Beautiful Hotel - Horrible experience (September 2017)!
When your room is robbed a day (or two) before you leave the country, if that isn't bad enough, the Wellington's response, or maybe total lack of response, is 100 times worse.
Our room in the Wellington was robbed the night before we left Spain--there is an official Police report (Madrid) to document this theft. We came in after a fantastic dinner only to find that jewelry had been stolen.
The 'cheap" jewelry was untouched; however, two rings were stolen, to include an antique ring smuggled out of Germany during the Holocaust. There was a lot of crying this night....
From the beginning to the end of this ordeal, the Hotel could not have cared less about these stolen items. Their response was as follows: 1) Denial. The Wellington told us that a theft wasn't possible as they are a 5-star hotel with only long-term employees--and this has never happened (We don't believe this for a moment). 2) The Wellington told us over and over there was no need to file a Police report. We pushed back hard enough, multiple times, until they finally agreed to assist us with filing a report on-line. 3) And the final act, the answer to everything was..."Tomorrow." We can look at the security film....tomorrow. We can talk about this more...tomorrow. The problem was we were leaving "Tomorrow" (early) thus the Wellington's response was of no help to anyone in this situation.
As stated above, the Wellington was in denial about this theft. When we reported the theft (that took at least three calls to the front desk), they didn't send Hotel Security, they sent the chief of House Keeping instead??? She assured us there was no theft--she was wrong. We never met Hotel Security in this five-star hotel, because he was never available (at least to us Americans). After three or four hours dealing with this ordeal, being forced to go to three different Police stations, etc--we were told that Hotel Security came in early and assured us that Hotel Security would call us before we left the country--that of course never happened, we were never called.
I surmise that they have a lot of theft at this hotel. When we were checking out there was a review of the mini-bar (which is standard) and we had taken one juice ($6) from the mini-bar; however, there were additional charges of $24 and $36 (Euros) on our bill. I looked at the clerk, told him that was wrong and without even looking at me; he removed them from the bill. I was intrigued; I asked how was it possible that we got charged $24 and $36 (Euros) for items we never touched. His lame explanation was sometimes the maids move things...and they really don't take a good inventory (Baloney). I bet a number of business travelers, on expense accounts; never look these charge, and just sign...we actually reviewed the bill.
We e-mailed the Hotel (Chief of Hotel Security) on 30 Sep 17. Two days later (2 Oct 17), we received a response--that they were contacting their insurance company...
Almost two and a half weeks (16 days) go by...no answer, so we e-mail them again on 18 Oct 17. The next day, 19 Oct 17, the Chief of Marketing e-mails us, tells us that the chief of Security is not available and that they are still waiting a response from the insurance company.
It's now 13 Nov 17 (25 days since the last response) and there is still no response from the Wellington.
Let's be honest, the Wellington knows who entered our room and these individuals knew the day we were leaving. Is it coincidence that we were robbed the day before we departed back home to the US? I can only "assume" that the Hotel and the thieves never thought we'd go through with filing out an official Police report (4+ hours), forced to go to multiple Police stations (3) before one of the local Police Stations was willing to take a report (which was a follow-up to the on-line report--and that Police Officer was great!) -- only hours before our plane took off early that next morning.
Take your chances at the Wellington.
If something goes wrong, don't count on the Wellington for anything, as they will help you "Tomorrow." And of course, "Tomorrow" never comes... read more