Hotel Sick Elicits No Empathy from Embassy Suites

July 20, 2006 at 3:32 PM | 1 Comment

[Ed. Note: Hotel Maven Ne0shell recently stayed at the Embassy Suites near the Convention Center in DC and was apparently booted out of his room with a sick wife in tow for a friend of the owner. We thought this only happened at luxury resorts and cooler-than-thou boutique hotels. As always, this is one person's side of the story.]

I'm very easy going, doing 100% travel can either make you a raving perfectionist or willing to overlook just about anything short of rape. I like to think I fall into the latter category.

In DC for 6 months for a long term project, I chose the newly built Embassy Suites to serve as my DC digs. In my years of travel I've learned that the most important thing is a consistent experience. Give me great service or mediocre but God please don't screw around and tease my expectations.

Unfortunately this hotel is all over the map. Valet parking often means waiting 30 minutes or more, the room service food is never the same twice and the staff range from top notch to homicidal. I brought my wife and children in for the 4th of July holiday and was distressed when they came down sick. (I blame the non-functional thermostats in the rooms; the AC will just keep running until it freezes regardless of set temperature).

More Hotel Hell after the jump.

My wife in particular was very ill, so ill I called a local Dr's service for a house call. This happened to fall on my Friday check out and back in ritual day, a necessity for expense reports. Imagine my horror when I found the reservation I have made at the front desk the day before went missing. Bad enough, but the front desk clerk informed me the exact room I was in was "being held for a friend of the owners". (The room was a little larger than normal but wasn't the Presidential Suite or anything).

My response of "sounds like a personal problem" sent the desk clerk scurrying behind the divider to confer with the manager. On her return she insisted we would have to move to another room. At this point the Dr was on his way out and stopped by to tell the clerk that my wife was seriously ill and that moving rooms was a bad idea.

More scurrying back and forth and more firm refusals to allow us to keep the room. I finally got her to bring the manager out so I could deal with him directly and he was very cold, almost machine-like and refused to hear my pleas or the Dr's now agitated disagreement.

We were basically told we would have to move to a comparable room or leave the hotel. (Comparable turned out to be the smallest room I've had in the hotel so far and the room had damaged walls, a magic water maker disguised as an air conditioner and stays at a constant 90 degrees).

After carrying my wife to the room and moving the kids and all our stuff I decided the best thing would be to just deal with it until she was back on her feet and then run screaming to another hotel. Being a Diamond member of the Hilton frequent guest program I emailed guest services to relate my story. They had the same manager call me to "apologize" which consisted of him insisting I was incorrect in my story that the guest taking our room was a friend of the owners. He sent up a basket of candy and offered to comp dinner which of course they forgot to do.

I've gotten to know most of the staff and had a large number of them confirm that the other guest is indeed a friend of the owners; I was even given his name. One staff member did disagree saying the person is actually the financier for Hilton. Apparently being at the top of Hilton's VIP program still rates as second class.

Related Stories:
· Embassy Suites DC reviews [TripAdvisor]

Tags: Hotel Hell / DC Hotel Reviews

by ne0shell

Re: Hotel Sick Elicits No Empathy Embassy Suites

I'll bet you're one of the government hacks that thinks that they own the best room in the house whenever they decide to grace us with their ..whatever you call that. yuck. You people make us SICK and faking your wife's illness is a shameless (although not original) attempt at deception.

So stop moaning and groaning because you didn't get to stay in the suite that someone made the mistake of upgrading you to on that one trip 2 years ago (you know, the one you've demanded ever since) and SHUT UP ALREADY. EVEN THE GENERAL MANAGER IS SICK OF HEARING YOU BITCH. I mean, they DID tell you to move it or lose it, no?

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pdlat154

HotelChatter Member
August 30, 2006 at 4:32 AM

Re: Hotel Sick Elicits No Empathy Embassy Suites
You know WHY no one gave a rats ass about you or your wife? Because we see 100+ of you every week at each and every DC hotel. We have come to loathe you on a level that would shock your ass right back to the Best Western. You don't check out and back in for accounting purposes - let's tell the truth - you do it so you can rack up stays/nights on your frequent guest number. (And you've probably cooked up some scheme to get the government to pay you more for the trip than you spent)
I'll bet you're one of the government hacks that thinks that they own the best room in the house whenever they decide to grace us with their ..whatever you call that. yuck. You people make us SICK and faking your wife's illness is a shameless (although not original) attempt at deception.
So stop moaning and groaning because you didn't get to stay in the suite that someone made the mistake of upgrading you to on that one trip 2 years ago (you know, the one you've demanded ever since) and SHUT UP ALREADY. EVEN THE GENERAL MANAGER IS SICK OF HEARING YOU BITCH. I mean, they DID tell you to move it or lose it, no?

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