Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills — Hotel in Beverly Hills

I’ll start with a little background for context. We were traveling as a middle-class family of four and showed up in shorts and T-shirts. I’ve done a decent amount of traveling and probably our best hotel experiences until now have been at the handful of Conrads we’ve stayed at over the years. We have Diamond status through the Amex credit card and stayed at the WABH using a free night certificate. ||My wife, teenage children, and I agree that this was our best hotel experience ever, hands down, full stop. ||If you’re interested in the details of the rooms, amenities, and location, please read any of the other reviews that go into detail on these. In a three words, this hotel is immaculate, opulent, and modern. On those measures alone, it exceeded all of our high expectations. ||I want to focus on the staff and if you want to skip the rest, I’ll spoil this lengthy review now: they are Next Level. ||As a five star hotel in BH, what I expected and hoped for was cool professionalism. What I got was genuine warmth and hospitality - like the kind of hospitality you get from people who genuinely want to make you happy and love their job. In my experience, you encounter this some times from individual staff at hotels at any level - they are special people who can really make your stay. At the WABH, EVERY staff member we encountered was like this. ||Slight detour: imagine what it must be like to work at a five star hotel. You must have to deal with very entitled people every day, from the wealthy people who expect perfection for their $1000+ per night to perhaps a middle-class “Karen” who gets her status and free night from a single credit card. It must be nearly impossible to have a day where you’re not dealing with someone who’s being at least a little unreasonable. I consider myself a courteous and patient person and this type off environment would make me jaded in months. Thus, my expectation of “cool professionalism” - that’s probably the best I could muster if I worked at a hotel like this. That’s why I found the genuine warmth so remarkable. I truly believe they all love their jobs. ||We arrived in an Uber several hours before checkin time, feeling a bit underdressed compared to other arriving guests. The huge team of valets set the tone immediately, opening doors and greeting with smiles. ||At the front desk, Alaink welcomed us and I immediately started to feel that special hospitality as he took his time to give us extensive recommendations in the area how we might spend our time waiting for the room to be ready. ||When we returned to the hotel, the concierge Stephanie welcomed us back and arranged for the house car to drive us to dinner. We went to our room and ended up spending our afternoon at the rooftop pool. It was luxurious, relaxing, and beautiful. My apologies to the wonderful pool attendant for me not getting her name, but she continued the excellent tone of the rest of the staff. ||Later, we had to reach out to the concierge to make a last minute adjustment to our dinner and car service plans. Hyland, the concierge, was extraordinary, coordinating everything with the complimentary car service and not showing the least bit of judgement when I asked for recommendations for the casual fare that my teen kids prefer. (He ended up steering towards the Century City mall, which was perfect). He later assisted me with ideas for a short excursion the following morning. Again, warm hospitality and excellence without a whiff of judgment. ||The last person I want to call out is Nick, the driver of the car service. He drove us each way to dinner in the Rolls Royce Phantom and on our return trip, offered to take us for a brief tour of his favorite Beverly Hills neighborhoods, sharing personal anecdotes and histories. It was amazing and a special treat that was both unexpected and extraordinarily thoughtful. He even treated us to a staged “chauffeur opening the door as we exit the car video” for us. (Cheesy request of mine, I know! But he was such a great sport)||I’ll wrap it up here and say that we left our brief stay with so many great memories due to the excellent staff and management. This hotel will be our first choice the next time we have an...

STOLEN SHOES AND DISGUSTING STAINS!

THE WORST HOTEL EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE!

Overview: • Stolen $2,500 shoes which have not been reimbursed by the hotel. • Disgusting stains on the pillows from previous guests, presumably not cleaned by the hotel. • Shower heads filled with rusty screws to artificially lower water pressure. • Broken curtains the whole stay. • Housekeeping throwing clothes in the bathtub and placing them in garbage bags. • Unprofessional and lazy staff.

We have stayed at the Waldorf Astoria for many years now, spending close to $500,000.

Over the years, the Waldorf has dropped in quality continuously. However, this year has marked a new low, and I urge everyone to never stay here.

On our first night after a tiring flight, we removed one of the pillowcases and then we saw it.

THE PILLOWS HAD BIOLOGICAL STAINS! (Photo below)

The person I was with was physically distraught and traumatized by the experience.

The hotel was unapologetic and barely rectified the issue. I have never experienced something so disgusting at a five-star hotel or any hotel for that matter.

Throughout the stay, we have dealt with housekeeping tossing clothes into the bathtub instead of folding them or placing them elsewhere.

Housekeeping gathering clothes and placing them in trash bags!

Putting rusty screws inside the shower head to artificially lower water pressure to save money on water!

And the curtains broken and unable to open and close the whole stay.

Now the pinnacle of the trip!

I had $2,500 Loro Piana shoes STOLEN! And the hotel will not do anything!

Upon my last day at the hotel when packing, I realized I was missing a shoe. One of my two shoes was gone!

It did not make sense since I had not worn them once the whole trip!

The head of housekeeping was also frantically searching for the shoes and trying to find them.

After checking out of the hotel, for MONTHS I was trying to reach her. Chastity is the worst, most unprofessional and lazy housekeeping manager I have dealt with in my life.

Three times per week from August to October, I have been trying to get in contact with her. But she was always “busy” or “not there”.

I was told multiple times a claim had been “filed”. However, each time I called the hotel and security, they spoke to me like it was the first time hearing of such things.

Eventually, I encountered one competent employee, Michael, who kept following up for me with the lazy Chastity, and I was contacted by an individual who was “looking into the claim”.

He said he didn’t have any details and made me repeat everything all over again, and then told me IF the claim gets approved, it’s only up to $1,000 since that is all they are legally obligated to do.

This isn’t about obligation; it’s about customer relations and hospitality—things you would expect at a five-star hotel which costs a minimum of $1,000 per night.

Understandably, I was upset and told the person a $1,000 claim doesn’t even cover half the cost of the shoes.

He didn’t seem to care, giving me rehearsed PR responses.

The next call I got a couple of days later, he informed me there was “no evidence the shoes were taken by housekeeping”.

The head of housekeeping saw and took a picture of the missing shoe!

I had paper grocery bags in my room missing that had items in them!

Housekeeping took the items out and removed the bags—they could have put my shoe in them!

Why would I pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to waste three months of my time calling this terrible hotel to reimburse me for my shoe if it was not taken?

It is clear this hotel has turned into a profit-driven business. Practices like these will lose them clients, and over time, no one will stay with them.

I would never stay here again. There are many better alternatives around the area with staff that actually care about you.

I will be taking action...

I booked the Waldorf to experience a 5 star hotel for my birthday. It turned out to be the most stressful and negative hotel experience I've ever had. ||I checked in on my Hilton Honors app the day ahead for a 3:00pm arrival. I got there around 3:30 and was told my room wasn't ready yet as the previous people who stayed there checked out late. It would be ready in around 30 minutes. I was fine with a short wait and they suggested I check out the pool and rooftop restaurant so that was what I did. Needed a key to go up there so waited for someone to come out for a few minutes to give me access. Unfortunately according to one the guest services people, the pool was closing at 4:00pm for a sellout event so I literally sat down for a minute and was told they were closing in 5 minutes. Rooftop had a nice view and I made a dinner reservation for 6:45pm so I can watch the sunset while dining, figuring that would give me plenty of time to freshen up, rest and change before dinner. I was so wrong. ||Checked with them a little after 4:00, another person tells me they need 35 more minutes to work on the room. I checked again at 5:00, and was told another 15 minutes. Took until 6:30 before I was able to get into my room. A whole 3 hours so I had no time for a shower or even much of unpacking my small bag. They did give me dining credits that the woman who gave me the keys confirmed was $300 along with another $50 HH credit but upon checkout, it was only $250 credit from the hotel. Fine, but seems like all their front desk people lie through their teeth.||Room was spacious and had dimmer and bright lighting which was nice. View was street side facing the Starbucks across the street. They gave me a mobility access room which meant it had a walk in shower that's level with the toilet. Since the tub had a extension shower head with very weak water pressure, I wanted to take a shower with a regular shower head. Impossible since the mobility access shower had a hole in the hose so when I turned it on, it just sprayed water everywhere but no water would come out of the shower head. So had to shower in the deep narrow tub that was very hard to turn around. I did report this to the front desk the next morning and the person assured me they would fix the shower since if a guest who's mobility challenged needs to use that shower, it needs to be working. Well, when I checked out 2 hours later and mentioned it to another person who was checking me out, he said there was no note on that room. I swear those front desk people just smiles to your face and lies all day.||As I mentioned, I wanted to stay at this hotel for my birthday to relax and be stress-free. The experience with the check-in was so stressful because I really wanted to be able freshen up and get some rest in my room before dinner, I almost felt like crying from frustration. Also, I was told by the HH booking agent that the hotel will have a little welcome package for my birthday and I got nothing. Even the lady doing the turndown service was surprised when I told her I was celebrating my birthday and she saw that I didn't receive anything. And yes, I told the PersonalConcierge who emailed me the day before I was there was my birthday so they knew. ||To say that my experience at the Waldorf Astoria was a major disappointment is an understatement. Although my stay was a reward night, I still had to spend $thousands to earn that so I feel this wasn't worth the frustration and poor service. I haven't written a review in a long time but this experience deserves to be shared so people who value service can find a better hotel that actually lives up to the 5...