I just spent the weekend here with my sister, one of my good friends and her sister.
My friend has been Starwood Platinum for many years. She booked our rooms over 3 months ago, and asked her ambassador to make sure that one of the rooms had 2 double beds (as opposed to 1 king bed).
We checked in at about 7pm on the first night (a Thursday, the first of 4 nights). We were told by Ana at the front desk, sorry there's 2 rooms, but neither have double beds. Nothing I can do. Understand that it was a very busy weekend at this hotel (they were full apparently), with lots of conventions, but we did not think this was "service." My friend who booked the rooms said politely - will there be another double room free in another tower, any thing free tomorrow? you mean all the people in the double rooms have platinum status too..? is there anything you can do? Answer was (after she checked the computer) - nothing I can do. We almost booked a whole other room, then I suggested (vs Ana suggesting) a roll away bed, so she said, ok we will bring one right up. (which by the way never did happen).
After this miserable check in experience, my friend and I then went to the lounge. Our key didn't work. The lady in the lounge said "it's because you only checked in a little white ago..." This has never been an issue in other hotel lounges (other Sheratons, Westins etc etc). We were like, ok, here's the name, no problem. We told her about the issues with check in, and she gave us the name of the hotel night manager (helpful). When we were leaving the lounge, she told us to move a chair back that we'd moved from the table beside us because there weren't enough chairs (surprising).
After my friend called her platinum ambassador and complained about the check in experience, about 3-4 hours later, the night manager Roger (or Robert?) got us a room in a different tower with double beds. Appreciated, but hard to believe that this wasn't available somehow without my friend making a bunch of external phone calls to someone in another city. Took forever for the staff to come up with the room key (it was about 11pm + at this time, so really just wanted to get to bed). Room was in the older tower, but this was fine - relatively quiet and comfortable.
The one bright spot at this hotel is Helen who works at the Kitchen Table restaurant. She was super friendly, all about service, and couldn't do enough for us.
Dallas overall is a great city that is all about service... we didn't let the first crappy day at this hotel ruin our trip. We checked out the original Neiman Marcus - the ladies there were super nice and told us about the history of the store and we had lunch at the Zodiac (which was excellent). We took the Dallas Stadium tour (worth the money), checked out Southforth and went to a Rodeo at the Stockyards. All in all a nice visit and I would definitely come back to Dallas, I would just not stay at this hotel. I'd come back for drinks/dinner to see Helen, but I think I'd try the Joule or something in Ft. Worth.
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