Every year my daughter and I spend Christmas Eve at a hotel in the Los Angeles area. This year I picked the Century Plaza. The location is great, we walked to the shops nearby, we could see the ocean from our balcony . . . but the hotel itself -- and the staff -- could do with much improvement. When we got into the room, the temperature outside was about 65, in the room it was 85. I turned on the air conditioning and we went out for a walk. When we returned 90 minutes later, the room temperature was still in the 80s. I called the front desk and reported the problem. I was told the room sense the presence of an occupant and will rise or fall according to body heat. I thought that was ridiculous and said so. She said she would send a maintenance person to determine whether the system was working properly. I told her that it clearly was not working properly, but PLEASE send someone. Thirty minutes later I called again to ask where the maintenance person was. "Oh, he's hasn't shown up yet?" Well, no. About fifteen minutes after that, he finally showed. He explained to me that the room does not "sense" when it has an occupant. Rather, when a person checks into a room, the building's system is supposed to automatically turn the air/heat on. He fixed the problem in our room, but had to leave and come back once or twice to make sure everything was working. We wasted over an hour on this issue. Cut to the pool. The pool and hot tub were open, but there was no guest service outside and the bathrooms were locked. Apparently, guests are supposed to traipse through the lobby to the pool in their swim gear and then back through the lobby, soaking wet, to their rooms. I found an empty cabana and pulled the curtains closed to change but, really, why is the pool open if the support services are not?? Back in the room, we discovered that two of the four lamps had burnt out bulbs so we called the front desk again. We'd ordered room service and received our food (more on this later) by the time someone arrived with new light bulbs. Later, it was time for bed and I was dismayed to see that the throw at the foot of one of the beds (supposed to be two queens, but were actually two full) had a white smear on it that looked like something I'd rather not know about. WIshing I had a black light, I flipped the throws from both beds onto the floor along with similarly dicey looking throw pillows. The sheets appeared and felt clean, but the beds, ugh. They were so stiff, it was like sleeping on a concrete box. I'm not saying the mattresses were firm, which would have been acceptable, they were unforgiving and very uncomfortable. The next morning, we ordered room service for breakfast. So far, the highlight of our stay had been the service when we received our dinner on Christmas Eve. The staff person stood out among the many people I spoke to as being courteous and professional. I was looking forward to another similar experience in the morning. Instead, the most rude woman brought our breakfast. My daughter had ordered a Belgian waffle which, according to the menu, would be accompanied by "hot syrup." When the staff person plopped the bottled syrup onto the table with her bare hand, I touched it and found it cold. I pointed out that the menu said "hot" syrup and was told the syrup had gotten cold while she was waiting for the waffle to finish cooking. Oh come on! I put the bottles into her hand and said I expected hot syrup because that's what I was paying for. She glared at me and proceeded to drop the silverware next to the plates then left the room. I called room service to complain and was told they would comp the price of the waffle. Fine. But what about the rudeness of the staff person? And why not just heat up the damn syrup in the first place or, at minimum, admit you forgot instead of making up a dumb lie about it getting cold while the waffle cooked? Meanwhile, the waffle got cold(er) while we waited for the hot syrup to be brought to us. The $9 pot of coffee-for-one was also cold, but by then I just couldn't face picking up the phone again. Ugh. What is usually a wonderful evening was pretty much ruined by the service at this hotel. And FYI, the hotel is due for a face-lift. I won't go into everything, but our bathroom door looked like it had been kicked in and the pool deck was rusty from the deck chairs. There are so many great hotels in LA (we liked the W in Westwood last year), this one isn't worth your time or money.
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