During a recent trip to Detroit, I had the chance to stay at the Westin Book Cadillac which is Detroit’s newest four star hotel. I generally do not stay in hotels when I travel but sometimes I like to spoil myself. And as a lover of all things luxurious, I always opt for, four stars.
As I drove up to the Book Cadillac with the snow falling consistently around it, I felt like I had been transported to Chicago’s Michigan Avenue. The structure is amazing and its age shows the architectural prowess of the 1920s. When I pulled up to valet, I was immediately disappointed by the fact that they did not open my door and even more upset when I struggled to pull my luggage out of my trunk with absolutely no assistance from the two valet employees standing by. The last straw was when I opened the door to the hotel myself. Upon entering the hotel, I was wowed by the beauty of it all. Quite a magnificent site. My friend Crystal and I, headed up the escalator to check in. The staff was very friendly and after receiving our key we were on our way. We entered the room and were both impressed. It was cold so I immediately ran to turn up the heat. After about ten minutes of the temperature remaining at a cool 59 degrees, Crystal called down and was told that an engineer would call us to walk us through the problem. After fifteen minutes and no call back, she calls again. They decide that they will move us to a different room and someone would be up to get us shortly. After waiting about ten minutes, my patience is shot so we decide to head downstairs, check out and head for a different hotel.
When we reached the front desk, we tell them the situation and the manager comes out. By this point, I’ve already confirmed vacancies at another hotel. When the manager goes in to issue a refund she informs us that she cannot because the room was booked through a third party website. Ugh. At this point I’m losing it. I’m stuck in silence because of my anger so Crystal handles the move to a new room and the manager offers us complimentary breakfast. We get up to our new room and things seem to be intact. There is heat and after a quick phone call complimentary breakfast turned into complimentary dinner. After we ate, I head to the shower to prepare for our evening out on the town. I turn on the water and begin to search for the shampoo. None. Conditioner. None. Four stars? I think not. I forgo the washing of my hair and hop in the shower. To my surprise, the water was somewhere between lukewarm and cold. I don’t have much time so I soap up and rinse off as fast as possible.
On our way out I tell the employee at the front desk that we have no hot water, shampoo, or conditioner and that I expected it to be fixed by the time we got back. Upon our return I noticed shampoo and conditioner, but no hot water. So at about 2:30am a very nice and apologetic engineer comes to fix our hot water. Upon check out the next morning I shared all of my disappointments with another manager who in turn offered me two complimentary nights in a suite. And while I was amazed by the gesture, first impressions are lasting impressions.
Overall, The Book Cadillac gets a thumbs down from me. I would never stay there again, it is a gorgeous hotel masqurading as a four star establishment, but it is not quite there yet.
