I worry that I'm turning into miserable old bastard; the frequency of posts complaining about one thing or another seems to be on the up. In my defence, most of the grumbling is about service providers failing to deliver on the expectations they set, rather than general whining about not being treated like royalty.
A case in point in the Viceroy Hotel in Miami.
The Viceroy is a nice hotel by any standards, just not as nice as it thinks it is. Also, before the point is overlooked, the staff we met were all helpful and unfailingly polite. There are, however, problems that are not acceptable at a hotel in this price range.
The Viceroy's unique selling point is the mid-air pool deck - their efficient PR team had photos of the facility splashed across all of the Sundays when the hotel opened. Indeed, the pools are pretty much what sold the property to us over other local options. What isn't made clear is that the pools serve not just hotel guests, but inhabitants of the three towering apartment buildings that surround it. This, in itself, would not be a problem given the space available, but the hotel seem unable to manage the numbers. Over the two days we stayed there, towels were constantly unavailable and, on one unfortunate occasion, we were handed one that was visibly soiled.
Laundry shouldn't be beyond the skills of a hotel management company. It's not a problem I've come across, for example, at the largest Las Vegas hotels, where the number of customers being served and demanding towels dwarfs what The Viceroy has to deal with.
Moving on... When travelling and trying to settle down in one hotel after another, none of us wants to be reminded of the people who have slept in the bed before us or used the bathroom earlier. It was, therefore, a little disconcerting to pull on one of the robes hanging in the bathroom to find that a tissue, presumably used by the previous occupant of the room, was scrunched up in the pocket. To be fair, I can see that the robe looked clean and it's a mistake that housekeeping might easily make when trying to turn around an, otherwise, clean room.
While I'm happy to call the tissue incident an unfortunate oversight that's not representative of normal housekeeping standards at The Viceroy, the issue that upsets me most is a clear management choice.
The Viceroy is at the forefront of the move towards double-dip tipping. Each food and drink bill uses prominent typefaces and lines to encourage the addition of a tip, which we did, generously, at first. Irritatingly, closer inspection of the bills showed that the hotel had already added a large service charge (in smaller print) to the total. If memory serves, 18% was included in the total to which we were adding another 20%. The use of different font sizes makes me sure that this is a deliberate attempt to fleece customers who are already paying a pretty penny to stay, eat or drink here; few practices anger me more. Guidebooks warn about double-dipping in certain locations (Bermuda being notorious for it), but this is the first time I recall seeing it in the US. It's a trend that people need to push back on.
All of these issues were raised in a feedback form which The Viceroy chose to respond to with a dismissive, almost sarcastic, e-mail.
My advice - don't stay here. Don't be sucked in by the hype like I was. There's a Mandarin Oriental a mile or two from The Viceroy - I wish I'd trusted my better judgement and stayed there.
Its a Royal suite only rich human can afford to stay there. Wonderful!
cassey
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