Sheraton Anchorage Hotel — Hotel in Anchorage

I chose to contact the hotel directly before I posted a review. Here is my correspondence with them:

Good Morning!

I was reading some of the reviews on your website and thought I would email you directly rather than posting a negative review and having you reply to it on the site.

So here is my story: I made a reservation on March 13th for the "prom" night on April 12th. The block of rooms was not set up yet even though they had advertised it as such on the website, so I went ahead and reserved a standard room and she said that I could call and change it to the block room rate if one became available. They did finally get a block rate instead of full price and I called on March 17th and changed it which was the first day that this was available according to the website. So I received TWO email confirmations for a king size bed room. . Flash forward to April 12th, the night of the "prom". Because I had reserved a room, I was in no rush to get there and deal with all of the crowds. We arrived at 7 PM to check in. Cody helped us at the front desk and it took him a VERY long time to get us a room, all the while looking at the computer with a very confused look on his face. He never mentioned ANYTHING about there being a room change. When we got to the room, #502, there were two small beds instead of a king size bed. I called down to the front desk, spoke with a girl and explained the problem to her and she put me on hold for a VERY long time and then Cody picked up the phone and I had to explain everything all over again. He explained to me that they had overbooked their king size rooms by 10 and that there were no more available, that they were given away first come first serve that morning. Which I find VERY hard to believe because check in isn’t until 3 according to the reservations. Not only that, he was just sorry that there was nothing he could do. He stated that when there is a group rate, there is no guarantee of which room type you will receive. I have searched ALL over my confirmation that I received and I have found no such information. I asked him if I was just out of luck and he said, sorry yes. My back still hurts from sleeping in the small bed – my fiancé is 6’2” and we sleep on a king size bed ALL the time, so for us to be in a full size bed (it may have been a queen) was extremely uncomfortable. His back also hurt from sleeping in the bed also. I am completely disappointed in the Sheraton – being from Anchorage, I have always believed the Sheraton to be one of the premier places in town and I was excited to stay there, I guess I just expected more. I appreciate your time and wish that my experience with your hotel had been one that I could rave about rather than being disappointed. Thank you.

Ms. *,

Thank you for taking your time to provide your valuable feedback. Your comments are appreciated. I am so sorry we did not have a room with a king sized bed available, but I certainly hope you were able to get adequate rest in the room with two beds.

When rooms are made under a group block or booked through a third party, unfortunately the room type is not guaranteed. We gave away our rooms on a first come, first serve basis on the night of the 12th.

I would be happy to offer you a complimentary room upgrade and breakfast for two on your next visit. Again I am very sorry for the inconvenience.

All my best,

Cody * | Assistant Front Office Manager Sheraton Anchorage Hotel & Spa

Good Morning.

I appreciate your reply and I really feel like I need to clarify a couple of things.

First, I did not get adequate rest in the room we were given, as I pointed out in my original email to you. Also, I would hope that “adequate” is not a standard that the Sheraton strives for. I feel that I should point out that neither my fiancé nor myself are drinkers and we live in Anchorage, and we absolutely did not NEED a room at your facility. Rather, we got the room in the hopes to enhance our overall “Prom” experience.

Secondly, I did not make my reservation with a third party. I made them directly with the Sheraton before the group promotion had even begun, which I also mentioned in my email. I understand what you are saying and I also believe that if this is one of your policies, perhaps at some point, whether it be the person I was talking to on the phone, or in either of the TWO confirmation emails that I received, if someone had let me know in advance that the king size bed was not guaranteed, I would have been there that morning to check in, or would have checked in as soon as it was available, which according to my email confirmation, was 3 PM. The ONLY reason I didn’t check in early is because it was not conveyed to me at ANY time that the king size room was not guaranteed.

And lastly, if you were going to offer me an upgrade, or a free breakfast, why didn’t you do so on the night that I was there when that would have been the MOST appreciated? That would have made all the difference between a positive and a negative review. I have worked in customer service most of my adult life and understand that even if something is out of your control, there are usually things that ARE within your control that can turn their experience around and...

Pluses: Location, gorgeous mountain views, the restaurant’s onion dip, and the fact that they had two live reindeer in the lobby 2 nights this week for the Christmas season.

Unfortunately, the giddiness I felt both nights with the reindeer has been far overshadowed by the actual service at the hotel.

We arrived in the afternoon. Having come from the east coast, we’d had a very long journey and were tired.

A piercing buzz was coming from the fridge. I have a migraine disorder, which I reported and asked them to please switch it out. They said to call the next day, when engineering was in. We unplugged the fridge.

We were in bed by 6:30pm. At 8:30pm, all of a sudden our door opened—fortunately into the bar lock I’d set—and the woman (housekeeping) said “sorry” and shut the door. That left me awake for a while. I didn’t report it bc I figured, No harm, no foul. (The cleaning woman, whom I’ve encountered a few times, is nice.)

We called again a day later about the fridge. They never switched it out. I stopped asking.

One morning at about 0800, housekeeping knocked. We weren’t ready for service. When we left the room at 1100, I used the app to request service, incl additional towels. When we returned at 4pm, we hadn’t gotten service. I went to the front desk and they said it’d be around 5pm when the shift changed and I said fine.

We went out. When we returned, it was 7pm and we’d still had no service. I returned to the front desk. At that point it was too late because we wanted to go to bed. They credited me points and apologized.

In the morning, my husband was chagrined to find that we hadn’t thought to ask them to at least refresh the coffee. We got service that day but 1) still no extra towels (which is in my Marriott profile) and 2) I found a damp rag on my nightstand. Just…ew. Another day, they left a roll of trash bags on a dresser.

A couple days ago, we left late morning and returned at 4pm. No service. I called down to the front desk and asked how frequently they service rooms. She said daily. She said she’d let the manager know we were having issues.

This morning, at 0755, we could hear housekeeping knocking on a nearby door. She then opened the door, said “Sorry!” and closed it. I guess walking in on people is a regular occurrence here. Set your lock!

At noon, we left the room. Given our experience, my husband stopped at the front desk and asked for the room to be cleaned. The guy made a phonecall. We returned around 3:45 to find it hadn’t been.

We both went down to the front desk. This manager explained that if you have the do not disturb on in the morning, you’ll be skipped until after afternoon checkin time. Okay, but the other night at 7 it still wasn’t cleaned. How do we know it will be tonight before bed?

The guest services manager was clearly cranky that I was cranky—but this was her first time seeing us, whereas it was our hundredth time dealing with them, so we had every right to be cranky. She mentioned this us the first time hearing of our issues. When people said “We’ll let the manager know,” whom were they telling?

The manager comped us some appetizers to eat while they cleaned the room and credited points to my account.

I cannot stress how much I prefer good service to points credits. The business model shouldn’t be “we’ll make it up to you” - it should be “we’ll do it right the first time.”

Misc:

Parking: Adequate, both covered and uncovered, easy access TV: reception poor. No streaming capabilities, not many channels. Internet: spotty at best, I use cellular. Lobby: there should be seating within line of sight of the front door. Coffee: many hotels offer free coffee in the lobby. This one does not. Breakfast: expensive but decent . My fruit was fresh and the bacon was nice and crisp. Bathtub: slow drain Safety: I felt safe Restaurant: Okay. The waitresses were nice. With the steak, which came with Cajun fries, I was disappointed not to be able to substitute mashed potatoes, but I ordered them on the side. The chips and french onion dip were AMAZING.

Overall:...

Where do I start? I reserved a handicapped wheel chair room with 2 beds, and I specifically asked the desk clerk if it had two beds since this has happened before that I was given a room with only one bed and she said yes it was, went up to my room carrying an arm load of bags with my wheel chair daughter in tow only to open the door and find one bed, now back down stairs I go, given yet another room after explaining what I needed and guess what, yes it has two beds but is not a wheel chair accessible room, my daughters chair can’t even get in the rest room, so this time I call and the phone explain things, she says she will have to call someone and will get back to me. My daughter and I had appointments at the Ice Spa and had planned a relaxing day out but it is not starting that way, she finally calls back and says the room is not ready, we can leave our stuff in this room go to our appointment and come back for our room after. So we go to the appointment, things go okay there, there is dirty dishes in the waiting area and in the women’s lounge and no one had empty where you put your used robes and slippers so they were over flowing all over counter (not pretty) and the bathroom trash was full. We get our services which I must say were wonderful!! We loved the people performing our services and the original young man who was at the front spa desk, oh yes and there were little children running down the hall being chased by the front desk man. Now we are done with our service, the gentleman is gone at the spa desk and a nice young ladies is helping us but she gets our bill all wrong, so while she if trying to fix that I go down (yes in my robe)how embarrassing to get the new room key, guess what the front desk person has changed and knows nothing about it so she has to call someone, the previous clerk should have finished the job or at least filled her in on our situation that would have been the proper way to insure good customer service, but alas back upstairs I go, not waiting around in my bathrobe. Now back to the spa we were offered gift grab bags worth $100.00 for $20.00 so we take two, one products one cloths marked with an L for size large, we go back to room number two to await them getting us a proper room, open our packages, which by the way were $25 not $20 as stated when we were offered them and find that the cloths were not size large and based on the price tags still attached were worth only $49.50, now I understand you take your chances with a grab bag and the products in the first one were GREAT but if you promise the package is worth a certain amount it needs to be! So back up we go, yes it was fixed but what a hassle. Now we finally get the call to move to our new room, up we go, so what do they offer for my trouble? Free breakfast, guess what that came with the hotel package I already paid for, so they give me club room, two poor appetizers and yes free coffee juice and soda if I want to go up two floors, my idea of a relaxing day is to go to my room, go to a nice clean quite spa, enjoy my services, go back to my room and relax not running around the hotel to fix problems. Last but not least we got a room with a non-working TV, after calling for assistance he said our TV was new and not programmed yet and there was nothing he could do. I had went to your hotel to not only enjoy a nice relaxing time off but also I needed another stay to renew my Gold status with Starwood, I need one more but am not sure it will be worth it for the amount I paid for this unpleasant experience. When I checked out and tried to go over the bill with the front desk since the spa still didn’t make it right, she said she couldn’t help me and there was no manager on duty to help someone would call me later, why aren’t employees trained to help the customer and barring that if you don’t trust them with billing you should always have someone available who can, no one wants to leave wondering if they are ever going to get there bill fixed. Well I have heard nothing from...