally know how miserable it has been.

Jon Maiman

Wow, sorry to hear about your horrible experience. This one is pretty cut and dried and you shouldn't have to pay for the night with the alarms going off. I think asking for a second night to be comp.'ed (or the equivalent in points) is also called for, for recovery time. It takes a full day to recover from a night of literally no sleep for most folks.

--Jon

MSPeconomist

Does OP know for sure whether the problem is an alarm malfunction (hotel's fault) or some guest setting off the alarm as some sort of a stunt (YouTube?) or joke (not hotel's fault and likely to be a criminal offense)?

cmd320

Had an experience with the alarm going off at about 2am at the RC in Orlando a bit over a year ago. Oddly it was apparently only on my floor which I later found out the following morning. It stayed on for about 20 minutes though. Finally went off and that was that. That’s a pretty brutal way to be awoken though, nearly went in to cardiac arrest for a moment.

pbiflyer

My first thought was drunken kids as there was a large group of college kids at the hotel. But I confirmed that it was a faulty alarm system.
They aren’t charging me for the night and will give me enough points for a free night.
They were very good about that.
Have the GM contact in case it doesn’t work out.
Wonder if most people asked for a refund? A weekend night is a big hit for them.

duhe

It was a faulty alarm system in my case as well. Unfortunate that this continues to be a problem. I agree that they were very good about handling it.

writerguyfl

One night's revenue isn't going to make or break a hotel that isn't already in trouble.

I would bet that some of the lost revenue will be made up in the form of a credit on the bill for the alarm company. I'm assuming this hotel isn't running their own system. Each of the hotels I worked in paid for a third-party company to maintain the alarm systems so that they were up to code.

Of course, none of that matters to guests. Sounds like the hotel did at least attempt to properly compensate for the horrible night you experienced.

KRSW

I've had this happen before about 30 years ago at what is now the Marriott Kensington in London...on multiple nights. They comp'd the rooms for all of the affected nights and F&B credits were flowing like water. Sadly, the same property still seems to have fire alarm problems per the TripAdvisor reviews.

I also have to question why these systems are allowed to continue to false alarm. At the buildings I've worked in, after the first false alarm, they put the system into test mode so the front / security desk panels go off, but the horns/strobes don't go off unless they want them to.

arlflyer

Yes, fairly certain that the buck will be passed until it lands in the lap of someone's insurer.

writerguyfl

Complete Speculation: In the various hotels I used to work, only a small number of people were authorized to touch any of the life safety equipment. Those people were all management, with the exception of the chief engineer. None of those people would be working during the overnight hours.

Perhaps it's a similar situation at other hotels. In a way, it makes some sense. The last thing you'd want is an hourly Front Desk clerk working the graveyard shift shutting off the alarm without fully inspecting the system. Due to limited staffing, that person will likely be handling guest calls. She or he won't be able to troubleshoot the fire alarm. (Not to mention the fact that they aren't qualified to do that task.)

GW McLintock

When I was a flight attendant, I had something similar happen at a lower-mid tier hotel in PWM. Around 11pm the smoke detector in the room started chirping and it woke me up. I had a 4:30am van time and I ended up having to switch rooms. I could have called out fatigued, especially since I had a 12+ hour day ahead of me, but I never liked that particular hotel and decided to power through it to my next layover (which was in another city, at a much nicer hotel I had been looking forward to staying at). Unfortunately, as a flight crew member, a refund doesn't do us any good; neither do points, as we could not put down our rewards # at this property. I filed a report with my company, but that was about all I could do.

This would make sense, as the front desk lady said there was nobody around who could change it. I suppose I could have done it myself.
​​​​​​​
-J.

sartech

Hi...firefighter here. Who the hotel has working at night is completely irrelevant. Even those in management cannot access the fire alarm control system, and certainly not to disable an alarm. That is illegal. Only the fire department can silence the alarm once it goes off. The only exception is an employee of a licensed alarm equipment company *IF* it is 100% known to be a system fault.

When the alarm goes off, the fire department will be dispatched by the alarm monitoring company to investigate. If they can trace the cause and resolve it, they'll reset the system. If they find some kind of system fault that cannot be reset, they'll disable the alarm system and advise the property that they must enact and maintain a fire watch, which means having employees continuously walk all corridors of the building to watch for any sign of a fire while the alarm system is disabled. If they have limited staff, this takes priority over any other jobs the on-site staff may have, including the front desk. The fire watch remains in place until the alarm system company can dispatch a technician to fix it. All alarm system companies have someone on phone duty 24/7.

Sometimes an alarm will reset, only to go off again later that night. After a couple of calls for the same alarm system in a single night, instead of resetting it, usually the department will disable it, requiring a fire watch be put in place until the alarm system company can inspect it.

dcchi

Sartech- This forum is not for concrete, real answers! It is to allow us to complain, speculate and share our experiences...and to pretend we are experts in every which area of life! You've ruined it for us now!

(In all seriousness, thanks for the information. Interesting! Appreciate it.)