jas21462
August 13, 2025
I have stayed at countless St. Regis and Ritz hotels, and the one thing that is consistent is that the furnishings, lobby appeal and “first class” initial appearance are superficial. The actual service, care of the facility, care of the patrons, and preparation for your stay is no different between the economy Marriott properties and these. I seem to actually have better luck with my room and stay at the less expensive hotels. My recent stay at the Ritz in Bal Harbor and my stay at this St. Regis solidifies that. This is an expensive hotel - the cheapest room is close to $800 a night including tax, and that was with a discount through my corporate travel site. Otherwise I would have had to pay over $1k. Back before Ritz and St. Regis were sold to Marriott, every hotel employee, regardless of their role, had the authority to spend $1000 on the spot to manage a guest problem. No more, and the hotel staff are not trained in conflict resolution anymore also. Last night exemplified that. We pre-paid for this room, which was mistake #1, as I think you lose control. I won’t do that again. However, I traveled all day since 4:40 am, checked in at 7:30 pm at the hotel. I just wanted to get in bed, watch some TV and get some rest. What is apparent with the Marriott management is that they don’t check rooms for preparedness. That’s happened over and over again. Once I got into this room, TV wasn’t working. Called for maintenance, they were busy as there was only one on staff at this hr. I finally figured out that the cable was disconnected and tied up behind the TV. If someone had checked to make sure the room was ready, that wouldn’t have happened. But the big problem starts with the AC not working, in August in Atlanta. No air blowing out. Called maintenance, again. it would be 15 mins they said. 15 mins goes by, and being exhausted and not patient at this point, I go to the lobby and ask for another room. They don’t want to give it to me. “Please wait on maintenance”. I go back up and wait. 8:30 now, I’m tired, and no AC. I call back down and tell them I want another room. Wait on maintenance, give us 3 mins and we will call you back. 20 mins goes by, no maintenance and no call. I go back down to the lobby and tell them I want another room. “Can you please wait on maintenance, they are almost there”. No I say, this hotel is not full, please give me another room so I can go to bed. Believe it or not, they still didn’t want to give me another room. “Maintenance can fix it”. I told them that the room wont cool off in time for me to got o sleep, and I need another room. It wasn’t until I was loud and firm that they (front desk and manager) played around on the computer to find another room. Same floor, but the reason they didn’t want to give it to me was because it was a mini suite. Horrible conflict resolution. I couldn’t care less about the suite I just wanted a room cool enough to sleep in. The next room was cool
