The Shay, a Destination by Hyatt Hotel — Hotel in Culver City

Today is the day after my wedding. We selected the Shay as our hotel for our wedding night and for our guests to stay the day before and after. Out of all the vendors we used for our rehearsal dinner, ceremony and reception, this is the one my wife and I regret using.

Summary: The rooms are in disrepair, patched together with faulty caulking and shoddy paint or ignored damage and the staff is haughty and unbothered. We will not be returning.

If you want the long form, strap in.

We set up our block with the Shay about 6 months ago. At the time, the sales rep was kind and flexible. After we signed, she became note difficult to get in touch with unless I emailed and called simultaneously. At the end she started to be more helpful and helped reopen room blocks, but I assume that's because we had more and more people wanted to book. However, when some of guests went to book, they noted that booking direct from the hotel's website and outside of the room block, was cheaper than our room block. When I first brought this up to the sales rep, she tried to tell me I was confused and didn't understand, until I shared pictures of the different rates. It was promptly fixed, but this felt underhanded.

After this was resolved, we started to discuss where to have an after party and despite some apprehension, we settled on their roof top restaurant that was open until 2am because it was convenient. We got pricing for their private space and it was more than we wanted to spend. So we asked if they could make us a reservation for 12 at 11:30. After making the reservation, they called us shortly after and told they would be changing their hours to close at midnight. This felt like a strong arm tactic to get us to rent the private space so we canceled the reservation but the private space could remain open.

We provided welcome bags to the front desk to hand to our guests so that they could get their transportation plans and other thank you favors. This is a service they charge for. None of them were passed out. When I asked the manager about this, she said it was our fault for being last minute and not having their room numbers listed on them. We were never given their room numbers and went back to the front desk and labeled each of the remaining bags.

When talking to the manager about this, it came up that there was a charge for $132 charge on our room for lunch at a restaurant. We did not dine at the restaurant. We talked to them about it they said they would investigate. I checked with them the next morning and they said they still needed to look into it. And they said that they still hadn't determined if it was us or not. I told them I would not be paying for it and that I needed to check out. They removed the charge after that.

Now to the rooms, my now father in laws room had a broken coffee maker, my friends room had a sink that the sink stopper would get stuck if used and the "premium" suite we booked was full of dents, scuffs, cracked drywall and water stains. Pictures are included. When I talked to the manager about these, she asked if we caused them.

When we were checking out, my sister had an earlier check out than we did so she asked if she could leave her bags at the front desk so she could have brunch with us and they told her she could leave them outside. So she brought them back up to our room. When we were ready to check out, we requested a bell boy so that we could check out and it took 30 minutes.

Last as I write this and am checking with my guests, they are letting me know that my aunt was charged for additional lunches. She is calling now to...

I’ve stayed at the Shay twice and the hotel is clean, beautiful, and staff is really kind. Our room gets cleaned daily and somehow they always know when to clean because I’ve never run into housekeeping.

But the nightmare begins on my second evening here. My husband, son, and I fall asleep around 10p and the fire alarm goes off at 11p. Waking up very confused, the deafening alarm and speaker said evacuate the building immediately. We take the stairwell, carrying our 2 year old, outside to the front of the lobby. We’re all in our pjs out in the front of the hotel. No employees were there to tell us what’s happening, no apologies. NOTHING. We hear from the other guests (about 75 of them) that it was a false alarm and that we can go upstairs. The guests were kind enough to let us go upstairs first since we had our son. We go back to the room, try to relax and calm down. I put my son back down and within 2 mins the alarm is blaring again. Off and on 4 times for the next 30 mins!! My husband goes downstairs to ask what’s going on and the front desk said that the engineers don’t know how to turn it off but they are calling the fire marshal to help. It’s now 11:45p.

The next morning I went to front desk to ask what happened and how can they compensate or rectify our night since it traumatized my son and I. Front desk said they need to speak to the director. She comes out and says “yes we know it went off, at least it went off and we’re safe” I explain my disappointment with their lack of empathy since we had our 2 year old. We have a 2 year old and the fire alarm was blaring for 45 mins!! She offered to comp our destination fee (which by the way is a forced resort fee and we didn’t even use any of the “extras” it offered), $100 for the 3 nights we are staying here. Btw, the room is $400/night.

I am just beyond disappointed by the lack of empathy the front desk had and even excused it by saying “at least it went off and we’re safe”. To the managers of this hotel, please train your employees better, empathize with the fact we have a young child who is traumatized by this event.

I can’t see myself staying here again based on their response.

Edit to add: They just emailed me to provide a $100 credit on our room (btw I pushed for this at the front desk in the morning and they said there was nothing...

We stayed here on a vacation booked through Costco Travel. This was a 2 night stay that was paid in full through Costco. Check-in went smooth, and a $200 hold was placed on my card for incidentals. The hotel even placed a bottle of wine in our room with an anniversary card with it.

This is a beautiful property. The valet staff handle the job efficiently and professionally. They instructed me to call as I was leaving my room, and they would have the car ready. They had it ready every time, no waiting.

At 3:30 in the morning, I was notified of a charge from the hotel for $86.82. I called the front desk in the morning and was told this was a system glitch as everything was already paid in full. I was assured this wouldn't happen again.

Around 3:30 the next morning, I received an alert for a charge on my card from the hotel for $286.82 after being told this was a system glitch and not to worry that wouldn'thappen again.

I spoke with a manager on duty, and she was very pleasant. She apologized and couldn't understand why this was happening. She said that she went in on her side and did a manual release of the funds. However, several days later, the funds still haven't been released.

It was truly disappointing that I had to deal with this while on an anniversary vacation. I'm not sure if it was human error or their system that caused the problem. The first night I can understand it should have been fixed and the bottom line it wasn't it happened again and for more money which is the part that's troubling.

For the most part, service was top-notch. The first day that the room was cleaned part of the fees that are charged are to put bottled waters in your room. Those weren't replaced when we came back that night. I had to call the front desk, and they said they would send some right up. Thirty minutes later, I still didn't have anything and went down there to get them. The clerk was very apologetic and professional and said I thought we sent those up. I explained to him that no one had been up there. I went back to the room, and a good 20 minutes later, somebody showed up with bottled waters. I explained to him I had already gone down to the desk...