Drift Palm Springs — Hotel in Palm Springs

I'd driven by Drift Palm Springs numerous times in the year or so since it's been open and have been curious to check it out. A frequent guest from LA, I'm always looking for new places to stay. Deciding last minute to make a trip, I booked three nights at the hotel. While making the drive I pulled off the freeway to complete the virtual check-in. Once I arrived I received as text I would need to show my ID to someone at the hotel... who? There was nobody at the welcome stand and there is no front desk. I ended up asking the bartenders and sure enough, they're bartenders and are apparently in charge of these types of check-ins. Bryan was great. Super kind, hospitable and efficient doing what he could. He took pictures of my license and credit card just as I had done, uploaded them to a tablet and "they'll text you a door code soon."

A few minutes later I was in my room. The room itself is lovely and the reason why I choose the hotel in the first place. It's minimal with a natural color tone. The bed, soft and comfortable. The tv... well, the tv was not responsive. It turned on but did nothing after. I couldn't get live tv, I couldn't chrome cast. After trying for 20 minutes I walked back down to Bryan but unfortunately he nor the other bartender had any idea on how to fix it. Bryan was trying to be helpful and offered me an alternative WiFi to try (although I couldn't even get to the Settings on the tv to try this fix). Back in the room, I found a cord behind the tv to unplug and plug back in. The tv is clearly not meant to move and I felt like I was going to pull it out of the wall in finding the cord, but thankfully I did. Once plugged back in, the tv worked and I had live tv... for a time... which leads me to the next issue...

The WiFi sucks so much. No other way to put it. Every so often the live tv feed would stop because of the WiFi. Who knows when it'd come back. Sometimes just a couple minutes, other times 30 at a time. Just a heads up for other travelers, I couldn't use the Wifi on my laptop. It said it was connected but webpages wouldn't load. I ended up tethering my laptop to my iPhone for connectivity the entire three night stay. I did look for the alternative WiFi Bryan gave me, but that network never showed up as an option.

My first full morning at the hotel I went out for a workout and came back midday. The bed was not made and trash not taken out. I was curious "is there housekeeping?" I looked out the door and saw someone with towels and a cart down the hallway. I asked him if there is daily housekeeping and got a "No." Well, then... Ok.

It quickly became clear that while the rooms are beautifully done, this is very much a paired down property intentionally designed to have minimal service (i.e. minimal cost to run from an owner's point of view) and it showed.

I don't require much... But taking my trash out and leaving it on the floor of the open service closet (just happened to be next door to my room) and having it sit there for three days seems... well not great.

The 2nd morning I needed more coffee packets. I literally followed a woman with a cart down one floor trying to get her attention. She gets in the elevator to go down the second floor. I wait for the elevator only to run down the second floor trying to flag her down. Once I did, in all fairness she was very kind and got me coffee.

I suppose that's my issue with this place. It presents itself well but is doing the bare minimum. I don't blame the couple staff people I came into contact with over 4 days; I blame management that seems to think the less put into a property, the greater the returns. This can only last so long.

Unfortunately I SO wanted to love my entire experience with Drift as a travel creator / writer but was a bit disappointed. Is it well done in terms of style, design and aesthetic? Absolutely. Is it in a great location? 100%. Do I feel like a guest where any needs or desires, let alone an emergency, would be taken care of? No. It's a figure-it-out-on-your type of place, but hey, at least the...

TL;DR: The hotel is beautiful and in a great location for walking around downtown Palm Springs, but the overall experience during the stay isn’t good enough to choose Drift over the other great hotels in the area. The walls are thin, the pool isn’t heated, and you’ll get nickel-and-dimed at every turn. Here are all the details that contributed to feeling underwhelmed: The Room (“Studio” room): Walls are THIN. Easily the thinnest walls I’ve ever experienced. I could clearly hear every word of the conversation happening next door. I even noticed when they placed an aluminum can on the counter, that’s how clearly you can hear things. Missing baseline amenities. No safe, no mini-fridge, no water or snacks, no dresser, no closet (only 2 pegs on the wall to hang stuff up) A/C worked great but would softly rattle every couples minutes, was noticeable when trying to sleep There was construction (hammering?) and leaf blowing at 6:45am on a Friday. This is random, but the toilet takes 3-4min (I timed it) to refill the tank with enough water to flush again. Housekeeping is not offered, and if you request it there’s a fee. The first of many ‘nickel-and-dime’ moments. The Pool: It wasn’t heated during my stay (maybe it’s not capable of heating?), so even during a 95º day the water was a little cold. No hot tub Food+drink service is pretty slow. I don’t mind waiting at all, but there were only 6 ppl at the pool and the average wait time was 15-20min. There’s a sign that says you can only take 1 towel per person. That was off-putting. They charge $300 to use a cabana even on a random weekday when there’s no one there. Another nickel-and-dime moment. The Restaurant (Maleza): Table service was a little slow on a Saturday morning. Again, don’t mind waiting, but there were only 3 tables of ppl there. They keep recommending that you make a reservation, which I was going to do, but I noticed that cancelling that reservation came with a $10 fee. Another nickel-and-dime moment. Please please do not order their fresh pressed juice. It’s more like a shot and costs $14. Seriously, it’s about 3-4oz. of juice. Yet another nickel-and-dime moment. Other: The cocktails are decently priced, between $12-15, but you’ll notice that your glass is only about 3/4 full. So I guess that would be a $15-18 normal-sized cocktail. Makes me question how much alcohol was in them too. Valet is mandatory, which feels ridiculous when you’re one of 5 cars on the entire property and you walk by the few dozen empty parking spaces. Nickel. And. Dime. To be fair, here are the things I did enjoy: The decor and aesthetic is beautiful. Really great design choices all around. There’s no front desk, so they text you your room number and code during check-in, and you text them when you leave to check out. That was convenient. The bed was comfy! Outside of the service, the food options tasted great and they had a good variety on the menu. The staff was super nice and friendly. Overall, this hotel feels like it was rushed to open so they can start making money. The baseline experience that you expect from a hotel just wasn't there and the hidden fees just...

Service & Communication: 1/5 We booked 7 nights, here for a family reunion vacation with 3 other families booking separate suites. They have a problem with large families eating and gathering together (during the day time not even after hours late night time), we received an email notice, actually a threat that our reservation would be cancelled for large gatherings in the hotel even though each family had their own rooms booked. Gave feedback to Management for this rude & unnecessary notice and in return we received $100 credit for breakfast. We also received an apology, but the notice should have never been sent to begin as we were not loud, disruptive or inconsiderate of other guests - just a group of families who haven’t seen each other for some time trying to spend time with each other and eat a meal together. Base on this communication alone, they really did turn a great experience into a very negative one to say the least, training on communication to guests is required here. Housekeeping: 1/5 The hotel rooms are very nice and new, but had some functionality problems. My sister’s one bedroom had no working AC all week, maintenance came to fix but didn’t fix, it never turned back on. In plus 45 degrees celsius weather, in the middle of summer in the dessert, AC is life or death, very uncomfortable sleep for her son all week. We also didn’t realize they don’t do daily room cleaning until we got here, if you need house keeping they charge a fee to come clean your room, which should be standard. If you need towels restocked or garbage removed, you have to message someone to come, which should also be standard not an extra thing you need to think about. Makes me question why we didn’t just book an airbnb if we have to self clean or pay an added fee “daily” to have our rooms cleaned. Takes away from booking at a hotel vs. booking an airbnb. Even motels have free daily cleaning as standard. Location & Amenities: 3/5 The location is great, the pool is nice and clean. But they don’t want you to bring in outside food or drinks to the pool, which brings me back to the poor pool side service we received. They list pool bar hours 11-7, but you actually have to walk into the restaurant to order your drinks, once ordered you have to wait there and bring it out yourself. They don’t deliver this to you at the pool but want a tip for it. We booked Cabanas on the weekend, this was the only time we got service and servers come to serve you rather than you having to go inside to get your drinks. Tip for Management, you have lots of guests wanting to order food and drinks by the pool side, it’s a no brainer and added up-sale for the hotel if you just have servers come out and provide service here. Service just doesn’t make sense here.

Overall, nice large pool, hotel is in a good location, nice aesthetic appealing rooms but basic hotel service isn’t there. Would we book again, knowing all these factors with cleaning, communication & service - probably not. You book at a 5 star rated hotel, you expect 5 star service but you won’t get that here. It’s a new and weird model of added fees for everything and isolating families from spending time together....