We choose the InterContinental hotel for our anniversary weekend mainly because Toro Toro Restaurant is inside and the great reviews I saw all over the cyberspace (Yelp - Google - Hotels.com).
The rate of over $300/night, nice reviews and photos gave me the impression that this would be a fancy place, so despite traveling less than 10 miles away, my girlfriend and I dressed to impress. Being our anniversary night, I wore my spiffy suit and she wore a long elegant dress. Upon arrival, I was appalled to hear the very loud deafening reggaeton playing in the lobby. The ambiance was much like a nightclub, not what I was anticipating at all. Feeling repulsed, I contemplated leaving the premise to go to a different hotel or even back home, but unfortunately, my reservation had "a special rate" and non-cancelable clause.
Upon check in the music changed to Salsa... very loud as well, but at least you can call that "music", so upon inquiry, we found out that they play Salsa every Friday from 6 to 10 PM, and when the DJ breaks, you can still hear the unsettling pre-recorded mix of our present time popular reggaeton. This genre is so hermit that Microsoft Word underlines it in red as it was incorrectly written, probably Bill Gates has never heard this dissonant music attempt.
I've been to numerous 4 and 5 stars hotels, in multiple states and countries. This is the very first time I have heard something so discouraging, unpleasant, and inappropriate. If they are looking for something unique they definitely accomplished it. Every reputable hotel on this planet plays easy listening, Jazz, Bossa Nova, Lounge, New Age and similar themes interchanged between them depending on the area of the hotel, day of the week and time. But you will never hear Salsa at any hotel, not even in Hollywood movies unless it's the life of Hector Lavoe "El Cantante".
So moving forward which was difficult to do, after getting a headache and thinking our anniversary weekend was ruined. The lady at the check-in was very nice and polite, she gave us the keys to our room and to our surprise, and it was 1117 which is the day and year we met! We took the elevator to go to our room and 4 bellboys entered inside talking and laughing transporting luggage like they were in their condominium elevator. Ohh man, don't these people have their own employee elevator!?
So after strike two, we finally got in the room, opened a bottle of wine and walked out of the hotel to drink it away from the unpleasant environment. The pool area had a large band playing Salsa at the highest level. That night, we ended up sitting in front of Il Gabbiano restaurant and played our own version of the music, drank our wine until things were back to normal. Then I was very concerned about our dinner reservation scheduled for the next day at Toro Toro may be fatal. Fortunately, they did have a DJ Saturdays too, but they were scheduled to play 80's and modern Chill music. Our dinner turned out to be very pleasant (see the review with details posted for the restaurant).
Let me explain why I'm giving such a high rating to this hotel, first Toro Toro was really magical, second the treatment from everybody was excellent, third the location of this hotel is great, we walked to Bayside to spend time Saturday afternoon and shopped like crazy, and last, the view, service and light fares at Blue Waters was spectacular.
I want to mention 3 people that really made the difference in our stay, Daniel Nuñez, and Ruth Welter from Toro Toro and Juan Carlos from Blue Waters Café.
PS: I don't even knew how to write reggaeton but Google made this possible! read more