pvs001d

I did get late checkout - asked for 3pm and got it. But it does look like they have a big problem with housekeeping.

Peatisback

I had a two night stay here, the first night a paid Starpicks rate, the second a free night from this quarter's promotion. Overall I thought the property was physically very appealing but the service fell very short.

I had a delayed flight and arrived to the property around 1am. There were only two agents at the welcome desk, and I waited about 25 minutes to check in. Once I had an agent, the whole process was cumbersome and took about 20 minutes. I had originally booked a Starpicks rate for one night and a free resort night from this quarter's promotion. I originally booked a Wonderful room and took advantage of the e-mail confirmation offer to upgrade to a Fabulous room for $60/night.

The check in process was extremely slow and no upgrade was available in spite of my request.

I was very happy with my room- my Fabulous room was on the 21st floor with a balcony almost as large as the room itself. This was the major plus of the room that I was not expecting. Otherwise it was a typical W room with the standard W bed and furnishings.

On the second night of my 2 night stay I requested turndown service at 7pm. I was out of my room from 6pm to 10pm, and when I got back nothing had been done. I spoke to a manager on duty who said that the housekeeping system said turndown service was done. I explained nothing had changed since I had left a few hours ago, and I was a bit frustrated at the service I had received- my limited experiences were check in and turndown, but both were subpar. The MOD agreed to remove the upgrade fee ($60/night) to make up for this, which I thought was reasonable.

I initially had requested late checkout when I checked in, and when I spoke to the MOD I asked again- she said as a resort they could deny this benefit, even though the literature in the room advertised late check out for a fee and the MOD said I could arrange it for a fee. I told her that if it was available for a fee it should be free as a Platinum benefit and after a little bit of back and forth was able to secure it without fee.

All in all I think this is a nice property in spite of the fact that I was put off by the service let downs and normal W nickel and diming.

UNITED959

Can anybody comment on the pool situation here? I'm looking to book a relaxing trip in the near future (considering this W as well as W Scottsdale) and I want a nice pool area with more adults than children. I get the sense this hotel will have fewer families than Scottsdale, but I could be wrong.

My plan is to wake up every morning, run the beach (or exercise if I go to S'dale), and then park myself on a lounge chair by the pool. I'll deal with meals when it becomes necessary. :-)

henrikfromdenmark

Very impressed with the rooms in this property. Service nothing special, but a great hotel to stay in. As a SPG Platinum I was upgraded to a Marvelous Suite. I took a video if this can be of any interest. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgcDp24-na4

RTWSTARALLIANCE

Boy this place has mixed reviews mostly bad. Yikes! Well I might try one night. Anyone comment on experience having a rental car? Rates? Driving from MIA. All comments appreciated. Thanks.

worldspan

Definetly would recommend a rental car there, otherwise be prepared for a long walk to the south end of Ft Lauderdale Beach where most of the cafes and restaurants are located (The W is at the North end)

Driving up from MIA, try and take the Turnpike to 595east to US1 and then 17th St Causeway to Ft Lauderdale Beach Blvd. Try and avoid routing yourself (despite what mapquest or any service like that might suggest) to come up I-95. The stretch of I-95 from Miami up to Ft Lauderdale is undoubtedly the most aggressive "dog eat dog" driving in the United States. The young Cuban guys have a lot of testosterone flowing in them!

Enjoy!

Worldspan

RTWSTARALLIANCE

Thank you. Any try a cab or Super Shuttle from MIA to the W Ft Lauderdale? Rates?

Out of my Element

Plenty of shops and restaurants less than 1/2 mile south of the property

RTWSTARALLIANCE

Upon arrival my upgrade Cool Corner suite was still occupied by another Plat. Offered room on 6 facing the pool with full ocean view. Checked out the room and both views were not that great. Accepted original sub offer for two bedroom flat which do not have full on straight ocean view. It does have a down the coast view of ocean and inner coastal waterway. A nice upgrade.

VAFlyerSAN

Booked a standard room with FRN certs and received a 2 bedroom flat with a partial ocean view as well as a platinum.

NYBanker

I've now stayed here four times this year - three times on business, once with my family. Generally pretty pleased.

Here is my full review: http://bit.ly/uNC1zc Lots of pictures!

Room with a view.


A cool pool....


Jellyfish!

NYBanker

Indeed - for a beach holiday, a rental car is not necessary.

If you feel the need to explore lots of south Florida, then you should get a car.

merrickdb

First, a tip for inexpensive parking: Instead of paying $31 to park at the W (valet only), park at the Shell Resort literally in front of the W entrance on Bayshore drive. Walk into the Shell office (or the Seaside Motel office if the Shell office is closed) and for $10 per 24 hours (cash or credit card), you'll be given a permit to park in any of their spaces, and you can come and go as often as you want. It was incredibly convenient.

Now for thoughts on the W Fort Lauderdale itself: I had one stay last week and another earlier this week. Last week, I arrived at 1 p.m. (on a Saturday). There were no staff offering to help with luggage or opening doors. After finding my way to the check-in desk on the third (or fourth?) floor, I was advised I'd been upgraded to a Fabulous Room but no rooms were ready yet. I asked about a suite since SPG.com showed Fantastic Suites and flats available, and the agent replied that the "Fabulous Room" was really a junior suite. I asked again if there was a suite available and she said "OK." I hate how some properties make us fight for the upgrades that we're entitled to (and, yes, I know it wasn't technically available at check-in, but neither was ANY room, so that restriction shouldn't apply). She said she'd call me when it's ready so I went to the pool for a bit completely improperly dressed. At a little after 2 p.m., I returned to the desk and asked if the room was available. The same agent checked her computer and advised me that the room was available. I have no doubt I wouldn't have heard from her until 4 p.m. or later had I believed her promise to call me when the room was ready. The Fantastic Suite itself was great and the view amazing--so much so that I returned earlier this week after finding the Diplomat property (but not service) disappointing in comparison--but the service really is lacking. I spent a number of hours at the pool over both stays, and never once had anyone approach me to ask if I wanted to order any food or drinks, though I saw waitstaff approaching others at the pool.

The check-in agent was better for my second stay. I was initially advised that I'd been upgraded to a one-bedroom flat, but I asked if I could have a cool corner instead as I preferred the ocean view to the bigger room. The agent happily obliged and the Cool Corner was one of the best hotel rooms I've stayed in anywhere. I called to ask for a late-check in, and was amazingly offered the opposite--the agent said I needed to check-out by 11 a.m. despite signage in the room saying check-out was at noon. The agent reluctantly offered a noon check-out when I persisted, saying the property was at high occupancy for the night. I checked availability online and found that several room types appeared when I selected that I needed NINE rooms for the night, so clearly occupancy wasn't that high. A call to the Platinum Concierge got me a 1 p.m. late check-out and an explanation that my room was needed for a wedding party that night.

Mark Wijman

I have recently booked 2 rooms for the duration of two nights at the W Fort Lauderdale (arrival 11/18 departure 11/20).

After a breezy and hospitable check-in everything went downhill, very quickly. Starting with the room: although the hotel website and the W-brand is synonymous with Apple Amenities, including an IPOD docking station, this was nowhere to be found in the room: when we enquired at the front desk, we were told, this was no longer part of the amenities as the apparel had been stolen from the room frequently by guests and no replacements where available – they had been ordered but wouldn’t be available for our stay.

The rooms were sparsely decorated and lacked style and class: they had an IKEA feel to it: not up to W-standards seen at other W properties.
Although my Platinum status was recognized upon check-in, many of the benefits were not: no inquiry was made to what our requested welcome amenity would be, when we inquired with management later it was stated that “we always add points, hardly anybody wants anything else anyway” – In many European and Asian properties there is a choice of at least 4 amenities, a bottle of wine is usually one of them: not here and no effort was made either.

Furthermore: there was no upgrade – although all room types that would be normally available for upgrades were available to book online, and front desk management confirmed this we were told that “although all room types where indeed available, and we could either pay for a room upgrade, or book another room, this did not at all mean that we would be getting a complimentary upgrade”. Even though rooms were available, the hotel decided to reserve all top-level rooms for paying guests and, according to the front-desk manager, never upgrades Platinum SPG Members more than one level – eliminating the “best room available” upgrade advantage completely. I hope you will agree with me that this is a massive devaluation of the SPG program.

When we sat down in two chairs at the concierge desk for directions to the airport, he was assisting another sitting besides us: when he finished their inquiries, he didn’t walk over to us and inquired how he could assist us, he remained seated like he was screwed into his own chair, he even continued typing in stuff into out computer – mentioning literally, only after we mentioned to him that we would like some assistance seeing that he was ignoring us, that if we needed assistance we needed to sit in front of him… We asked for directions to the airport. The concierge proceeded to type on his computer, only to hand me a piece of paper with directions – without speaking a single word!!
When inquiring for lunch at the front desk, we were directed to a restaurant that was closed for lunch, when we reported this back, there wasn’t even an apology….

During the first night, it became very clear that the hotel was in serious trouble: we overheard many guests talking what a “great deal” this place was, as that had booked through third party websites like hotwire and priceline, later this was confirmed by a front desk agent (literally saying that we could not expect $300-a-night service seeing that hardly any guest paid that much for the hotel – they all booked through “third parties” at “significantly discounted rates”) - We could not believe that the property was allowed to do this: Starwood’s “hip and happening” hotel in Fort Lauderdale was being made available to the “springbreak-type” crowd… This became more and more visible during the rest of our stay, guests bringing in their own (glass) bottles of alcohol into the pool, extremely loud and drunk guests roaming the hotel floors, guest sleeping in the “Living Room”. On two occasions we mentioned this to the front desk: security came, looked at the situation and left without action despite assurances of the front desk staff that the reported behaviour was absolutely unacceptable and that the perpetrators would be reprimanded by security.

On our second day, we left the rooms around 10AM, to return at 4:15PM the rooms had not been serviced: when inquired, we were told it is hotel policy to have all rooms serviced before 7PM – but since we were back “so early” our rooms would be serviced “immediately” – the service did not arrive until 5:20PM. One of the rooms was appointed with dirty sheets and towels with skid marks, which we didn’t find out until we went to bed much after midnight: by now we had lost interest and trust in calling for something acceptable…. When we did mention this the following morning at the reception we were met with a front desk agent who was more interested in the fact that we didn’t immediately call management to confirm the dirty towel than in a way to resolve this issue.

Upon returning that same day with our car, we were not approached by the valet, we waited at our car for more than three minutes while the staff waited at their booth, even when we took the keys out of the car, they did not move: we needed to walk to the boot and hand the keys to the valet: so much for $30 worth of service….
When complaining about the above, to the front desk manager we were awarded a $30 resort credit “so we could order in room service breakfast” actually: we wouldn’t even be able to order two granola’s from the room service menu for the credit in question. Simply put: a rather embarrassing gesture!

Leaving the hotel in the morning around check-out time also proved to be a challenge: it took nearly 30 minutes to get from our room floor to the living room and back, we were told later that two elevators were down and only one was in use. When checking out we waited over 45 minutes for our luggage to arrive, although this was agreed upon to be too long and handled with utter friendliness by the staff: it is not acceptable at any service level.

To make a long story short: we have had better experiences at Four Points properties than at W-Fort Lauderdale, the obnoxious behaviour of fellow guests is something that a hotel of this style should control and act on rather than continuing to price dump on third party websites – while we do appreciate that W properties are lively ones, one can foresee the accumulation of issues that can arise when targeting another type of guest to the property that the hip and happening. This becomes painfully obvious when guest and room maintenance issues arise. First are foremost Platinum benefits should always be adhered to and room cleanliness and appeal is never a subject of discussion: regardless of the service level. Not servicing rooms until 7PM, 45-minute wait times for bellhop services are simply unacceptable.

Apparently this all is acceptable at the W-Fort Lauderdale, moreover: management does not want to go into a conversation nor a discussion when issues do arise and is not able to solve issues accordingly.

I have spent 12,000 star points and 3-free weekend award nights for a stay that was unimpressive, underwhelming and unacceptable in each and every service aspect: We tried to talk about the many issues with management but they were not receptive.

Upon escalting the experiences with SPG Platinum Concierge: I was informed that “Resort hotels are not required to upgrade guests to the best available room. Most resort properties will offer guests Platinum guests an upgrade, however, this is not required”. And that “we cannot restrict the guests that are able to book at our property. Our hotels do their best to ensure that guests are quiet and behaved while in the property, however, this is not always possible.” Although it is appreciated that no restrictions are to whom is able to make a reservations at properties – no attention was put to the mere fact that rooms were being “price dumped” on third party websites and that because of this, the hotel now has the attitude to mention that “no $300 service can be expected when nobody pays that rate”. Also in the reply no comments were made over the people sleeping in the “Living Room” during bright daylight and the fact that patrons were allowed tob ring their own glass bottled alcohol into the swimming pool – with all the effects going from there. Unofrtunately not a very pleasant experience from neither the hotel handling the complaint nor SPG Platinum Concierge.

Astrophsx

I was under the impression the only properties that are not required to give upgrades are Aloft and Element hotels.