Viceroy Santa Monica — Hotel in Santa Monica

We stayed over a week for my special birthday getaway. We chose based on price, location, and the beachy boutique hotel vibe. |.|As a start, don't be fooled by the rates posted on this place. The resort fee is $40 per day, which is patently ridiculous. For $40/day, you get two mini bottles of water in your room when you arrive (you can call down to get more, they assured us), as well as a welcome glass of prosecco (or water). We were not given any info about the fitness centre, the bikes, or the supposed yoga -- just pool and restaurant hours. When paying $40 a night for resort fees, I want to feel I used every last corner of the "resort". |.|The Up-Front Bad: Of our 8 nights, we contended several days without A/C (and no transparency from the hotel about what was going on -- topped by a refusal to send a fan to our room, then later, telling us all the fans were booked out so we were out of luck). We experienced a continual lack of water glasses in our room (housekeeping would remove our glasses and not replenish them or the water bottles, so we had to call down every afternoon to get water glasses delivered just to be able to drink any water in our room). Add to this that there is not a kettle or coffee maker in your room, so your morning caffeine fix requires going down to buy an over-priced cup of tea or coffee from the lobby every single day. That's $14 a day just for two hot caffeinated beverages, as a start. |.|Room: We paid top dollar for a lovely "junior suite" facing the ocean on the top floor. Even being on the 8th floor, the road noise from Ocean Ave and Pico Ave is so loud, it can be intolerable to have your sliding door open (especially challenging when the hotel has no A/C working) -- particularly on weekends. You do not have a patio/balcony, as advertised -- just a slider that opens to a railing. It's a nice open feel, but they did oversell it as a balcony. The views to the beach and pier (and sunsets) are splendid from the top floor and presumably the 7th floor as well. The bed was comfortable and there was plenty of space to unpack, as well as a couch and two chairs for lounging. We also found the bathroom nice and spacious, but the showerhead was mysteriously basic for such a huge luxurious shower. ||Food & Drink: Food was good. Drinks were pretty good. But drinks are pricy at $20/each, so hit happy hour when you can for some good deals. Room service (a few breakfasts) was fairly fast and mostly accurate. Food from room service and in the restaurant was great on all occasions and they have some fun group sharing options that seemed pretty cool.||Staff: they were either super kind and responsive, or completely disinterested -- just depending on the moment. When they were good, they were friendly and gracious. When they were bad, they were dour and even cross. Restaurant and lobby bar service was friendly but sporadic -- sometimes exasperatingly slow, other times checking in on us 5 times in 20 minutes. |.|Pool/Patio: The poolside chairs are numerous and though it is a small area, it is well planned to maximize space. You can pay to rent a cabana either by the pool ($$$) or on the restaurant patio ($$). Negotiating for a better price is worth some time, but you'll be put off in the furthest reaches of the patio. Cabanas offer couches, chairs, TVs and heaters. Rental includes a bottle of prosecco (or bucket of beer) and a charcuterie board. Our board -- while delicious -- was delivered before we had even actually had time to settle in, with us having no input to what we were looking for -- we were told "chef is sending you some food" and out it came. However, the overall cabana experience is quite fun and would be great for groups of 4 or more to split the cost. We found the cabanas were rarely used (despite the front desk telling us they were booked up). The overall restaurant patio is massive and seating suits both small and large groups. There is ample lobby seating and indoor restaurant seating, and the outdoor patio features both restaurant tables and fire tables and lounge seating galore. |.|Would I recommend staying here? Not so much. The lack of basics (working A/C or a fan, water glasses, coffee/tea capability in room) seems arrogant for the high resort fees charged. On the plus side, the location offers a short one block walk to the beach, just 10 minutes walking to the pier, and access to plenty of Santa Monica within a 20 minute stroll. But so do a lot of hotels. Our future trips to Santa Monica likely won't center around the Viceroy. I felt the resort fee was a gouge, and the lack of room basics underlined how much of a gouge it was. I also resent the lack of empathy for losing night after night of sleep due to the non-working AC -- and the refusal to just send a fan to our room seemed callous. I see now that other guests who had this issue negotiated a savings on resort fees, but we didn't...

Another customer disappointed about the front desk service...

I am a member of the Viceroy Discovery Loyalty program and never again will I stay here - or any of the other Viceroy properties. It's a shame they'd treat a loyalty member this way. I have never had such an awful hotel experience as at Viceroy Santa Monica.

tl;dr: This hotel has no commitment to customer service - not honoring rates or customer requests. Additionally, it has only one operating elevator, no business center, no balconies for the rooms, no microwaves anywhere, limited/blocked views, and uncomfortable/cheap beds and sheets.

The long story: From the minute I booked our stay to after we left, it has been a HORRIBLE experience trying to get any kind of service. I booked using my Founder's card, and when I got my email confirmation, the reservation number was blank and it didn't show the Founder's card daily amenity fee waived. I called Viceroy customer service and they couldn't seem to send me an email that actually contained the confirmation number.

I also called several times to confirm they'd honor the Founder's Card rate and waived fee, and I had trouble getting a straight answer about anything. They did confirm they saw the Founder's rate, but it ended up they didn't honor the waived amenity fee in person.

When we finally arrived at the hotel, the front desk couldn't get it straight either, despite me physically showing them the rate I had secured through the Viceroy website (see screenshot). The daytime clerk said "I'm emailing my manager right now", but I never heard back from him or the manager during the entirety of the stay. I should have insisted he put me on the email (if it was even sent). So, I will be disputing this transaction via my credit card.

The next issue was a room change request. The "suite" wasn't comfortable for us (Note: The Canary is just a typical hotel room with no separation of spaces), and so we requested anything else that could accommodate 4 people. The same front desk clerk said he searched and couldn't find us anything, and that he'd keep us posted. Again, we heard nothing back. Interesting - I could see availability online for the rooms I wanted, yet the front desk could not help us at all. I was even willing to pay more for a different room.

The ocean view was disappointing, partially blocked by nearby buildings and you can't hear the ocean or step out onto a balcony at all. This hotel is not on the beach, but rather a block or so away from it.

The sheets are one step away from paper - the kind of sheets that when you turn in bed, you can hear the sheet. You shouldn't be able to "hear" a sheet at a 4-star hotel.

The pool area was ok, rather small, but somewhat inviting. SugarPlum restaurant was fine, but pricey. And the location was ok, I'd say on the rougher side of Santa Monica. Nicer area is near Third St. Promenade.

Finally, I never received a receipt or statement showing the cost breakdown for my stay. So, yet another call (this is likely the 6th time calling) to get this sent to me. When it should take 5 minutes to get the receipt that is owed to me - that I have a right to have and should have been provided in the first place - the rep had to send the request to Accounting and now I have to wait to see if I actually get it. Absolutely RIDICULOUS.

Viceroy management needs to make some serious changes based on the number of negative reviews that have similar themes about lack of customer service. I guess that's just it - when someone has a valid complaint, they act as if they listen, but there's no real action taken. They don't have the ethics to serve...

This review is long overdue, but still needs to be read. My stay here on Sept 2020 at this hotel was okay. For the price we paid ($500+ a night), you can’t help but have some expectations.

PROS: Beautiful interior design of lobby, patio & pool area, as well as their hotel rooms. Our hotel room on the 5th floor was beautiful. The bed was really comfortable. Pillows were a little too soft, but I liked them that way. The marbled bathroom was super nice. Covid-19 safe - although it seemed like they didn’t require customers to wear masks, all hotel staff were wearing them. There are marks on the floor for social distancing in the lobby and elevators. Nicely located near restaurants and the beach. It is a block away from the beach. When we called to check out at 11am, we were given an extra 30mins.

CONS: Customer service was okay. When I checked-in, I was only asked to sign the agreement and given the keys. No instructions or additional information whatsoever. I had to ask where to park. We had to figure out WiFi ourselves. Thankfully, it wasn’t hard. $39 for overnight parking and the parking lot was small. My husband stepped on vomit (super gross! thankfully we had a Lysol spray in the car) and you can see old furnitures overflowing in their dumpster area. Also, no valet service. No bellboy nor a cart for your luggage. We only had 1 luggage so it wasn’t a big deal for us. Ocean view room on the 5th floor seemed like partial ocean view. Majority of the view were parking lots and buildings. You do pay extra for ocean view. Paid $39 (with tax) for “guest amenities” which includes a welcome glass of champagne, free WiFi, priority access to bike rentals, and coffee/tea in the morning. We didn’t get the champagne which was okay with us. WiFi, as mentioned earlier we had to figure out ourselves. No biggie, it was easy. We didn’t need bike rentals. As for the coffee, my husband had a really weird encounter getting us coffee.

First of all, my husband tried to get coffee at 9ish in the morning. He was told coffee won’t get served until after 10:30am. Crazy, right? Fine, we didn’t need coffee that bad so we waited to get them after 10:30am. Secondly, we waited 20 minutes for 2 small cups (more like shots) of lattes. This was weird because there were people ahead of us who got their coffees right away. We felt a little discriminated. Lastly, when we finally got them, my husband was asked to sign a receipt. Here’s the craziest part. The receipt shows we will be charged $30 for 2 little cups of coffee. The cup was about 8oz, and it was filled halfway. So $15 each for 4oz of latte (not espresso and it didn’t come with gold). The manager came and said that if the coffee is included in our hotel package, we won’t get charged. I guess the “guest amenities” fee was optional??? There was no option not to include the fee when we booked the hotel. At this point, my husband was angry and refused to sign the receipt. I was getting mad myself. We didn’t want the coffee anymore. The manger later said not to worry. He will take care of it.

This hotel was recently renovated so interior design is good. It is clean and Covid-19 safe. That’s why I’m giving them 2 stars instead of zero. Customer service and some protocols definitely need improvement. Sadly because of the discrimination we encountered, we wouldn’t...