Out of my Element

Checked in here on Wednesday, first time we've stayed here. Asked if Club upgrade was available, and got put in a Club Room (we're Gold, so we always hope, but don't always get). Went up to the room, and noticed the bed was rumpled, a towel was on the floor, and the bottle of water was uncapped. Called the desk, they apologized and told us to head to the elevator and a bellman would meet us there with keys to another room "in a moment". After 10 minutes of standing by the elevators, our new keys arrived, and the replacement room was very large, clean and comfortable.

Asked at the desk for dining recommendations, they gave us a mimeographed sheet with over 40 places listed. Noticed that Roscoe's was listed as just under 1 mile, and I've always wanted to try a Roscoe's. We took the car, as it was getting late, which was a good thing, as it's more like 3 miles away, but loved it.

NDDomer86

Wow, and people complain about not having flat screen televisions. This property is obviously way behind the times without even having a photocopier

Out of my Element

LOL.

Smell the love!

bocastephen

Are there any places to park near the hotel that are free? I know street parking is a no-no, but is there a plaza, mall or motel within a short walk that's safe and legal to leave the car overnight?

The hotel's parking charge is outrageous for a suburban property.

BenSenise

I agree that the parking charge is steep but this is not suburbia, it's downtown Pasadena. Just because it isn't downtown LA doesn't mean it's the suburbs.

schley

Correct. I'll be there in a month and share everyone's complaint however.

LovetoTravel83

------------

LovetoTravel83

Stayed here for 6 nights, was a good stay.

Recieved an upgrade to an exec room which is the biggest thing they got at the hotel. Had some small issues on the 1st night.

1st was when I got the keys and went all the way to the room and it did not work, went back down and was credited 1K points for just coming down which was nice, the 2nd was that the room had no safe box which was shocking to me, requested to change the room the next morning and was given one with a safe box and a slightly bigger room.

mas3xd

Stayed for one night this week. Put me on the first floor - rooms are cool actually as there are stairs down from the bathroom (right next to the door) to the rest of the room. Makes the room seem bigger and the bed is further away from the hallway so noise is less. Given club access and went there for breakfast - nice spread, clean, etc. Great sheraton bed, flat screen tv. Staff was very accommodating, I had a couple random requests.

Parking is $9.

LovetoTravel83

You can request them to waive that, they waived mine, only because I did not use the in and out, saved me $90.

KathyWdrf

Those patio rooms don't just SEEM bigger, they actually ARE bigger -- in volume, at least -- because the ceilings are very high!

However, to some people, the short staircase between the bedroom and the bathroom is an annoyance rather than a benefit.

azeckel

I have a fairly petty (yet important to me) complaint against this property. I started staying here a month or two ago nearly every week. I like to use the treadmill while I'm travelling, but the gym at this place is aweful.

First, the stuff they can't change so it doesn't really benefit me to complain about: It's really small. Not just length times width, but height. At 6'1" on the treadmill I only have a few inches of clearance to the ceiling. It feels like being under a spotlight since the overhead flourescent light is literally next to my head.

My real gripe is about the stuff they CAN change. I sent a very nice note to the customer service manager (I couldn't find an email address for the general manager) more than 5 weeks ago to alert her that two of the three treadmills aren't functioning at full capacity. One can't maintain a speed above 5.9 and the other craps out around 7.1. I'm not a sprinter by any means, but my runs generally get up into the 7.5-8.0 range and these are expensive machines ($5000+) capable of running 10.0 for long periods of time when working properly.

I received a reply stating that maintenance looked into and would fix them the following week. Two plus weeks went by and nothing had been fixed. I sent a follow-up and never received a reply. As of this morning, they're still broken (and a lengthy wait at 6:30am for the ONE working treadmill at that). The one thing that always ticks me off about hotels is when something doesn't work, you report it, and they do nothing about it.

fireworksboy

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9330; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.706 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

Call me crazy but my pet peeve is when treadmills have loose treads because of lack of maintenance. Happens more often than I would like and it can really cause pain in the knee and hip joints while being barely noticeable during the walk/run.

Out of my Element

After this amount of time, why not walk up to the front desk and ask for the manager? And if s/he isn't there, explain how long you're staying, that you've had no success complaining to customer service, and you'd like to meet with him/her when s/he returns.

azeckel

I could, and I most likely will. The point really is, why should I have to? Problem + complaint should = resolution, or at least some explanation. Properties that fail to balance this equation will fail to retain frequent travelers, and in my experience, this is one.