I have just returned from a weekend in Vegas staying at the Palazzo for my 40th Birthday with my Wife and our two friends. In summary this is a lovely hotel with stunning rooms (all suites) but the customer service was the worst I have ever encountered in any hotel! My exit from the hotel was pure hell as I will explain later in this review, to the extent my wife was crying in anger (a hard feat to achieve). To this end though my review is balanced explaining the positives I would be unlikely to return to an Intercontinental again (and I'm an Ambassador member).
Arrival
The hotel is impressive from from the outside and the grounds are well kept. Being an upscale hotel I expected a doorman or bell service at the main entrance and found none which was an inconvenience as my friend who traveled with me has impaired mobility and was in a wheelchair at this point. We arrived at 17:00 Friday 30th so I didn't consider this an unsociable hour. At check in the clerk was friendly and asked if why I was in Vegas, though I wasn't greeted or noted an Ambassador member. I checked he has my membership details which he confirmed but there appeared to be no benefits available beyond what you pay for in the resort fee. This may well be as I was staying on a reward night. He assigned us two strip view rooms to recognise my birthday celebration. No offer was made to help us with our baggage to the room. |We managed to drag the suitcases and wheelchair to the rooms on the 30th Floor through the Casino.
Rooms
The suites are immaculate and by far the best room I have stayed in $ for $. The Strip view was a highlight and the room had every facility you could have wanted. The bed was very very comfortable and the bathrooms lovely.
Communal Areas
All very clean and the casino being smaller then most of the mega hotels was actually a nice thing. There is no theme at the Palazzo which is a good thing in our opinion, leaving it more traditional in its decor.
Food
We ate out mostly but we did eat at I love burgers on the first night which was reasonably priced and good food and also at the Grand lux cafe which we also enjoyed.
Departure
On our departure day we packed our bags, left our hand baggage and valuables in our room with the intention of using the Virgin Atlantic check in service as advertised by our flight crew on the plane out and also listed on the Virgin Website and LAS airport site. Unfortunately this service was not actually offered at the hotel (not the hotels fault I guess) so we decided to check our bags with the bell desk. We had breakfast and returned to our rooms at 10am to get organised before the 11am standard Check out time. My wife and I found neither of our room cards worked. We hadn't checked out and it was an hour before 11am so we thought there may be some fault. The maid was close by so we asked her and she said she wasn't allowed to let us in but she seemed very surprised that we were trying to get in and kept asking us questions. She told us to call front desk. As our friends room was next door we went inside and called front desk but were put immediately on hold......for 25 minutes! I decided to go to the lifts and try the phone there an got through immediately. I gave my room number and name and was told somebody would be right up (this was at 10:25) When I returned my wife had also got through and been told the same thing but now our room was open as the maid and her male assistant had our room opened so we assumed the had been told to let us in. We went to get our valuables and money from the safe and we were told to get out by the male cleaner. The Maid saw the bag my wife got out of the room and started saying "but there were no bags in the room" giving the game away that she was implicated in what was going down. She kept insisting to us the room was empty in spite of the fact my wife had already been able to rescue one of our bags from the room and the content of the safe before we were ejected by the male cleaner. My wife lost it by this point as they were just arguing the impossible with us and made no attempt to help. Once we had convinced them that we had indeed been locked out of our occupied room they disappeared into another room to hide as we were very very angry by the point now having missed the timezone to call our kids at home. At 10:55, 55 minutes after we had tried to enter our room security turned up and opened the door. No apology was made for any inconvenience. My wife was furious and we made our way to check out. At front desk we were informed that the maid had checked us out and that the hotel had thought that we had checked out. It was obvious that the maid had got very worried and called down to tell front desk what she had done. She had gone in the room and checked us out on the TV, before the 11am checkout time and before we had vacated the room taking our bags an valuables with us. The lady at Front desk was polite and tried to placate my Wife and I by removing the resort fee from the bill, but to be fair there was little that could be done to rectify the situation having been an hour outside of our room treated like thieves by the maid and her assistant when they had infact had caused the issue. The thing that made it worse was the realisation that the Maid must have known that she was responsible for locking us out and checking us out but did nothing to help us other than keep us out of our room. I can only assume this was because she had already taken the $20 and all of my loose change from the side table!
I know it was one event out of an otherwise nice stay but it was the only memory we have now of the hotel and the break, and a lack of door staff/bell service when we arrived and the terrible service when leaving should never happen in a high starred hotel such as this. Ive tried to make this review balanced an helpful to other travelers but im sure you will see why our view of the hotel was tarnished.
Dominic & Keely Moran
