The Westin Las Vegas Hotel & Spa — Hotel in Paradise

I'm very disappointed in the recent stay. One of our biggest issues was that our rooms were not serviced the first day. When we arrived, the bathrooms were noticeably not clean. One room had exactly one face towel. Neither room was supplied enough towels or robes. I had to call guest services numerous times. As it was told to me, guests must request daily cleaning room service in order to have the rooms serviced. So, I did make the request to have services daily. Never were our rooms cleaned each day without going through the process of making the request again.This involved calling guest services or asking at the front desk daily after discovering the rooms were not cleaned again. This lack of service hampered and diminished our comfort and stay for the entirety of the time. Each day, when we returned, we expected to be able to shower, relax, and possibly go out again for dinner, which was hindered by not having the rooms serviced. The dust and dirty rooms. The top of showers were filthy. The mirrors were barely cleaned. The bathroom faucets never showed that they were clean. Tops of TV's dirty. Behind credenza's dirty and filled with old tooth brushes snd other things guest who stayed who knows how long ago. One of our bathrooms actually had/has blood splatter across the wall. Rusty nails jammed in the bottom of the shower floor to keep the drainage going. And I can not forget about the very large and too big double lams on the tiny night stand, leaving no room for anything. The beds have outlets on the side of them, but very few of them work. During the stay, I can not say that all the staff was friendly. The majority was, but there were a couple-few who did not need the standard of service. Once, when reporting one of the elevators was inoperable to an Asian lady at the front desk, I was snapped at by her. Another was a lady cleaning one of the rooms after 7pm. When we asked her in the hallway if she had also serviced our room, she seemed irritated. We asked because she was servicing the room after the other room. Another instance was when one of us tried to use the dessert coupon at the restaurant and was blocked from even entering for no apparent reason. The time was around 5 pm so the restaurant was open. As a matter of fact, there were at least 3 couples inside sitting down and eating. We were told we could order and sit elsewhere. The young Asian girl at one point was very aggressive and agumentive with us. When she finally decided to correct her mistake, she returned the dessert by tossing it on the table in the lobby lounge area where we had been regulated and sauntered away without a word. No apology or contrition for her behavior. Last evening there we'd planned to go out for dinner. Rooms were not cleaned. One of the managers did agree to buying our dinner the last evening there so we ended up not going out, had to wait till after 8pm for our rooms to finally be cleans and decided to have a movie night in one of the rooms. At this time on front staff came up to our rooms, heard our complaints and dissatisfaction, and told us that she had the ability/authority to comp TWO of the nights for BOTH rooms. Took notes of the issues and said it would be reported up the chain of hotel management. Soon after, we were told that there was only going to be 1 night per room compt. An agent staff memeber of the hotel gave us 2 nights per room, and an Asain female manager took it away with zero explanation even though I told them repeated what had already been promised. Basically, she never addressed it and ignored my request to know why. The dinner for room service was ordered and appeared on the bill when it was not supposed to. Anyway, my last item that bothered me was when our room service was delivered, it came in to go boxes. Not on plates. The juices from the foods prepared was all mixed in, and that is not how I like eating my food. The invoice for this stay was a hot mess. They should have voided the entire 2 transacrions for both rooms, then made the appropriate corrections, then...

My wife and I were getting ready in our room to go to lunch. My wife showers and straightens her hair. We both put on perfume & cologne. Then we head down to the lobby to wait for our Lyft to arrive. We get in the Lyft and about 5 minutes down the road, I get an alert from the Westin that a smoking event has been detected. So we were not even in the room when we received the alert.

I countered that there must be some mistake because we never smoke or vape. I immediately offered that they can check the room if they like. I suggested that it could potentially be from hair products, the heat and wet hair from the straightener, or cologne/perfume. They were adamant that this is not possible and that odorless vapes have some unique residue that are somehow different than cologne or perfume residue and therefore they have to deep clean the room. They also refused to go into the room to check for themselves.

When I arrived back at the property, I spoke with a manager who told me that their sensors are “100% accurate” and have never failed a single test ever. When I pressed her to provide evidence to this fact, she claimed it was confidential and she was unable to share. When I explained that we were not in the room, she said she would check with security but she never provided the result of that investigation. When asked if a technician could come out to make sure the sensor is working properly, she told me that was impossible and that some print out on a report told her that the sensor quality check was a “Pass” and that means it’s fine. She said she would follow up with the manufacturer of the device, but she never provided the result of that investigation either.

It is clear to me that the Westin either has faulty equipment that the staff trust blindly, or they are attempting to defraud us of $500. I don’t even have any evidence that they deep cleaned the room. They could have just pocketed that $500. They didn’t even come into the room to do a standard daily cleaning during our stay.

After extensive research, I have found countless instances where false positives occur. Discussions on platforms like Reddit and in travel blogs indicate that guests have been charged hefty smoking fees, sometimes up to $500, after hotels claimed their REST sensors (the sensor manufacturer for the Westin) detected smoking, even when the guests insisted they had not smoked or vaped. In these discussions, the consensus among many users is that these specialized sensors can be overly sensitive and potentially triggered by a variety of non-smoking aerosols and vapors.

A particularly detailed account can be found in a Reddit discussion regarding the Westin Las Vegas in particular. A user who was part of a large corporate room block reported that multiple non-smoking members of their party were hit with $400 smoking fees. In the same discussion, another user shared a crucial piece of information about their own experience fighting a similar charge at the same hotel:

"The front desk person literally said other things can trigger it ‘hair dryers, aerosols/perfume sprays, humidity from the shower' so they are straight up scamming people and making it so hard to get reversed on purpose."

This direct claim from a guest recounting a conversation with a hotel employee suggests that the issue of false positives from these common activities is known at this specific Westin location.

Even as an elite member of Marriott Bonvoy I was not treated well during my time at this location. I will never be coming back and I highly recommend everyone else...

I had last stayed at this hotel prior to the lobby renovations and getting rid of the casino and adding Jake & Eli was a good choice in my mind. The lobby has a much cleaner feel and it looks like they were able to add more conference rooms.

Unfortunately, with the renovations, the hotel cut the free full buffet breakfast for Platinum members and knocked it down to a limited continental breakfast (just pastries, coffee, fruit & yogurt). You can pay a $10/pp upgrade fee to get the full buffet breakfast. One of two reasons I stayed at the Westin over using the block of rooms my company had down the strip, was because my wife was with me and I thought she would be getting the full breakfast (the second was to get points). We considered moving after the first day, but decided to stay and avoid the hassle of moving hotels.

Staff was extremely friendly and I thought they did a great job throughout my stay. Little things like greeting people in the hallways and holding the front door open go a long way. They also seemed to be genuinely happy.

Rates: There seems to be little value in the $29 resort fee, which is typical in Vegas, I knew about the fee upfront and still decided to stay, but I did not get any value from it, so make sure to include it when you are comparing rates. As a platinum guest and AmEx card holder, you always get free wifi, which is really the only amenity I used.

Rooms: I love the beds and pillows, like at any Westin; however, you hear your neighbors and people in the hallway as walls are paper thin - I think they should try to add foam insulation between walls to help reduce the noise. The overall size of the rooms compared to several hotels on the strip is also disappointing. The hotel should likely replace some of the doors in the bathroom as ours had some rot at the bottom, likely from the bath/shower steam over the years. Room cleanliness is good and there are lots of power/usb outlets throughout the rooms. The view of the strip is also nice as it overlooks the high roller.

Keys: PLEASE UPGRADE TO RFID KEYS/BLUETOOTH LOCKS, so hopefully we can use our phone to get into the room. The first keys we were given at check didn't work on the elevator, so I stood in line at check in for another 15 minutes to get new ones made. The elevator also takes forever to process multiple room keys if there are several people on the elevator. We also had an issue getting into our room around 3pm on the day of checkout - while the key worked in the elevator, it didn't work on our room, so I had to go back down to the lobby to refresh the keys. The hotel was aware of the 4pm late checkout as well since it was on the reservation.

Overall, while the hotel mostly met my expectations, I think improvements to the room with noise, keys and doors are needed to keep up with the competition. Within the SPG family, I will likely try the Four Points down the street next time because there is no resort fee ($29), and my corporate rate is less ($30) and includes breakfast ($20) - making it a better value...