Worst Starwood Hotel
As a Platinum guest with SPG I travel quite a bit, and this is the worst Starwood property I've ever stayed at. My experience from start to end was horrible.
I booked two rooms for two nights with points, and used 4 suite upgrade certificates to ensure a good room. Turns out the certificates are a waste, as they won't upgrade anyone to a park view room "per policy".
Upon check in at noon I was told neither of my two rooms was available. My request for a park view room (noted my platinum concierge) was not mentioned at all. I asked if I should called in an hour to check on availability and was told someone would call my cell phone. t 2PM having gotten no call, I called and was told my room had been available since 1PM. I asked that a manager be available to explain when I checked in. At 2:30PM I checked in and the employee who promissed the call back was at the station next to where I checked in. I mentioned to the front desk agent that I never had a call back, and the first individual promptly claimed that my cell phone was "busy" and he had tried to call. All my cell phone calls are routed through a central phone system that logs all calls, and no one attempted to call my phone during the time period in question. A manager then came out, and stated that no one called me because they were still checking on the room. I asked him to explain why the other employee had a different story, and the two gentlemen began to argue. I asked 4 times that they have a general manager contact me, and was told no the first three times, but finally told someone would contact me. Another manager called me, and gave me two possible explanations but would not explain why one of the two people I spoke to at the front desk had lied to me. Starwood and the hotel refuse to comment on the matter.
After using the shower for the first time, it immediately backed up. I called down and was told someone would be right up to fix it. After more than 45 minutes no one showed up and I called again. Someone then came right away to fix it. This was after bedtime for my child, so it was quite inconvenient.
When I went to pick up my car from valet on the final day I was astounded that they wanted me to walk in the rain down the block to the parking garage where the actually park the cars. As a matter of policy the refuse to actually pull them around to the valet stand where you dropped them off. American Express agreed this was fraud.
When I initially brought these matters to the attention of the Starwood Twitter team they responded with the insulting reply “Sounds like they are really busy in NYC today.”
The in room movie system did not work at all, and no one bothered to mention it at check in, or put a warning on their website. The outage was scheduled, so they knew it was going to happen.
If you are expecting a real platinum continental breakfast here, think again. All the hotel will offer you is coffee and a croissant. They claim since the coffee and croissants are custom made for them, they should be considered more than enough. Don’t expect to get your coffee early on a weekend either, you can’t get coffee at 7AM.
After all these issues, both the hotel and Starwood refused to offer any credit or compensation.