The Joule — Hotel in Dallas

Positives first. Most of the staff was wonderful and extremely friendly. The bathroom in my suite was amazing. I loved the tub size, the separate water closet, and the vanity lighting. I was able to take some wonderful photos of myself for my websites. The style of the hotel is marvelous. I am an art lover and it felt nice every single time walking into the hotel and being surrounded by art. The spa offers some really great products to buy if you forgot something. I will now exclusively be using that hairspray. Oh and the staff was seen, but not heard past a greeting unless you approached them. They were available, but not in your face. I’m used to that and I like it that way.||Negatives| - The food is all extremely muted and their wine selections are meh. It had that same flavor quality of midwestern food. Where’s the seasoning? When I asked for salt, they brought me a grinder and threw in on the table, getting salt everywhere. Her name started with an A, but I don’t remember it. She was nice, just a terrible server. ||-My boyfriend sent me on an extended weekend get away as a gift. He called and prepaid the room. We called a couple days before to make sure everything was on the up and up and were told we can’t prepay unless it’s three days out. We were like, “we did, we made these reservations and asked to prepay weeks ago”. They made a comment about it how it would have come out of his account. This was not a huge charge, I was only there a few nights, he wouldn’t notice a small amount like that. They were unwilling to work with him. It’s fine, I just paid for it, but it really upset him that they stole his blessing. I even called myself because this is not the first time a vacation has been gifted to me and it all seemed weird. Like they thought they were the Ritz or a nicer Omni or something, but those hotels have never given me any issues in this sort of situation. It felt sort of surreal. Like we were being accused of being scammers or something. It was extremely off-putting. Like, what? You need to see our bank accounts or something? It was extremely “Walmart-ish”. And it’s not even that expensive, so I don’t know what they were trying to do there. ||- The air conditioning cuts off at night. That’s ghetto. Some of us are young, healthy, muscular individuals that create a lot of heat and cannot sleep in a 75 degree room. ||- The comforter had stains all over it. I couldn’t use it anyway, because it was so hot at night. I had decided to just be positive after they stole his blessing, but then I walked in the room and saw that and my stomach dropped. Like, “oh, that WAS an indicator” ||- There is no doorman late at night. If there was, they weren’t anywhere to be found and there were crackheads everywhere outside. They can’t do anything about Dallas being trashy in general, but they can have doormen there to make sure we feel safe getting in and out of the hotel. ||- While the staff is friendly, they move slowly and are forgetful. I’m not really used to that, maybe it’s just a Dallas thing. I dined in three times and I kept having to remind the server and bartender of things I’d requested. It took 12 minutes (I got a phone call and he asked if I had gotten my drink yet because I told him I had a headache and we realized it had been twelve minutes, I don’t time people) for me to get a bottled water and I was the only person in the restaurant that morning. ||- I was asked to get up and move one evening so a couple could sit down. I was then sat with a plant literally in my face on the bar. I agreed because my experience there was a bust, but I didn’t want every one else’s to be as well. I’m younger than most of the guests there, and I’m extremely polite, but that was pretty crazy to me. I agree to do something polite and you stick me with a fake plant in my face? While I’m trying to enjoy my meal? Ghetto. ||I have left negative reviews of only 4 establishments, ever. I am a wildly positive person. I was planning on creating some content for my websites and I anticipated I would want to share how great it was. I was completely let down. It was all sort of meh. Just felt like a Hilton with some art. I got better service at the plain old Double Tree bar over by the hanger I flew out of. ||I could have looked past one or two things, but it seemed like my entire trip was fantastic aside from The Joule being a huge let down. The stains on the comforter were really gross, it honestly looked like excrement. ||What’s that the kids say? 6, 7? Well, they’d say 2, 3 if they had the experience I had. ||Yeah, but the MOD styling in my suite was pretty dope and the view of the Eye from my...

It has taken me almost 2 months to work myself up to writing this review, because I didn't want to remember the pain and disappointment of this day.

I booked a room at the Joule for our first wedding anniversary. We were so excited!!! We had never had the opportunity to get away together, so I was pulling out all the stops. This was also the first night away from our newborn, and I was so excited to plan a luxury staycation for us. Also I think it's important to note that we are not usually the people to spend a ton of money on one night, but I wanted it to be special.

Upon arriving to the hotel, Helvius could not find our reservation. He spent almost 10 minutes looking for it, and finally found it booked on the wrong day. Totally could've been a mistake on my end, I accepted that fact.. but when he asked to see the confirmation email that was supposedly sent to me, there was none. I looked in my junk mail too, and I had never recieved one.. BUT the money had been charged and taken from our account. This was my first clue that there was an error on their end. Really this was no big deal to me, and I asked that he would change the reservation to today instead of wasting time on it. He told me there was going to be a no show fee which was around $150 if I remember correctly.. But since I "didn't mean to book on the wrong day" (that's him saying it was my fault) he would waive the fee and switch us to today. After that, he let me know that there would be an upcharge, (a very large one) for me to have the delux room with the king size bed like I had originally planned. We were already paying a lot of money.... $260 for one night at a hotel is not cheap. I told him that we were not wanting to pay more than that, and he said it was fine and handed me the keys. We go upstairs to find a room THE SIZE OF OUR CLOSET, with a FULL size bed. I mean, this room is a shoebox. WE DID NOT PAY ALL THIS MONEY TO DOWNGRADE FROM OUR OWN APARTMENT. My husband has serious back problems as well, and in a full size bed.. this would not have been a relaxing stay for us. At this point I was feeling really anxious and wanting to cry. I let Helvia know that the room wasn't going to work for us, and filled him in on the situation. I really just wanted the room we had booked originally. He told me he had already done all that he could, but he would comp us. So I agreed.. Thinking he was moving us to the king without the charge. My husband asked for clarification, so Helvia then proceeded to go back on what he had said, and told us he'd done everything within his power as he had waived our no show fee, and he would not be able to accommodate us without us paying for an upgrade. At this point we decided to leave, and we were told that we would not be receiving a refund. (Also should mention that I tried to ask for a higher manager, and he said he was the highest one besides general, and couldn't help us).

I was absolutely HEARTBROKEN from this experience. We had contemplated going to the Gaylord after this, but decided against it since we were told we would not be getting our money back from the Joule. I cried all the way home..

I posted about this experience on my instagram page, and I was surprised at the response I got from others saying they had had bad experiences as well, mostly dealing with discrimination and bad customer service. This experience really showed their true colors...

I let the guest services manager know about our experience and asked for a refund. He sent an email back letting us know that Helvia tried to accommodate us with the Delux King room, and did everything he could for us, and because of this we would not be receiving a refund.

These people are greedy and about the money. They do not care about making their guests happy... I mean what's this money to them. They could've just refunded us and they would not have to worry..Someone else would book them and they'd earn that back right away. WOULD NOT...

I'd really love to give this hotel a better review, but we had several issues that - by themselves - weren't a big deal, but when added together they really distracted from our stay.

Other reviewers have noted that the service can be inconsistent at best - we definitely experienced this. One example - I needed change, so I went down to the concierge and asked. Long story short, after taking to 6+ people and over 20 minutes later, I finally got change (from a valet attendant). Something like this shouldn't be an ordeal at a nice hotel.

Also - I felt like I was being 'nicked and dimed' at every turn and everyone had their hand out every time we needed anything - not acceptable at a 5 star hotel. Example - I needed ice for the room. I couldn't find an ice bucket, so I went downstairs and was told that there weren't ice machines that the guests could access, but they could send someone up for ice. And that person would then show up, and was expecting a tip. This dynamic applied to just about anything we needed. Another example - I asked the bellhop who helped us with our luggage if he had change for a $20. He said yes, but then took my $20 and left, not offering change. I didn't want to say anything, but come on. I'm not cheap, and I tip well, but I spent hundreds of dollars tipping people for various things during our stay, and it left me feeling a bit scammed.

One more example - We originally tried to book 2 nights through a third party, but somehow (and to be honest this was our fault), only one night was booked. So, we booked a second night, but were told that we couldn't stay in our original room due to construction. Fair enough, but the room switch process wasn't smooth at all. I had to go down to the front desk several times to get things straightened out, and while the desk attendants were apologetic, it seemed like they weren't communicating well with the other hotel employees to really figure out what was going on. I will say that after requesting a 'good room', the concierge did put us in a corner room that was much nicer than our original, so they did get some points there.

The hotel staff did send my partner a long apology text for the room switch and getting change issues, but didn't offer anything as far as compensation... a simple 'here, have some Oreos from the mini-bar on us' would have gone a long way. Again, I felt like it was all about the money, and when spending $400+ a night at a hotel, I don't think a guest should get that feeling.

Some positives - The hotel is in a beautiful historic building, the lobby is amazing, and the rooms themselves are nice overall. The 'CBD Provisions' restaurant was absolutely amazing - we went there for brunch and dinner, and both experiences were top notch. If you get a chance, I highly recommend.

I feel like this hotel has great potential, but needs a strong manager who empowers their employees to take ownership of guest issues. If the service was more consistent, this would easily be a 4+...