Call first
By fai, 05/25/09
Initial impressions: lobby is very well kept up. Same with the bedroom. Love the decorating. In fact, the look of the bedroom was my favorite out of all the hotels i've been in, including Crowne Plaza, the Hyatt Regency, and Planet Hollywood. The bathroom was adorable. I really liked it. Lots of hot water. And if you need to do something at the coliseum, you can't beat the location, you really can't. So those were the ups.
The downs: water pressure was meh. Shower head is too low for tall people. We couldn't eat the free breakfast because you were only allowed to have it in a tiny room that can fit 50 people tops, and there were at least 25 waiting in line and all the tables were taken; if you can only eat inside the tiny room, what are you supposed to do, eat standing up? That's thoughtless. The room was incredibly hot--most likely due to the crowd--and quite loud--same reason--and we had no chance of enjoying breakfast so we took off.
Even then, the minuses were minor and outweighed by the pluses, except for one hugely overriding fact: our room keys didn't work. We stayed in the hotel for one night, saturday over sunday, and were given a grand total of 8 room keys. None of them worked. Think about how often you go in and out of your hotel room. Going out to eat, going to the pool, going to sightsee, going to the backstore. You come back, you schlep your stuff and your tired self up to the 8th floor, you try your door--and it doesn't work. Try the key again. Nope. Try again. Nope. PUll the door towards you and try. Nope. Push the door away and try. Nope. Try putting the card in fast. Nope. Try putting it in slowly. Nope. Try using the other key (cause you get two) and go through the same shpiel all over again. Still not working. So you schlep your tired self and all your stuff back down to the first floor and the unsympathetic front desk person gives you another 2 keys to try. 8 floors. Schlep schlep schlep. Still doesn't work. In the end we had to be let into our own room by, variously, the manager, maintenance, and housecleaning staff. In one overnight stay we were given 8 different keys and none of them ever worked. We asked about another room, staff said all the rooms were having the same problem. And that was the end of the discussion.
Here's the final word on the place: if you see a good deal, CALL AND ASK IF THE ROOM KEYS ARE WORKING. Just one quick call. If they are, then go for it.
