The Lauderdale Boutique Hotel — Hotel in Fort Lauderdale

SCAM??? …DISASTER…DON’T MAKE THE MISTAKE WE MADE…We almost never complain-but it was so weird. So, we couldn’t figure out if the Reservation Desk (RD) booking site or the Ft. Lauderdale Boutique Hotel was a scam or both working together, or just lousy between the 2. We had a perfect 7-day cruise out of Ft. Lauderdale on the Celebrity Ascent (What a beautiful ship with wonderful staff). We went with 17 relatives from my wife’s side of the family-had a great time. We had a change of plans on Sunday, So, that morning before we had to exit the ship I went to work trying to see if we could book a hotel for that day. We understood that normal check-in would be in the afternoon, but a number of hotels will check to see if a room is available to early check-in for a fee (which we of course agree with since they may have to see if people had vacated a room and the cleaning staff has to really hustle to get a room ready, hence the extra fee). I googled “hotels near Port Everglades cruise terminal in Ft. Lauderdale”. I got a quick hit on “The Lauderdale Boutique Hotel a few miles from the cruise terminals. Clicked on what looked to be their site, but site took me to Reservation Desk and a helpful agent named “John” …It seemed like this was the reservation desk for Lauderdale Hotel not a separate booking site called Reservation Desk. But anyways, he found an available hotel room for us and said several times that he understood it would be an early check-in (as the 4pm normal check-in was useless since we needed somewhere to stay for the day and off-load all of our luggage after getting off the Ascent and would be leaving for the airport at like 4:30 or 5 pm). Told us yes come right over and check-in if it was after 9:00 a.m. Nice Uber driver dropped us outside the hotel which is about 15 units surrounded by a wall with a code gate. Since it is labeled as a hotel, I went to find the hotel office or lobby to check in. However, there is no office or any physical person there or any type of manager there. The door code sent to us wouldn’t work. Sign by the door said to call this number. Nasty lady basically said “ It won’t open until 4pm when your room is available for check-in, and that we were too early…I said we just talked with the booking agent a couple of hours ago for like 25 mins and he physically called and verified that the unit would be ready by 9am…she said call whoever booked it and hung up on us…(not saying something like let me check on this, sorry for your inconvenience, or see what we can do, or let me double check with RD). We said we are here outside with 6 people and a ton of luggage. She could care less. My brother-in-law theorized that maybe they are just with the security company or electronic lock troubleshooters only, we don’t know. Whatever. Called R Desk next. Different agent says that hotel check-in is 4 pm. I said we booked with John and he said he checked that the early check-in would be allowed and he himself was the one giving us the 9 a.m. time to come to our unit, and could he please confer with him on this……he laughs and said there is like 1000 people there at this call center…I was asking that there must be some way of knowing which agent actually booked our hotel…he acts like no, there is no way. Says nothing Reservation Desk can do it’s “non-refundable”, you can’t cancel. We said yes, we understand the principle, but that is about us not showing up there as agreed and not using the room, cancelling on them, leaving them stuck with an empty room. ….This does not mean that we go there as agreed, there is no way to get in, and we stand outside until our flight leaves at 8pm that night, but too bad “non-refundable. We eventually ended up getting a refund begrudgingly after immediately calling Amex to put a hold on it after they tried to yoink the money anyway and leave us stranded there to figure it out and going thru the process with Amex (who were great). We don’t normally complain, but we don’t want this to happen to anyone else. These guys...

Where to begin?! Well, first off this place is located right in one of the sketchiest places in all of Ft. Lauderdale. That wouldn't be so bad except you have to stand outside of a gated off motel for half an hour while you wait for someone to remotely check you in from hundreds of miles away. You read that right, NO ONE IS ACTUALLY HERE TO HELP YOU IN PERSON. So I had the pleasure of standing outside with all of my luggage while I waited for someone to find my reservation and get me checked in just so I could enter the premises. Next up is the fact that she couldn't find the correct information about my reservation and instead of asking for any pertinent information I may have such as a confirmation number, or anything along those lines, she decided to just make a new reservation and double charge me for the room that I'd pay for over a month prior. When I called to inform them and complain about the dire financial situation they had put me in due to this unnecessary and fraudulent charge the lady basically scoffed and told me she could do nothing because it was a Sunday and the accounting department was not in on Sunday. That is reasonable and understandable. What is not entirely understandable is asking for screenshots of my bank information showing that I had in fact paid for it when there was nothing she could personally do anyway. She then told me I would be hearing from them in the next day or two once they go through and verify that I had already paid and will process my refund then. Well, here we are five days later and I am the one that had to reach back out to initiate said process, because they had completely forgotten about it up until that point. I worked in the hotel industry for almost 20 years and I am a bleeding heart so I am not one to quickly run to yelp and leave a bad review. We all make mistakes and sometimes stuff just happens.....having all that experience tho also gives me a well earned knowledge of what is and is not acceptable to put someone through without an apology, a thorough explanation, and a hasty resolution. They have done none of these things and have tried to brush me off every step of the way thus far and if you have any desire to be treated like a guest and not an inmate then I highly suggest staying literally ANYWHERE but here.

Oh, also, the rooms are awful. You can literally hear everything through the walls. I could hear my neighbors breathing at night...don't get me started on their colorful conversations that I was privy to all night long. There are no ice buckets but there is a musty ice machine hidden outside. If you want any kind of beverage or snack you better get it before you arrive because the vending machines are out of service or they take your money. Literally the only thing about this place that wasn't absolute trash was the shower. It was one of those with like 50 sprayers, which was really nice, but the very next day I developed an ear infection in both ears and a sinus infection in my left nostril/sinus cavity. So if you do have to stay here because everything else in town is booked please come prepared or you will leave seriously...

We booked the hotel for a short time but while waiting for our covid results to fly out to Puerto Rico we kept extending and management was very helpful with all of that.

The first night was pretty bad. We checked into our room and went to sleep. Someone came into our room while we were sleeping, we aren't sure who, I think it was management but I don't know because the bedroom door was closed so we didn't see them. Then at about 3 in the morning we heard someone at the front door trying to get in. I went to the door and opened to find a group of friendly guests trying to get in as they were told our room was theirs. I politely told them that I thought the hotel was confused on who was booked where. I'm a pretty level-headed person but I am a veteran and have PTSD so when it comes to being woken up like that (twice in one night) I am on the edge and get very anxious. Especially when I know someone actually came into our room while me and my wife were sleeping. I didn't sleep for the rest of the night. That morning management came in and asked us to switch rooms with the guests that knocked on my door that morning. Of course I was polite, no problem, we can do that.

The rest of the days in the new room were great, like I said we kept extending and the hotel was very accommodating with our requests.

One night in the room we were baking cookies and my wife accidentally burned them. The whole room was filled with smoke. We didn't think anything of it, I should have checked to see if there was a fire alarm but I just opened the windows to let the smoke out. I was wondering why the alarm never went off but kind of just shrugged it off. My mistake. Another day I opened the silverware drawer and noticed a 9V battery sitting by the silverware. I picked it up, wondering why it was there, and put it on the counter. Again, my mistake.

When we checked out we got an email from the hotel saying they were going to keep the security deposit because apparently we took apart the fire alarm. Obviously we didn't do this; someone in the room before us took it off the ceiling and removed the battery. Even after calling the hotel and letting them know we had no idea that the fire alarm was removed, they still accused us because of "evidence" which I understand - there were burned pots (we were cooking and ran out of time to clean them or else we certainly would have) and of course the 9V battery that I had set aside on the kitchen counter. We called the owner (Guisela) to make our case for the next 2 days and no one picked up. We figured she probably blocked our number because eventually it didn't even ring. Excellent way to run a business! We did not get our security deposit back.

I understand the reason for keeping the deposit but one thing I really don't like is being accused of something I didn't do. We are honest people. So I'll close with this: you guys can keep the $100 dollars, we don't need it and apparently you need it more than us. I hope your business is blessed moving forward and good luck with your...