Disappointed
I have never written an unfavorable review, but after my experience at the W Hotel in Westwood, Los Angeles this weekend I had to do this. My friend and I had been talking about taking a trip to LA together for a while when we finally bit the bullet and booked it. We tossed around a few hotel ideas and agreed on the W - Westwood because we wanted to be close to everything and because it has a well known pool scene. We often stay at W's for work travel, and always love them, so we had no problem spending a little extra money per night knowing that we would have W service.
Upon checking in we waited in a short line and were told that the guest services agent would be with us in a moment. After she checked us in she told us how to get to our room and said "I'm actually trying to get out of here, so you need anything else you can ask one of these two ladies. . " A little thrown off, we were just excited to get to our suite on the PH floor which was great!
That night some friends came to meet us for dinner in the restaurant. It seemed that there were plenty of open tables, but we were told upfront that they were "a little busy because of UCLA graduation." Once we were seated I asked the waiter if there were any specials to which he just answered "no." The food wasn't terrible, but not great either. Our waiter seemed too overwhelmed and the manager actually had to take our check at the end.
Between graduation and a celebrity boy band in the hotel that weekend, everyone seemed a bit overwhelmed. We had teenage girls walking around the PH floor asking if we had seen any security and waiting around the lobby. How those girls got to the PH floor was a security hole. However, security seemed to be overly tight everywhere else in the hotel. We tried to lay out by the very small pool and enjoy the sun, but we were approached multiple times by different staff members to hassle us about wearing the required "wristbands." I can understand the purpose of this, but nobody wants a wristband tan line or to be asked repeatedly to show it when trying to relax. 
We decided to go OUT for dinner the next night and we gave our ticket to the valet. After waiting for over ten minutes and watching multiple people who came after us get their cars, we started to get impatient. We looked around the corner and there was our car, just sitting parked at the entrance to the garage. We asked "is that our car sitting there?" to which the valet responded "i don't know, is it?" We said "Don't you know whose car is whose?" he replied kind of snappy explaining that they have a lot of cars coming in and out throughout the day. Not exactly what you want to hear. To top it all off, while we were waiting we decided to take a photo. Later when I was looking at the photos I noticed one of the valets is actually behind us sticking out his tongue or making faces (see attached).
On our last day we just wanted to get some breakfast and then sit by the pool. We got to the pool side cafe and were told by the hostess that because it was Father's Day, they couldn't seat us because they were busy. They said we could sit by the pool and order from the pool menu, but we couldn't order breakfast by the pool. We complained to a very nice manager who was out there and he was very helpful. He listened to all that we had been through and sent a server right over to take our breakfast order. She was also great!
Overall, we felt like we could have paid less and had comparable or better service at a different hotel. The reason we spent extra money was for the W experience which is was not. Though Mark and Alfredo were particularly helpful, as well as the bellman who brought our bags up, the overall service was so sub par. I just feel that a hotel being busy or having events going on is no excuse for giving their regular guests a lower standard of service. We would have been fine even if things were just presented or explained in a nicer manner instead of an argumentative manner. Unfortunately I probably won't stay there again and will opt for another chain because of one bad experience.