HotelChatter

Re: The Water Club Ripoff

My friends and I went to the Water Club for a small bachelorette party for a night in July. The hotel itself is aesthetically lovely and has good amenities, but once you're checked in, there are some surprises that aren't so pleasant. We arrived at noon on Saturday and intended to spend our day by the pool which was a main attraction for us. When we arrived, we were told there were no lounge chairs available. We saw several unused chairs but the pool staff said other guests were "saving them" for use later. We asked how long they were able to hold them with no occupants and we were told "for the entire day". We were then offered some small upright chairs which we begrudgingly accepted. After sitting, we realized we were placed in the direct path of wait staff, workers doing maintenance and guests shuffling back and forth to the bathroom. It was very uncomfortable and we kept having to move our legs for passersby. We then noticed a private cabana with 4 unused lounge chairs across the pool. When asked if we could use those, we were told we would have to PAY to sit there, IF it wasn't already reserved. After 20 minutes of negotiating a less than full day fare (which was somewhere around $500) we settled on $200 for the cabana chairs because it was already 2pm. There we were given some free water and a waitress to help us but by the time we relaxed, the sun was already behind the building. We spent A LOT of money on the property the rest of our time there...casino, bobby flay restaurant, nightclubs, room service, etc. The next morning we hoped to go back to the pool early enough to get the FREE lounge chairs and spend our day relaxing before going home. When we went to checkout however, we were told we were no longer allowed to use the pool. After arguing with 2 managers and front desk staff, we were told there are no exceptions to that rule and that we would have to either pay a half day rate to stay by the pool or leave. The manager smugly said he would "allow" us to pay $300 to go to the pool until 6pm (which seemed high for a half day rate on a sunday) . Because we had no other plan, we felt we had to take it. Later at the pool we found out he was charging us the half day rate based on a SATURDAY night fee, not a sunday night fee (and it WAS sunday!). So once again we had to find another manager to rectify the overcharge which was double what it should have been. I was completely disgusted by this hotel's policy of discarding its guests once we had paid our bill or charging us more just to use the facility we had spent so much money on booking in the first place. I do NOT recommend staying at the Water Club unless you enjoy being ripped off and tossed aside like a vagrant.
On a side note, there are pool staff members named Jeff and Martin who were both very helpful and accommodating and just about the only people at the hotel who treated us well. I hope they get jobs somewhere else so they don't become tainted by this awful hotel.