This hotel's management and front desk staff should be ashamed. I have stayed at a lot of 5 star hotels, and have had many less than perfect experiences, but this hotel experience, in addition to a recent one at the Four Seasons in Casablanca, takes the cake. First, the hotel bills itself as a luxury palace hotel. While I think it can be classified as 5 star, you do not get the 5 star experience and it is simply well below that of its peer group - the true 5 star palace hotels. Value for the money is lacking, but I will say I used an ABA rate which reduced the rate from $1,300 to $560. At $560, I can accept some poor service. However, I got more than just poor service. First, its General Manager, is probably one of the rudest individuals in the industry. You can see some of his responses in the TripAdvisor review. He tends to blame the guest (and not his hotel or staff) for the service issues. He accepts no personal responsibility. When you have that type of leadership style, it produces equally poor and ineffective staff. We had contacted the hotel well in advance of our stay and informed them of our arrival time and need to check-in early (at noon). They told us that would not be a problem. We stressed we really needed to early check-in so one of the members in the party could attend to an issue at the hospital. On check-in day, the hotel advised that they do not grant early check-ins and that our room likely would not be ready at noon, or 1 pm or 2 pm. In fact, they did not know when the room would be ready. Perhaps not even at standard check-in time as we were in a suite and the guest, a high tier loyalty member (such as me) was entitled to stay until 4 pm. This was outrageous. We wrote to the GM to see what could be done or arranged, but of course, he never responded. We also wrote to theGuest Relations Manager (Corentine), who responded that she would essentially let the Front Desk know. Finally, the Front of House Manager emailed, making excuses for the poor service interaction, and promising the room would be ready. At no point did they send an email to indicate the room was ready. As a result, we made arrangements to go to the hotel later. We finally received a push notification around 2 pm that the room was ready. I guess 2 is the new noon. At least it was before standard check-in time. When I arrived to check-in, the agent was extremely rude. There was no hello, welcome to the hotel, nothing like that. She sternly requested my passport and credit card. When you saw my reservation, rate and discount affiliation she demanded proof that I was a lawyer or entitled to use the American Bar Association rate. She indicated that if I could not provide the poof the rate would be immediately changed. I think she was surprised that a Black American guy could be a lawyer. Or at least that is the way she made me feel. Not the best introduction to the hotel (I have stayed here before and the service and treatment was better, to be fair). Once I produced my ABA card, she didn't even bother to review it, she looked annoyed that I had the proof. To make a very long and bad stay short, I will cut to the chase. The hotel is dated. Our suite felt old and in need of a refresh. It felt dusty, not very clean and it had an oder. we opened the window and that helped. However, what was really disappoints were the number of things that did not work. The living room tv did not work at all, the light behind the table did not work and most problematic was the fact the A/C did not work at all - and they know this in advance. The maintenance person told us, in French that there is nothing he could do and that there are many rooms that simply have no working A/C. The hotel never told us this in advance, never apologized and has provided no compensation for the lack of working A/C. We did not sleep well and overall left more tired than when we arrived. Although I wrote to the hotel, including the GM, they have ignored completely my email. As such, I will be seeking a refund of the entire one-night stay from my credit card company. A hotel should not charge a guest for rooms that do not provide basic needs and necessities. In many of the responses, the GM indicates they have an A/C problem, but then he blames the guest for wanting a cooler temperature room. Blame the guest, blame the victim. It's all the same and this hotel, its management team and Marriott should be ashamed. You should stay elsewhere. i know I will.…
This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of Tripadvisor LLC.