W Verbier — Hotel in Val de Bagnes

Hotel is located in upper end of Verbier, just about 50m tarmac walk from ski lift to the slopes. It’s quite new, decorated in typical W hotels style, well maintained and kept immensely clean. But here it’s where the list of positives ends, besides these it’s just brutally overpriced, usual 5* hotel you could find anywhere in the world, nothing more, nothing less.

Me and my wife we stayed here for a weekend skiing getaway in February, using SPG points for Wonderful room. Being a double Platinum member, we asked for an upgrade to suite saying this would be a value for us we would appreciate, but unfortunately it was not possible due to claimed high occupancy. We scored only an upgrade to Spectacular room (one level above Wonderful room, only difference to Wonderful room being a better view) and were given room 308, very remote, low level (3rd floor), poor view over roof of front cottage and very close (5m?) to gondola pole and bus stop. Clearly, this room should not be sold as Spectacular room (for 1,100 CHF a night...).

Where to start, here it’s fair to say that, due to my job, I spend about 280 nights a year in different 5* hotels around the world, which makes me a rather spoilt guest, but also one with great comparison ability. In W Verbier, there is rather nothing to mention ad remember, not saying to come back. We tried three venues (W Kitchen, Living Room, Tapas Bar). Food and drinks in each is just average 4/5* hotels experience, nothing to remember really, including service quality. The breakfast buffet has a very poor selection of food, equal to rather ambitious 3* hotel. They do serve some extras, like “eggs benedict.” But these does not remind the real eggs benedict (there was some cooked yalk sauce on it, nothing tasting as sauce hollandaise). Spa area is OK, but water is too cold, no hot springs-like experience so typical for Swiss Alps, there are screaming kids running around everywhere, and the only place where you can relax (by the pool) has a noisy stream of water, so you better leave after 30 minutes disappointed. There is a full service for skiers, which basically means that each morning, a guy fetches all skis outside of ski room for all guests, does not matter if you are actually going to ski that day or not. What really made me angry one evening was that the guy left my (race!) skis and one other pair still outside of ski room by 7pm still, despite that there was a clearly visible W hotel sticker on them. I spotted it randomly myself when walking back from spa, and had to bring them in myself. The small advantage is that you can buy a skipass in the ski room, rather than in a stand 50m away. Funny thing is that there are boots driers only for guests in selected suites, regular rooms customers has no driers. This is rather an issue considering that most even 3* hotels have driers for all guests. The valet service (for 50 CHF a night) will unload your car and bring luggage to your room and park your car somewhere. We survived it only with a huge scratch on brand new case, fortunately no damage done to my BMW. Cleaning of room is OK, but just to get both bathrobes replaced, we always needed to chase the cleaning lady, even these small things do not get done automatically. During check-out, they don’t even ask the compulsory “how was your stay” question. All in all, we were quite happy to be heading back home on Sunday, finally!

It’s also fair to say that the hotel has absolute zero SPG recognition, just nothing, during check-in, in restaurants, in the room, check-out, in any interactions.

To summarize, the hotel is brutally overpriced, the quality of service and Verbier experience is only equal to 3 times less than what you are asked to pay, the remaining 66 % of price you pay is for Verbier & Swiss brand. The hotel and service quality is equal to more or less any other rather average 5* SPG hotel around the world. I guess a lot of guests just gets over-excited because they want to believe they are getting the most exclusive Swiss Alps service and experience for any price, but they are not, it’s just average. For this reason the hotel is just an amazing cash cow for the owners, and only gets mobilized if some VIP guests are coming. So if you want to have a sparkling feeling that you’re getting the best out there in Verbier, disregarding the reality and any reasonable value for money ratio, it’s the place to be. If you stand with your feet on the ground, and want to see at least some real value for money you’re spending, better look somewhere else. All W Verbier management claims about customer centricity and quality is just careful marketing and manipulation to get the cash cow running,...

Worst W hotel I have ever been to. To give you reference, I am a platinum SPG memeber and have stayed at; W Montreal, W Bangkok, W Barcelona, W Downtown NYC, W Atlanta Buckhead, W Atlanta Midtown, W Atlanta Downtown, W Guangzhou, W Hong Kong, W Istanbul, W New York, W Koh Samui, W London...

We spent 6 nights here for our honeymoon back in March and it is my biggest regret of my entire trip choosing this hotel in the Alps. W Verbier is supposed to be a retreat property and a five star hotel but they are very far from it. For anyone who expected this categorize 7 hotel to be absolutely amazing, everything you'd ever want in a hotel, I highly recommend you look elsewhere as this hotel falls short in every way.

The service sucks, breakfast was horrible, request never met.

Breakfast: We asked for a lattes every morning at breakfast and every single morning they brought us a different looking coffee drink. We’d keep sending them back and never had a good lattes while in Switzerland. Go figure. Its crazy chaotic, so badly designed. They could easily learn from there Asian hotels counter parts how to offer an amazing breakfast and an outstanding service. If this is what a retreat property is like, I don’t think I will ever look to stay at one again.

Example of a request, to have the dead bolt on the door repair so we could put it on when we were in the room, never fixed. I was on my honeymoon and every hotel I have ever stayed in has one in place ours was missing.

I ended up being very sick during our trip and had to spend the day sleeping in the room after being up with a 104 fever and pucking. We had a do not disturb on the door and what did they do… called the room while I tried to sleep. They called 4 times in a row till I answered and told me that the ‘do not disiturbe’ is on the door. ???? Really why are you calling our room??? I had to unplug the phone to have some peace and quiet.

We had dishes left in our room for 2 days before we finally had to put them outside.

We had to on numerous occasions call down to have towels brought up. They'd clean the room and only leave one large towel for one person, knowing there were two people staying in the room. And we were staying in a huge suite. Normal W hotels have 4 of everything in the bathroom for guest so there is no need to ask for another towel.

The one that upset me the most, is when I had my personal belonging organized in a corner with dirty laundry from Snowboarding week placed on the floor next to my open luggage (organized and to the side so they could clean) and the cleaning staff thought it would be perfectly fine to pick them up off the floor and put them inside my luggage with all my clean clothes and expensive dress for our dinner that evening. That's when I decided that this hotel had no idea how to cater to its customer spending $1,000 a night. I actually brought this issue to the hotel and there response only frustrated me more, such a lack of respect for customers.

I would NEVER recommend this W hotel to anyone. They need to improve a lot on basic etiquette. I am a Platinum Starwood member and stay at numerous properties all over the world, especially W hotels and this one shouldn’t be ranked as a top property next to their W Maldives. I regret ever staying at the hotel and wish I had stayed at the Park Hyatt Maldives who treats you like Kings and Queens and have you leaving wanting more. After this trip I am looking into switching to Park Hyatt’s as they treat you the way you should be treated on vacation.

After this trip my husband and I are re-looking our loyalty with Starwood. To spend that much money on your dream vacation and have such a bad experience sucks. We saved all year for this vacation and it wasn’t worth it. It’s a sore spot for me still, I had been looking forward to it for the year we spent planning it and then to have to deal with all this nonsense during our stay made it feel less like a vacation and more like a business trip.

Just some food for thought before you...

As a Marriott Ambassador member who had the opportunity to stay in many different properties around the world, I must say that the W Verbier does not deserve the be part of the W brand and most certainly not be part of Marriott. I have stayed in Marriott properties in 3rd world countries, where I had better experiences than this hotel. Being one of the most expensive hotels in Verbier, this is beyond acceptable. My wife and I have been at the W Verbier for a ski trip, and there have been so many things that went wrong due to poor leadership, starting at the top down to the individuals across the front desk, concierge, and several members of the management. I escalated multiple issues to my ambassador contact at Marriott, and even then, there was minimal improvement.

concierge desk is significantly understaffed, not trained, and rush everything and with that miss all the time to follow up and come through. Pre check in we discussed activities which we got assured can be all taken care of on arrival and barely any happened because they required advance bookings which the concierge team missed all. To top it one restaurant we been told is fully booked took my 2 minutes on the same day to just book. Marks the question if anyone actually tries to make reservations.

Check in was confirmed at 11 AM however room was ready at 4 PM. Late check out was requested and didn’t get confirmation. Even worst the “Director of Welcome” even though he read our message didn’t even bother responding.

following my escalation to the ambassador team we had a meeting with the director of welcome. Frankly not sure if he understood how serious all these issues were. He finished up that they will do an investigation and thanked for the feedback. I had to ask on my own what they intend to do for compensation. 0 sense of accountability.

the check in counter staff is simply not qualified. They been rushing check ins with 0 interaction with the customer. It felt like we were at a McDonals counter. Ironically at the end the person asked if we want a tour which we agreed but his way of a tour is standing up walking 2 meter to front and 2 meter back and saying that’s the hotel. We had to discover everything on our own. Plus he continuously left us alone at the counter while he for some reason started check ins for other customers.

callbacks are never happening. I lost count how many times we were promised callbacks which never happened. This again top down from management all the way to staff!

in emails the hotel staff responded always to half of the email. As simple put as that!

hygiene standards extremely low. We found hair in the room and for us unidentifiable objects in the bathroom!

we been told that the ski room is safe and we shouldn’t worry about our gear. Two days in a row our gear got lost and we had to get replacements.

for transportation we first been told we should take the train for the best scenery, later it was down played and strongly encouraged to book transportation to hotel, then we called again train was recommended. There is simply 0 consistency!

we been offered from more then 6 staff members to do dog sledging. Turns out this needs to be booked 1-2 months in advance. Which is why we had asked the concierge pre arrival to take care of it. Of course this didn’t happened. Still staff members asked if we didn’t want to book it. Nobody knows anything! The most frustrating part about this all is that we were kept given false hope even before we we arrived & during our entire stay that they would be able to book a slot.

we aren't alone who faced issues. Around us several other guests had been escalating similar issues.

Being one of the most expensive W properties the service level is 0, everything gets rushed, and ends in chaos. Nobody cares about the customer. I discourage anyone going to W Verbier and fortunately for my friends just changed their bookings! Not something we ever...