I should preface this rather long post by saying that the Flamingo is my favorite HGVC location in Las Vegas. Always was, still is, and we will return, despite what you're about to read. That said, there are some serious management and maintenance problems that they need to address. I did my best to make that point clear while we were there.
2nd preamble -- we stayed there in early June, and despite the fact that we were contacted ahead of time and made our wishes known (main building, no feather bedding, no perfumed cleaners), when we arrived, we had problems with all the above. They had placed us in the North building; and when we switched rooms, it was on a low floor in a room with a terrible perfume smell from the cleaners they had used. Such perfumed products give my wife migraines, which can incapacitate her for days. When dealing with the manager, she indicated that there was no notation of any the above in our record. We asked why, then, do they bother to contact us. The manager had us give her our contact information and requirements, and assured us that all would be set up for our next trip in July.
You all see what's coming, right? Got there for our July 4-13 reservation, and there was no notation of our requirements. They placed us in the North tower again. I admit I raised a bit of a fuss, asking the same question -- why contact us, why promise to take care of it? I insisted there must be another room, but after 5 minutes, it was clear we weren't getting one. The night manager, Danny, who's a really nice guy (more on him later) promised to move us the next day.
We went to the room, didn't unpack, but I set up my laptop to check email. No internet. Went down to the lobby, and they connected me to tech support. After 30 minutes of no success, they declared that I needed level 2 support (I've never had problems before with this laptop). Since it was almost 11pm by now, I told them to call me back in the morning.
So the morning arrives, and after our showers etc, and breakfast, we're waiting for a call for either (a) the room change, or (b) from tech support. The phone rings and.... you guessed it. It was about an owner update. We were told that our limo was waiting. Only one problem -- we never agreed to an owner update! Later we found out that we were coming up on their schedule for July 5, 2011! Somebody, please buy these folks a calendar, would you? Oh yeah, isn't there a calendar function on those iPads that they bought everyone?
So I go away to my poker tournament, and DW stuck around. When I came back, they were moving us to a high floor in the main tower. And we had a nice gift from Danny -- a bottle of champagne and two champagne flutes. Nice.
After a while we notice the shower dripping. No, not dripping. Streaming. We call maintenance, who come promptly. Did they replace the gasket? No, they replaced the shower head, which as you can guess, did nothing. We found that if we tightened the shower handle as tight as I could possibly make it (which was difficult because the handle was loose), we could slow it to a fast drip. Oh, and the toilet paper holder was always falling off.
Put up with the drip, drip, drip that night. Had to close the door to the bathroom so it wouldn't keep us awake. Called maintenance again. They came out again. Didn't fix it (or the toilet paper) again.
After the 3rd maintenance call a couple of nights later, they said that it couldn't be fixed. Danny, who's (a) a super nice guy and (b) afraid of me by this time, explained that somehow the plumbing is worn out and the drip can't be fixed. He informs my DW (rather deal with her) that there's another Flamingo refurb coming up, and they're going to redo the showers at that point in time. Because not only do they drip, but the gasket around the door is ill-designed, and leaves puddles on the floor. Did I say puddles? We had a small pond each morning. So Danny takes the time to explain it all to my wife, and send up another gift basket, this time with a nice red wine and candy. And a ton of fresh towels and floor mats.
Danny also gave us his business card, and told us to contact him personally before our next visit (we don't have one scheduled, and the rest of our year is booked). He really was a nice guy. But there are some major disconnects in management; and he's the face of management to the public (he's night manager). Also, their maintenance team seems to be totally incompetent.
Still we got some nice parting gifts. And as I said, we'll be back. I don't know when this next refurb will take place -- he seemed to imply in the next year or two, and said that refurbs tend to occur every 5 years or so. When was the last one, about 3 years ago? Anyway, my DW pointed out to him that while reupholstered sofas and granite counters are nice, this building is getting very old, and they need to pay attention to basic infrastructure, like plumbing. I hope they listen.
-Bob
2nd preamble -- we stayed there in early June, and despite the fact that we were contacted ahead of time and made our wishes known (main building, no feather bedding, no perfumed cleaners), when we arrived, we had problems with all the above. They had placed us in the North building; and when we switched rooms, it was on a low floor in a room with a terrible perfume smell from the cleaners they had used. Such perfumed products give my wife migraines, which can incapacitate her for days. When dealing with the manager, she indicated that there was no notation of any the above in our record. We asked why, then, do they bother to contact us. The manager had us give her our contact information and requirements, and assured us that all would be set up for our next trip in July.
You all see what's coming, right? Got there for our July 4-13 reservation, and there was no notation of our requirements. They placed us in the North tower again. I admit I raised a bit of a fuss, asking the same question -- why contact us, why promise to take care of it? I insisted there must be another room, but after 5 minutes, it was clear we weren't getting one. The night manager, Danny, who's a really nice guy (more on him later) promised to move us the next day.
We went to the room, didn't unpack, but I set up my laptop to check email. No internet. Went down to the lobby, and they connected me to tech support. After 30 minutes of no success, they declared that I needed level 2 support (I've never had problems before with this laptop). Since it was almost 11pm by now, I told them to call me back in the morning.
So the morning arrives, and after our showers etc, and breakfast, we're waiting for a call for either (a) the room change, or (b) from tech support. The phone rings and.... you guessed it. It was about an owner update. We were told that our limo was waiting. Only one problem -- we never agreed to an owner update! Later we found out that we were coming up on their schedule for July 5, 2011! Somebody, please buy these folks a calendar, would you? Oh yeah, isn't there a calendar function on those iPads that they bought everyone?
So I go away to my poker tournament, and DW stuck around. When I came back, they were moving us to a high floor in the main tower. And we had a nice gift from Danny -- a bottle of champagne and two champagne flutes. Nice.
After a while we notice the shower dripping. No, not dripping. Streaming. We call maintenance, who come promptly. Did they replace the gasket? No, they replaced the shower head, which as you can guess, did nothing. We found that if we tightened the shower handle as tight as I could possibly make it (which was difficult because the handle was loose), we could slow it to a fast drip. Oh, and the toilet paper holder was always falling off.
Put up with the drip, drip, drip that night. Had to close the door to the bathroom so it wouldn't keep us awake. Called maintenance again. They came out again. Didn't fix it (or the toilet paper) again.
After the 3rd maintenance call a couple of nights later, they said that it couldn't be fixed. Danny, who's (a) a super nice guy and (b) afraid of me by this time, explained that somehow the plumbing is worn out and the drip can't be fixed. He informs my DW (rather deal with her) that there's another Flamingo refurb coming up, and they're going to redo the showers at that point in time. Because not only do they drip, but the gasket around the door is ill-designed, and leaves puddles on the floor. Did I say puddles? We had a small pond each morning. So Danny takes the time to explain it all to my wife, and send up another gift basket, this time with a nice red wine and candy. And a ton of fresh towels and floor mats.
Danny also gave us his business card, and told us to contact him personally before our next visit (we don't have one scheduled, and the rest of our year is booked). He really was a nice guy. But there are some major disconnects in management; and he's the face of management to the public (he's night manager). Also, their maintenance team seems to be totally incompetent.
Still we got some nice parting gifts. And as I said, we'll be back. I don't know when this next refurb will take place -- he seemed to imply in the next year or two, and said that refurbs tend to occur every 5 years or so. When was the last one, about 3 years ago? Anyway, my DW pointed out to him that while reupholstered sofas and granite counters are nice, this building is getting very old, and they need to pay attention to basic infrastructure, like plumbing. I hope they listen.
-Bob
