Sahara Hotel Las Vegas says: Screw You!

When going on a conference business trip and staying at a hotel for more than a week you definitely want a good experience, a short trip back and forth to the conference and all kinds of other attractions like shows, bars restaurants. That’s the reason why I chose the Sahara at the end of the north-strip to visit the Webmaster World – just 15 minutes to the convention center by the monorail was great last year – and so was my service.

But they proved me to be a jerk for booking 8 nights the second year in a row with them, just because I was too lazy to shop around and their rates were really cheap during the week.

Day 1 of the Dirt Horror at the Sahara Las Vegas

I arrived on Friday night and found my bathroom be – well, dirty… had that ugly long black hair near the washbowl and the whole room looked as if it wasn’t really cleaned. I thought – oh heck – they’re going to do it anyway next morning.

Day 2 of the Sahara Dirty Room Horror – Saturday

Nothing was done on Saturday during the day and when I went out Saturday night I though – hmm they are probably going to make my room in the evening as people are out then anyway…just to find out in the morning hours of Sunday when I came home that NOTHING changed.

Day 3 of the Sahara Dirt Desaster – Sunday

On Sunday I really thought – hey, I’m here at the Hotel the 3rd day and nobody gave a shit about my room, so I might have to ping somebody to do it finally. So I looked around and found that old and wasted Mexican lady on my floor and asked her nicely to make up my room when I leave in the afternoon. She looked in my eyes and confirmed that by even repeating the time to do it

Guess what – I came home at night and nothing was done, so I called up the frontdesk, called up the housekeeper service and told both that my room hasn’t been made up for 3 days in a row… both told me that they are going to take of that, and that of course THEY are not the responsible persons for that but that they will hand it to the ONEs that ARE responsible and that they’ll make up my room the next morning..

Day 4 of the Sahara Dirty Room Massacre

Believe it or not, the other day on Monday nobody showed up at my room as well.

I was really pissed off and called them up again. Again it was in the night hours but they promised to do it the next day and even sent somebody up to bring fresh towels (wohooo – we got fresh towels after paying 4 nights in a row) and I went to bed as I needed to get up.

Note that by Monday I suddenly got a strange allergic itching skin on my hands – which I definitely never had before in my life and as I write this it still itches a bit and looks infected. I must tell you that I finally believe that the lack of hygiene at the Sahara Hotel is responsible for that.

Day 5 of the Sahara Room Dirt Overkill

I got up early on Tuesday as the Webmaster World started and I was pretty sure that the cleaing is going to work out as I looked up that Mexican housemaid again and told her to make my room. After a really long day at the conference, a fabulous dinner at the Envy / Renaissance with folks like Chris Boggs, Andrew Goodman, Bill Slawski and others as well as some drinks with some of my clients I came home to my room at 1.30 in the morning – hoping to get some chilling sleep to be fresh during the next conference day.

What I saw was the whole mess I left behind – the 4 day old towels on the floor, a bed not really made up fresh for 5 days and NO SIGN of any work being done to that room… man I was pissed off… I mean the Sahara is cheap and you have to be ready to live in 15-20 year old furniture there… but what the heck was going on with the service? The really pissed me off that day as the only thing I wanted to do is SLEEP!

So once again I called up the front-desk and told them my problem. They handed me over to the housekeepers where I spoke to a lady who said she is NOT RESPONSIBLE and that she cannot do anything. So I called up the front-desk again just to speak to yet another clerk there and hear that the manager is only available at OFFICE HOURS and I must call at that time to file my complaint – but there should be a manager at housekeeping. So I called housekeeping a 2nd time just to speak to the same non-responsible lady again. When I called the front-desk the 3rd time to get ANYBODY responsible on the line I suddenly spoke to a rather nice sounding lady who suddenly showed SOME KIND OF CUSTOMER CARE – while all the other jerks before where just FINGERPOINTING at each other.

She took up my complaints, promised to inform the manage the other day as I certainly didn’t have the time and will to use my valuable time at the conference to contact Mrs. Hotel Manager when she finally showed up at her desk. Then they even sent up the night-maid at 2 in the morning to make up my bed, do basic cleaning of the room and made me feel confident that I am not the only person feeling annoyed by totally screwed up hotel operations at the Sahara.

Day 6-8 of the Sahara Hygiene Disaster

After spending more than 30 minutes calling back and forth thru the organizaton the room service worked fine from Wednesday thru Friday of my stay so I felt a bit more relaxed about it and was pretty sure that the more professionally acting lady really took care of my complaints and will consider the refund I asked her for to make up with the hassles.

Altough she mentioned that the management will come back to me eventually the next days they didn’t – so sign of that – and that certainly should have been a sign to me.

Day 9 – Payday for the Sahara Hygiene Disaster

So checking out on Saturday I expected a little gift, a refund on my invoice, at least a “we are sorry for the inconvenience” or what ever that clerk might have to do in such a situation.

Instead the lady printed my invoice, said thanks and turned away. Which really made me think – THAT’S IT ? Take my money and run?

So I asked her about my complaints and that I didn’t find any kind of compensation for that.
She was BLANK. Knew Nothing.

And after 10 minutes waiting for her after disappearing in the back room I heard that the manager on duty is on the phone and might get back to me soon. SO I told her that I’m leaving in 15 additional minutes and if they would be able to handle a 4 day old complaint in that time span.

Well – another 10 minutes later that big, unhealthy looking lady with her greasy hair and cheesy suite troubled her body thru the doors to approach me – probably double my own weight (and that is already a bit) to ask “SO YOU COMPLAIN YOUR ROOM WASN’T OK THE LAST DAYS?”

Well – After explaining the whole story again you read ALREADY and I told the others before already she said again I should have contacted her MYSELF during the office hours, which I still refused having to do – after all I issues SEVERAL COMPLAINTS to her employees.

What she did again – and that’s obviously the bad culture at the Sahara was fingerpointing back to her employees that they didn’t tell her ANYTHING and again that it is NOT HER FAULT that they didn’t tell her.

And anyway – she meant that it’s been a week ago that I got the bad service and should have told her EARLIER. Ignoring the fact of my multiple complaints in the past. Ignoring the fact that she was calling me a dumbass for ONLY complaining to the personal directly communicating with me.

HELL – who’S fault is it anyway if not the hotel manager’s if I get bad service, non-exististant complaint management and finally hit the wall to complain a last time during checkout just to hear NOT MY FAULT again?

Funny thing is that by that time that big ugly Mrs. “I am Yabbba Manager” already turned her displeasing back to me to say “goodbye sir…”

I got her back to ask if THAT IS IT. That I waiting for more than 20 minutes that day, more than 4 days after my complaints just to hear at least the ONLY responsible person tell me that it’s not my fault and that nobody would ever care if I would feel good about the stay, will ever come back or eventually tell the whole world about this finger pointing “not my fault” behaviour even by the highest people in the Hotel’s organization.

She replied with a simple and rude – “Yes sir, SCREW YOU – that’s what I said – good bye”.

I took that receipt, turned to the other clerk lady with “Has been a pleasure” and went off to the airport shuttle.

This lady certainly looked unhealthy, greasy and I wasn’T really sure if she’s 28 or 48 – heck, her bad physical condition is not even the case for some 58 old ones. But I figured that this is not the type of unhealthy looking you just get from bad eating habbits in stress jobs, lack of workout or some kind of wrong genes.

This “hotel manager” probably pissed of unhappy guests like me every day – dozens of them. And it seems to be a direct order to her employees to block of all complaints in early stages.

I am happy to be out of there and I certainly feel sorry for having picked this hotel a second time, as it definitely spoiled the otherwise amazing experience of the Las Vegas WebMasterworld 2006

And most important – I want to beware you of going thru the hassles that I’ve been to.
This was the worst experience in 15 years of business travel and 33 years of leisure travel.