This hotel has been the absolute worst, I've ever visited- it ruined what was supposed to be a wonderful meet up with a dear friend.
Im German but living in the US at the moment. When I went to visit my family with my 14month old baby boy, I arranged to meet up with one of my older friends and her 20 months old baby in Hamburg. My husband has lots of hotel points through business- he kindly booked one night with two rooms in her and my name.
On the day, I arrived late due to traffic, only to be greeted by reception, that
1) my husband had insufficient points and if I didn't pay for both rooms in advance, both my friend and I and our babies would be kicked out. I was stunned. When I tried to figure out what happened, I was told that the booking was giving us the "benefit of a doubt" that we would acquire the necessary points in time but obviously had failed to do so. When I tried to ring my husband in California, he was furious and got on the phone with Marriott USA who immediately looked into the matter- because we clearly had enough points! Marriott Hamburg insisted on payment though, so I charged them on the credit card for now.
2) After some moving around (they had managed to place us on different floors!), it was only by chance that I went back to reception several hours later to ask what had happened, only to be casually told
3) "oh yeah, you did have the points. It was a misunderstanding". NO APOLOGY. My friend stood next to me and was also stunned by the way that woman at reception was completely oblivious to all the distress they had caused. NO APOLOGY.
4) Later, when our boys and us came back from dinner, I wanted to inquire about late checkout which is regular courtesy in US hotels. Here, the next lady (who was quite nice actually) pointed out that they would normally charge for it, but would allow us to check out at 4pm the next day. Unfortunately, they completely failed to pass that information on. The next morning, I met a cleaning supervisor in the corridor and double checked and... IT WAS COMPLETELY NEW TO HER THAT WE WOULD BE CHECKING OUT LATE. I asked her to make a note of our room numbers and double check with reception for our late check out at 4pm. Only to find a cleaning lady come into my room around 12 and getting a huge shock when I was putting my boy down for his nap!! This was only topped my my friend's experience who received a phone call around 1pm asking rudely when she was thinking of vacating the room!!! This hotel made us feel so unwelcome whilst being so unbelievably unprofessional- I'm still shaking my head.
5) the (young and tall) porter who was picking up my luggage was unbelievably unprofessional and.. I'm sorry, simple minded and disinterested. I had been told that they could also already bring my luggage into the car OR store it at the hotel (I was leaving around 6pm that day to see my friend off at the train station) but he had no idea what he was doing and claimed after being quizzed for a while that he didn't know how to put the luggage in the car, pointed us to restaurants at the hotel that didn't exist and was just unengaging, unfriendly and unhelpful. And clearly had no clue about anything going on at the hotel.
Never in my life have I stayed at a hotel that made me feel more unwelcome and uneasy. I had been looking forward to it so much, because the hotel itself is beautiful and the food was lovely, but the people inside turn it into a horrific experience. I normally leave positive reviews for places where I can because I try to see the positive in everything, but for this hotel, I urge you: Stay away.
PS to be fair, the ONLY positive experience I had was the lovely head waiter at the restaurant (a dark haired older gentleman) who was very friendly and kind to my little boy). I had dinner at the restaurant before setting off, celebrating my freedom that I could leave this dreadful place, but sad for the hotel points we had wasted.
Don't be me- use your money, points, precious life time at a place that values your business and presence at their house. read more