Are you ready for this story?
Why of all the places were we at the Flamingo, remember I told you about
Brain and Ramey getting married, they wanted to get married there, so we joined them.
We made our reservation months ago for a "Deluxe Room", so we figured it wouldn't be too bad.
But we were wrong. We were assigned room #18124, I tell you this, in case you are assigned this room number, you will run. So we find the place, we unload the
van of all our crap, I am taking care of Charlee, not impressed with what I see but figure it is livable for a couple of days. Karst grabs the clorox wipes and is going to town wiping down everything in sight, he comes out of the bathroom and says I need to go get some Tilex, before we can use that. I laugh, and say Karst I am sure it isn't that bad, but whatever you need to do. He heads off to Wal-Mart to get the cleaning supplies.
In the meantime, I get Charlee situated and in a safe place, not on the floor, as that has cigarette burns in it, and start checking out the place.
First I see these fixtures in the bathroom that have a lot of dust and rust on them,
Then I notice the bathroom is so old it has a bottle opener in there and a place for men to put there straight edge razors, vitage or dated?
I look up, notice what I hope is clean towels folded below where the wall paper is falling down,
now I am getting scared, I can't believe their wall paper is falling down and
they haven't fixed it.
I turn, pull back the shower curtain and look at the tub,
and gasp. What is this? Karst wasn't exaggerating.
For real there is MOLD in the bathtub
I can't shower there, I can't put my baby in there, I can't live with all of this. Karst comes back with the Tilex, rubber gloves, and a scubber ready to clean it. I tell him, no way we are not paying to clean our own room. This is not acceptable, I am calling to get a room change.
3 phone calls and 2 hang ups from the front desk I talk to a manager who tells me we can go to this other room, I go look at the room, there isn't mold in the bathtub but other than that it is about the same. I go back to our room, call Homewood Suites, get their room rates and decide to move the next night and warn our other family members who are coming the next day.
I grab my camera, take pictures of the offenses and go back down to the front desk, I talk to Anjanita the manager on duty. I show her the pictures, and tell her it is unacceptable, and the room they tried to move us to was not much better. She tells me that since we have the delux room and not a luxury room that is what we paid for, I told her this was unacceptable I don't think a clean room is unreasonable. She doesn't offer any options. I let her know we will be checking out in the morning and letting everyone who is coming for the wedding know. She says okay and I head back to the room.
By this time it is 11 p.m. Karst and Charlee are asleep, a girl from the front desk calls and asks if we are changing rooms, I let her know we will check out in the morning and we already talked to a manager and no one wanted to do really help us. About 10 minutes later Anjanita calls me back and tells me she was thinking about the situation and the pictures and she wants to try and make it nice, she will upgrade us to a remodeled room and upgrade everyone else in our group to a better room. I thank her and tell her we will move in the morning, it is too late for us to move that night.
The next morning, we get up head down to the front desk, get new room keys, check out the room it is night and day difference and we move.
To get to the room we got to go down this pink hallway that makes you feel like the walls are coming in on you.
Here is Charlee and I outside our new and improved room #21100
When you walk in you have a pink light and a glass wall around the bathroom. And there is a full size closet with a big light in it.
The room was very modern, but retro. My favorite part was the lights that had a mirror behind it, so Vegas to have a mirror above the bed, even if it was a small mirror.
A nice flat screen screen and a sound system, against the pink striped wallpaper. I know Elle would be dying all the pink.
We did have a great view of strip with Caesar's Palace and the Ballagio fountains.
The bathroom, with the fuschia wall, bowl sink, and glass shower was quite a sight to wake up to,
but the best part was the t.v. in the mirror in the bathroom.
Charlee loved getting her hair done in that bathroom. The sink was a perfect seat for her and she was entertained.
This room was so much better, and we were so relieved that we didn't have to change hotels and we appreciated them upgrading us.
However there was still some maintenance issues with the rooms, there was tape all over the room probably left after a great party someone had in there.
And some other minor maintenance issues that have not been taken care of.
Charlee slept great there and we did feel better about everything, But it will probably be our last visit to the oldest hotel on the strip.
Seeing how brilliant a lot of the customer's were. I am sure many of them don't notice little details like mold in the shower.
The back gardens with the flamingos, fish and ducks and the great swimming pools were lots of fun.
Those who make the decisions about the care and the pricing of this hotel are clueless, (that would be
Harrah's Entertainment Inc.). This is not the Wynn or even the Ritz Carlton, it is the Flamingo, if they can't update all the rooms, they should at least make sure they are clean. The minimal would be some good customer care, which could go a long way. After working in the hotel industry
myself for 5 years, where guest services was so important and hearing one of their employees say "we have 10,000 people check in everyday, we can't please all of them." They are trying to pass off a dive at Mirriott prices and they have no class, no service and not worth the price.
Yes we did get an upgrade and yes we do appreciate it, but it shouldn't have taken 4 conversations and pictures with us making other reservations for them to try and make it right.
