Carlton Downtown Hotel — Attraction in Dubai

I suggested this hotel for my office colleagues attending Gitex in both 2023 and 2024 due to its convenient location. We had 5 bookings this year and 3 bookings last year. While I won’t comment much on the rooms, which were decent when we visited one of our colleagues’ rooms, I am giving the hotel 2 stars for their poor communication of policies to customers and visitors.

Since my colleagues, including our CEO, were staying at the hotel, my local colleague and I decided to park our cars at the hotel and attend Gitex with them. On the first day, the valet parking service went smoothly, and everything seemed fine. However, on the second day, the valet parking experience turned into a nightmare. When I arrived, the valet parking attendant was extremely rude and informed me that there was NO valet parking for visitors. He instructed me and my colleague to self-park on Level 3 of the hotel. We followed his directions, but the roads inside the parking structure were so narrow that my BMW ended up with multiple dents as it scraped against the walls. To make matters worse, the building’s parking attendants told us that no parking was available, leaving us frustrated and humiliated.

We returned to the valet, only to have the same valet attendant refuse to help my colleague, even though he was parking other cars without any issue. My colleague had to go to the reception to resolve the matter, and finally, after a lot of back and forth, our cars were accepted by the valet. On the third day, my colleague faced similar rude treatment from the valet staff, but this time a manager at the reception intervened after my colleague threatened that we would not book at this hotel again. For the remaining two days (days 4 and 5), we did not face any issues, but the same valet attendant continued to give us unfriendly looks, as if we weren’t welcome.

The bigger question here is: Why does this hotel not have a clear policy regarding visitors, especially when we had booked 5 rooms? We should be able to visit our colleagues at any time and spend the day with them, as most hotels allow. If there is a specific policy in place, we respect that, but it should be communicated in a respectful and professional manner. In addition to booking multiple rooms, we also used the hotel’s restaurants every day for drinks and food, so we were more than just casual visitors.

I am giving the hotel 2 stars solely for the excellent service we received at the 44th-floor restaurant, Havana. Mr. Peter provided outstanding service and was the highlight of our stay. Unfortunately, we will no longer be booking this hotel for any of our team members due to the rude behavior of the valet staff and the hotel’s inability to manage the situation appropriately.

On the second day, the valet attendant even spoke in Hindi to the reception staff, telling them not to allow us to use the valet service, fully aware that we understood the language. This was clearly intended to humiliate us, and yet, the hotel staff did nothing to address the situation. It’s as if the valet staff is setting policies for the hotel, while the management is oblivious to the negative impact this behavior has on their business.

Because of this one valet staff member’s behavior, the hotel will lose not only our business but also that of all our acquaintances, as we will make a point to share this incident with everyone we know and advise them not to book this hotel. I will also be uploading photos of the scratches on my car, but honestly, the humiliation caused by the valet’s behavior was far worse than the damage...

First and foremost- this is NOT the “Carlton” from the World Hotels chain - but a local brand hotel named Carlton. I did not know until near the end of stay when we spoke to the hotel manager. The good: hotel is well located near Train station and room is big but old . The bad: a) the elevator system takes a long time to get to any floor. B) Housekeeping service was very very poor. our room (for 2) had only one bath towel, one bed room slippers, room phone not working, one light bulb was faulty in the main bedroom. Upon cleaning the table, it was dirty. On day 1, We had to go down and asked for an additional towel, but it did not come. My husband had to go down to ask again at night before they gave some towels and they promised to fix the phone but no one came. Second day - same thing happened - only one towel. Fortunately housekeeper was around when we returned to our hotel. They gave me a towel upon request but it was with a big brown stain on both sides. I was lucky enough to open and check and had to ask for another one. Phone remained faulty- no one fixed it. Third day - guess what? No bath towels AT ALL- the hand towel was not available so they gave a super small square towel. Our non smoking floor also reeked of smoke smell. We were so upset that we went to the front desk and spoke to the manager on duty. While he listens apathetically and manage to get immediate towels and rectify our phone issue, but damage is already done and we are checking out next day. he also does not try to offer something to appease the upset customer (eg free meal or drinks at the restaurant). C) customer service overall (with exception for one front desk lady called Romaissa) was v poor. We went to rooftop/gym - no one greets us- even the Guest relation lady sitting at front desk don’t offer a smile or hi - simply point finger at the Porter when I wanted to get my bags. D) poorly thought out room amenities,eg they have coffee tea refreshment, but no stirrer/utensils. Big kitchen n fridge - but no plates/bowls. Iron but not ironing board. Washing machine but no place to dry/hang clothes. For the amount you pay here, you can find better ones around. Totally not...

Where to begin?

The decline in the quality of services and rooms started a couple of years back. Still, it wasn't very critical, so I kept returning. I have been staying at the Carlton downtown since it first opened in 2014, back when it was Warwick hotel, so you can see I was a loyal customer. But this trip was a disaster.

From the cleanness of the room( two bedroom suite), which was subpar, to ongoing issues that needed me to call housekeeping, to the constant foul smell in the corridor, to very loud and disturbing guests in the neighboring room, to the broken mini fridge, to the faulty kettle, to the botched vacuuming job two days in a row, to broken sink in the main bedroom, to damaged flush tank and continues noise of water running, these were just issues I had with the room. I even complained to the manager about them. Another problem was the underwhelming breakfast and lazy service. For instance, my brother asked for Omlete with veggies, chili, and ham. Still, he got a plain omelet, and the pancakes were too stale and hardened. It was apparent that no one cared to change them, or sauteed mushroom and tomato were stone cold, so when I told a waiter about it, she went to the station and instead of doing something to help me, an unhappy customer started to fight with others, then promptly forgot I even existed. They didn't even care that I was still waiting for my scramble egg until I had enough of their behavior. Finally, I left without ever getting my order. I told the front desk manager about the problems when I was checking out. The manager was very apologetic and promised to rectify the issues. He upgraded my brother's reservation to a Panoramic one-bedroom suite. But unfortunately, the systematic problems continued. Although they upgraded his B&B reservation without breakfast, Today, when he called the hotel to tell them he had left his dress shirts in the closet, they told him there was nothing there! So not only is the hotel not providing a service worthy of the price they charge, but also it is not safe! Therefore, I DO NOT recommend Carlton Downtown...