World20

I am confirming an opinion previously expressed by another on this forum that this hotel also did not meet my expectations of a Sheraton Luxury Collection property or my expectations for treatment of a Platinum SPG guest (but probably better than the famous NY St. Regis). I was most disappointed with the room condition/amenities (blocked tub/shower drain, no shower cap) and the food/service/price of the coffee shop. The staff was friendly, but indifferent. This was our first and last stay at this property, had just arrived from the VIE Marriott which exceeded this hotel in all respects (for a Marriott former Gold now only Silver).

I would say that this property was worth the two free weekend nights, but was certainly not worth the 10,000 a night points for the next two nights. This is just my 2 euro cents worth.


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Have passport, will travel...
CLD, LAX, LHR, CDG, et.al.

UA 100K

Great Hotel. One of the best hotels I stayed in Europe. This hotel is a great gateway hotel for you and your loved one.

Starwood Lurker

Which I guess goes to show that opinions are like noses...everybody has one.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Specialist, E-Communications Department
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

[email protected]

fljbrs

If VIE means Vienna, please don't compare hotels in Amsterdam with hotels in Vienna. I seriously doubt you can find a better hotel in Vienna than the Imperial!!

About AMS Pulitzer...I have also been there this weekend with a free weekend. I'm not Platinum yet (just Gold), and I was given several choices about my room. In fact, the person at the desk office asked me to go and see if the room was what I was looking for. The room was nice and with a comfortable seating area (that was the most important thing for me), quiet and full of light.
The bathroom was too small, that's true, but didn't mind very much about that.

The staff was nice and didn't seem indifferent to me, and the way the small houses has been jpoined together to form the hotel is quite nice.

Of course it is not a great luxury hotel, but it's full of charm and with a very good location. I 'll return there when I go back to Amsterdam.

LH738

I agree on the hotels in VIE: even the "worser" hotels are still far ahead to hotels in other towns. I stayed last weekend at the Marriott, the Imperial and the Bristol. My vote goes to the Bristol where I was treated very, very well (BTW, the Marriott and the Imperial are worth a stay, too).

I'm planning to (and looking forward to) stay at the Pulitzer at the end of August. I think I'll love the atmosphere in the hotel.

[This message has been edited by LH738 (edited 07-11-2002).]

fly co to see the yanks

i like the property quite a bit (even though i have never gotten a suite) but i do agree that the staff is "indifferent."

GK

I have a free weekend booked at this hotel coming up on Friday. I am Platinum, have stayed there three times before.. so my hopes for a suite are zilch. Even so, I like the atmosphere of the place.

As for the staff - well I am only dealing with them on check in/out - not expecting them to be at my beck and call with total subserviance all day and night long.. the joy of this hotel is partly the location, get out and eat at the nearby privately run businesses...

GK

had a great weekend in AMS, a good choice of hotel, and all round a good experience.. goes to show how our tastes and likes vary

777 global mile hound

See other posts under search for this property.It has been covered in great detail
With a large group that don't like it and a group that clearly does.Its quirky but loaded with charm and a great history.
I believe the hotel could be amongst Amsterdams best if they put more effort in the product and facility.Nice location
I find the airport property to be far more consistent in room quality ( MUCH newer) but also hit or miss with the service.Both properties in the past had some reasonably nice staff.

fly co to see the yanks

as i said earlier, i love this property. it's quirky and the staff is indifferent, but the location is unbeatable. the location is really what tips it over the edge.

Bostom

For many years, until their recent bankruptcy, Cambridge's Arthur D. Little Co. kept a silk purse in a glass case in the lobby - the "silk" in this case having been spun, literally, from gelatine obtained from a sow's ear - in an effort to disprove the proverb that it couldn't be done.

This past week, the Sheraton Pulitzer proved the proverb right in it's original form. The best of intentions - badly executed - turned what should have been a positive into a big negative: so negative in fact that at this point I'd never urge anyone to stay at the Pulitzer.

We arrived late on Friday night, the 23rd. No doorman (they finish at 11) meant hanging out after being dropped by the cab until a desk clerk extricated himself to get a cart for our bags. Check-in went smoothly and when we got to the room found a beautiful one bedroom, two bathroom suite waiting for us with it's own elevator stop. Unfortunately, that was perhaps the highlight of the stay.

Beause it was late, we called for room service which is listed as "limited" after 11 PM. Unfortunately, unless you called the front desk, it was "non-existant." No answer. When they were finally tracked down, they only had one kind of sandwich, which arrived perhaps an hour after the whole effort began.

In the room a letter welcoming us to the hotel regretted they were unable to upgrade us to a suite but had instead put us in an executive room. As we had booked an executive room - and were standing in a suite - we thought this was odd. Little did we know that this "upgrade" came at a cost.

Not to be totally negative: cool suite - almost an apartment in the middle of Amsterdam. No view apart from an interior garden but a huge bedroom and a comfy living room.

We were tired as it was almost 2 AM when we got to bed. I forgot to put the "do not disturb" sign on the outer door. Promptly at 8:15 AM on Saturday came a loud banging from the housekeeping staff to clean the suite, an event which was repeated the only other time I forgot the card. OK, my fault. "We're up," I figured "let's eat." Not without difficulty as although my rate included breakfast, breakfast somehow vanished when the suite upgrade materialized. This took three days of increasingly exasperating interaction with the dining room staff to correct and required me to produce my reservation print-out. Finally this was accomplished.

After six nights, we returned one night from dinner to find a note under the door to call a member of the front office staff. When I did, I was told that the credit limit on my Starwood Amex card has been exceeded. I found this odd, as there was plenty of room for any anticipated charges. I was directed to call Amex in Holland where I learned that the Pulitzer has charged us rack rate for the suite for every night. (We stayed for 9 nights; 3 of then Free Friday/Saturday nights and six of them on an Amex "2 for 1" promotion.) Back to the hotel's accounting office who says they'll check further and let me know. The difference between nine nights rack rate and three is substantial.

I of course, thinking that we're gonna be out on the street, hear nothing. The hotel subsequently pulled the temporary authorization for the inflated amounts and got an authorization for the correct figure but never told me.

On our our second-to-last night I again forgot to put the sign on the door and sure enough at 8:15 Saturday morning the smiling room attendant is in our private elevator lobby looking to be let in. I say, again, "come back in a half hour" when we go to breakfast. We leave, we eat, we come back up to grab a jacket and leave for the morning. When we return at 11:15, nobody's been to the room. So I call housekeeping 'cuz we know we want to take a nap after lunch from being so tired from being up so early.

When no one responded after a half hour, we call again and when the second call gets no results I go to the lobby to find out who's in charge. The dapper, smiling duty manager - who shall remain nameless to spare him - has his "how to placate p-o'd guests" routine down pat, perhaps as he's had to employ it frequently? He notes my housekeeping complaint and the accumulation of small issues that have preceded it and promises the room will be made up at once. It's now 12:30. We go back to the room. No one calls or arrives by 1:00 so we get up and figure, let's take a walk as it'll have to be done when we get back. We see the manager on the way out of the hotel and tell him "nobody's shown up." When we return at 2, still no clean up. I call him again and when I reach him, he tells me how glad he is to hear from me (a feeling I can't reciprocate) as he's learned that the problem is that the batteries in our electronic doorlock are dead and that he and housekeeping can't get in despite more than half a dozen attempts all morning. I told him this statement, and I'm quoting myself here, "beggared belief" as we'd gotten in and out perhaps ten times so far that day. His response is "Are you calling me a liar?" And I guess, in so many words, I was. If indeed the batteries are dead, nobody's key will work. There might be coding or authorization problems, but there was no problem with our keys and there had been no phone call, or card under the door informing us they had problems. Neither of us is an electrician, so I'll leave the technical issues to the experts, but when the manager prefers to cover up his staff's failings by inquiring if he's a liar, I'm out of there.
More than five hours to get a room cleaning in a five star property is unacceptable. Period. Not to mention the chance to get insulted as well.

Having heard me out an hour or two before, the manager had asked what he could do to set things right regarding all the prior problems. I told him I wanted nothing, just to be aware of the issues so they wouldn't be repeated and to get back to me before we left so as to at least know if the credit card authorization problem had been corrected.

Perhaps in all the unpleasantness that ensued, he forgot - I found him making the bed with a team of six from housekeeping - to follow up but by checkout time Sunday I'd given up. Happily we found that indeed our charges, amounting to about half the provisional authorization, had indeed gone through and we were free to leave.

What could have been one of our "best ever" SPG experience was thus greatly dimished by the passive and active stance of this property in response to the issues I raised. And William, if you're (still) reading this: I'm not going to complain to SW Corporate whatever as I told the story to someone who could have done something about it when it would have made a difference and chose not to.

Quite apart from the sad story above, I can add that the Pulitzer's location is terrific, about 10 minutes walk to the Dam Square (center of town) and situated in a great neighborhood. The Anne Frank House is nearby and if you go after 6 PM (open late in the summer) there is no wait and no crowds. The hotel's canal boat, the "Tourist," is a pleasant, if pricey, option - 33 Euros for an hour-long tour vs. 6 Euros for one of the larger canal boats. Drinks are extra.

Pulitzer's restaraunt is pricey and not at all special for the money: three courses with wine came to E170 which we could improve on at any number of nearby venues for a bit more than half that sum. I can particularly recommend "Dining 11" on the Reestraat next door to the hotel as it was brilliant and the chairs (a rarity in A'dam) were comfortable. The buffet breafast at Pulitzers was fine if it was included in the room rate but quite pricey for E23 as service was indifferent and all they had to do was bring you coffee. Perhaps they don't believe in a second cup but the usual wait was 15 minutes. As everything was buffet style it really slows you down.

A couple of final notes: don't call your friends on their cellphones if you can help it: E4.50/minute vs. E.50/minute for a landline in Amsterdam and don't pick and then put anything back in the minibar: sensors record it as "taken" and you'll have to dispute it at checkout. Those items we did take take were never replenished. A/C in public spaces seemed non-existant.

We loved Amsterdam and much about Holland but when we go back - and we will go back - we have too many other choices to make ours the Pulitzer again. A nice room wasn't worth the aggravation.

LH738

A pity to hear about your stay at the Pulitzer. The lack of a proper & prudent service is frightening: it seams the Pulitzer let nothing undone to follow Murphy's law.
23EUR for breakfast buffet in 4-5 star-hotels in Europe is a standard price. Unfortunately. It's acceptable if you eat much in the morning, skip lunch and have dinner in the evening. Otherwise the breakfast bites a hole in the purse.

I stayed in Amsterdam last weekend, too. I enjoyed sightseeing and my usual hotel hoping: Thu/Fri: @Sheraton Airport, Fri/Sat: @Marriott, Sat/Sun (free Saturday): @Pulitzer.

fly co to see the yanks

i love amsterdam and the location of the pulitzer.

while the staff is mediocre (to put it politely), the pulitzer is great. you just have to set your expectations bar very low regarding customer service. this isn't the sheraton boston, after all.

[This message has been edited by fly co to see the yanks (edited 09-03-2002).]

imoutoftown

I have had the same issue with the Hotel Pulitzer. It is a beautiful hotel and a great location, but the service is in need of some work. I booked a suite there and during the reservation was given the room name, 'The Royal Suite.' And was told it was the largest suite in the hotel. When I got to the hotel I had a shoebox. At the suite price. And was told that suite wasn't currently available. It took talking to both managers on duty and 3 phone calls to Starwood to get a suite.

On a different note, I spent 4 months at the Westin Dublin and it is an amazing hotel and the staff is excellent. There is nothing they won't take care of and every staff member is knowledgable about the hotel, hotel services and the surrounding area.

fly co to see the yanks

yeah, it's really too bad about the (let's just say) lackadaisical staff. the pulitzer is such a great property. i love the small bar, too.