Con: Cleanliness and amenities
My husband and I visit Las Vegas 2 to 3 times yearly and we wanted to celebrate our daughter’s 21st birthday in Vegas. Since she was born on 12/31 so we decided to spend the New Year’s holiday in Las Vegas this year.
We have stayed at Harrah’s properties many times so we decided to book our rooms at a Harrah’s property again. On July 2, 2008, I contacted reservations and booked 2 rooms for 12/31/08 – 1/3/09 at the Flamingo. We had never stayed at the Flamingo before but decided to book the rooms there since the reservation agent told us that the Flamingo was the only hotel allowing arrivals on 12/31 at the time we secured our reservations. Our credit card was charged $321.55 and $337.90 for the 1st night’s room charges.
I asked the reservation agent to include our request of rooms close together and the special event we were celebrating and she told me that I would need to make that request at check in. Upon our arrival to the hotel at 3:00 pm 12/31/08, there was a line that wrapped through the hotel lobby and down the hall of the meeting rooms. We waited in line for more than an hour to check in. I understand it was a busy day for check- ins however, the front desk wasn’t properly staffed to handle the amount of guests. When I inquired with the front desk manager about the long wait he stated they were in the process of calling in more employees to come into work that day to help out. So it was obvious they were not prepared for the busiest day of the year.
Once we were able to reach the check in desk, when we inquired the possibility of rooms together and that we were celebrating our daughter’s 21st birthday, the young man helping us said, “well this is New Year’s Eve so I don’t know what you’re expecting me to do about it.” When we mentioned that we had prepaid for these rooms 6 months prior; even before the economy tumbled, he said he was certain that everyone else standing in line had prepaid for their rooms 6 months in advance as well. It was as if he was dismissing us and our advance plans. Unfortunately I misplaced the young man’s name otherwise, I would have included it in this letter.
Our first rooms were 4134 and 4136. When we entered the rooms we were appalled at the condition of the rooms. Some of the buttons on the TV were gone so only empty slots appeared where the buttons should have been. The carpet in both rooms was horribly stained and worn. The furniture had deep gouges and scratches on the night stands and dresser. The bathrooms had obviously not been remodeled for at least 15 years by the looks of the tile and fixtures. The florescent lights in one of the bathrooms flickered like a strobe light and our views from the rooms, were level with the roof level with the roof of the casino which housed several huge spot lights that light up the sides of the hotel.
When I contacted the front desk Manager, Brent, I told him about the condition of the rooms and that we felt it was unacceptable and not worth the $660 we had prepaid for the rooms. Brent stated they would never put guests in rooms that had broken buttons on the TVs and I said, “Well Brent, you did.” If that is “supposedly” the standards of the hotel then it was obvious to us that housekeeping does a poor job of identifying room conditions. I couldn’t see how they could possibly clean the bathroom and not notice the light flickering like a strobe. Brent finally agreed to move us and stated a bellman would be right up with new keys and help us with our luggage.
About 20 minutes had passed and suddenly our rooms were opened by a LARGE group of about 15 people who said, “What the hell are you doing in our rooms.” About four little kids started running back and forth through the adjoining doors while the 9 or more adults wanted us to give them an explanation of what was going on. We told them we had been waiting for our new room keys to arrive so we grabbed our bags and proceeded to wait in the hallway since they were so angry. I heard one of the women in the group say how horrible the room looked as we were leaving the rooms. About 2 minutes later the bellman showed up and he seemed quite surprised at all the chaos that was happening.
Our next rooms were 14033 and 14042. The first thing we noticed was that the buttons on the TV were broken in one of the rooms. The closet doors in room 14033 were jammed shut and we couldn’t get access to the room safe. When I called Brent, the front desk manager, to tell him about the altercation we had with the other hotel guests they assigned to our rooms prior to us vacating them and the problems with the new rooms he assigned us, he literally was speechless.
I said, “Well Brent, I see you are at a loss for words, just as I am.” Brent said there were no other rooms he could move us to that evening and would send up engineering to fix the closet doors. He also offered us $50 food credit voucher per room for the inconvenience. Once again, it was obvious that housekeeping does a horrible job in identifying problems with the rooms and the last person that cleaned room 14033 couldn’t have possibly checked the closet to see if there was any left behind or needed cleaned since it was impossible to open the doors until engineering came up to repair them. To top off an already awful experience, the next morning we discovered that the shower head in 14042 was non-functioning. Once again, a problem that should have been identified by housekeeping if they truly perform proper daily cleaning of the rooms for each hotel guest.
