Live from Vdara- 2/13/10

Good Evening All-

We just checked into the Vdara about 2 hrs ago. We left Phoenix Sky Harbor ( flew this time!) @ 1:45pm. We actually met our pilot on the shuttle over from the parking place. So cool, b/c he let our 7 yr old daughter come into the cockpit ( pre flight) and sit in the captain's chair. Very cool, very cool pics.

Easy flight over. We met our Bell Trans limo and headed to Whole Foods ( aka. Whole Paycheck). Myself and daughter have severe food allergies and more so for her, we needed to stock in tiny fridges in Vdara suite. So $180 later ( yep, some alcohol might have slipped in there) we were on our way to Vdara.

Upon arriving, we were met my a lovely Bell Hop. Back of my mind thinking " TripAdvisor was wrong Vdara IS nice"! Ha! So I try the $20 trick, fail. Now mind you, it is DEAD in here, by dead I mean DEAD! So up to our room we go. Nice turpentine smell on entire floor. I am assuming it is b/c hotel is so new, but still a bit overwhelming, cheap high I guess. Anycase, open door to room. Nice, way too much space wasted on kitchen area, but nice room. Go to use sink, broken. Are you kidding me? So call front desk and advise them. Bags arrive at the same time. We switch rooms right down the turpentine infused hallway ( see Venetian isnt SO bad!). They empty out mini bar fridge so we have an extra tiny fridge. They were supposed to ( key word here) run up new keys. Well that was over 2 hrs ago, no keys as of yet. Also, we had to call 3 times for dish soap, silverwear and coffee. Sigh....

Just fed/ watered 7yr old child, she is very happy. I am drinking champagne, hubby is import beer from Whole Paycheck. Now off to get pretty and figure out the rest of the evening!
Cheers, more to come!

 

So how long do you think it will take Vdara to work out all the kinks and have everything running smoothly?

 

You have already gone past my point of total and complete rampage. If that room isn't comped, they better be giving you a nice discount.

I would be questioning that smell too. It shouldn't still be that strong. I would be visiting some other floors via elevator & see if it is less intense on a different floor and requesting a change. That smell would have me flat on my back for days - I'm very sensitive.

Since you don't have keys or silverwear yet anyway - they might as well take them to a nice smelling room.

Whole Foods - LOL - my future d-in-law would get something from lunch there as a treat when she worked by Milwaukee last year - the parking lot was always filled with BMW's, Lexus, Mercedes, etc.

 

good to hear some details on this place, its got some low priced 2 BR options so I have been considering it, but I'll wait and see how things go on this report.

 

Well, the freaking nightmare continues on....it is now 12:24am and we are in our 3rd, yep 3rd room here at Vdara. Again, beautiful hotel, horrible and I mean horrible customer service. So, on our way out for the evening, we stop by the front desk. I inform them the bathroom door which slides shut, will not shut AND the bathroom mirror is very loose on the wall. While we love family time, dont think it is necessary for us to see what we are doing privately in the bathroom. Again, we are assured that "it will be taken care of" by the time we return. Also, our keys were never brought to the 2nd room, so we got those. For our trouble, we were given a $50 resort credit, big deal. So out we head for some sushi and walk around. Let me again say, City Center is a ghost town, very, very strange.

The vibe on the strip is good. You can absolutely see the effects of the recession. Very casual dressed younger crowd. We like to all get dressed up ( old school Vegas style). Not tonight. Flip flops the new "dressy", strange. Oh that and hooker casual. Even in my 20's and my wild side, and mind you I am only in my 30's hooker chic was never my style. To each their own I suppose. Anycase, we walk around Planet Hollywood shops, dead. Venture over to Caesars and Forum Shops, dead. FAO Schwartz is now closed! Daughter is crushed ( so am I). We decided to call it a night and cab it back to Vdara. We are all beat. Daughter has munchies, hubby needs a nightcap, me, want my comfy sweats. Open the fridge to find most of our $180 Whole Foods, food for daughter now warm, because fridge is broken, AND proceed to knock over my $30 bottle of champagne. Daughter learns a few new words to vocabulary. Are you freaking kidding me again? At this point, both me and my husband ( who normally is very calm) is not only ready to break into tequila but lose it as well.

So again, I call down to front desk. At this point, kid from housekeeping shows up to make up sofa bed. " So, uh, do you want me to, uh, make up the sofa bed"? Um yes, as that is your job! Front desk puts me on hold. Girls comes back and says she knows it is after 10 pm but they want to move us, again, yep, again. Right down the hall into a larger room ( which earlier they claimed they did not have, eventhough no one is here). So we pack up again, and wait for bellhop. Bellhop arrives and is way to cheery.

We move to a much larger, nice suite. We are both so irritated at this point. I will post pictures tomorrow. We have full size fridge, washer/ dryer, dishwasher, 2 bathrooms, dining table. So yeah, it is nice. So now, it is 12:36am , we are still waiting for housekeeping to bring up bedding for this sofa bed as now, looks like we will get some privacy on this trip ( sep bedroom, hooray). However, we are all so tired and cranky and on AZ time which is 1:30 am. My poor kid looks like a zombie!

Oh, and this is the best part. When we enter the room, the message light is flashing on the phone. Bell hop goes "looks like you have a message". Husband listens to message and starts laughing. I guess the message was from Christmas Day, which must have been the last time someone was in this room. The message was from the manager addressing yet another complaint from the person in this room before us.

We still have 4 fun filled days left. Should be a comedy of errors on what comes next. After the experience we had at the Signature on New Years, we had hoped this trip would be better room wise. Again, room nice, customer service, well, less than desirable. What even sucks more is we CANCELLED our reservations at Mandarin Oriental to stay here. We did this because Southwest had an amazing deal to stay here. Now we know why. You get what you pay for. At this point, even if this room were compd, i would not stay here for a long, long, long time....more tomorrow...

 

Dont do it!!!! Read my update...now it is 1:02 am and we are finally getting the sofa bed made up. Poor daughter just crashed out in the master bed, so much for our "privacy". Hubby now buzzed on tequila ( hell he deserved it!). This trip was to celebrate him switching jobs and having the next 2 weeks off...not off to a good start. Luckily, we can laugh at this crap as it seems, it always happens to us!

 

...thanks for the late night updates, now I remember City Center. All those feelings that caused me to fly home a day early leaving a comped suite are rushing back. lol.

I can't imagine how pissed off I'd be if I had all the food go warm from Whole Foods like that. Actually I sorta can after spending the last 7 years cooking two meals every time we eat with my sons allergies.

I am envisioning you happening across Jim Murren, MGM-Mirage CEO, and him reaching out to pat your daughter. She kicks him in the shin and says "Thanks a lot for ruining my special allergy food a-hole!".

Hey maybe in about 10 years we can send our kids on a date to Whole Foods! :evillaugh

 

I have to say, our daughter is one cool cat. She tends to just roll with it. I am used to doing 3 meals. Her and I have allergies/ tummy issues, husband, well he is more meat/ potatoes. However, in Vegas, my food group is usually energy drinks, champagne , and protein bars, hell, gets me thru the trip and provides me for some gambling energy, which, is my Valentines gift today from husband. Some much needed uninterrupted gamble time! I am hunting down someone today as it took 4 phone calls to finally get the sofa bed made up

Bella ( our daughter) already informed us she wants to come back in March for her birthday! Now that her playground aka FAO Swartz has closed, might re-think that one.

 

So, Happy Valentines Day everyone. Figured out last night our wonder suite @ Vdara has 2 temps, meat locker freezing and sauna like warm. Anyways, confusion with housekeeping over sofa bed issue finally solved after 4th phone call. Totally crazy. Again, we sat there thinking "why did we cancel reservation @ Mandarin"? So we decided to pass out, I mean sleep after sofa bed made up. Poor child already passed out in master bed, husband medicinal effect of tequila wearing off....

So between sweating and freezing all night and getting up a zillion times to adjust temp, I kinda sorta nap. Daughter sits up @ 6:30am, which is 7:30am AZ time, bright eyed and ready to get her Sponge Bob fix on the HD TV. I cant complain too much as she gets this from me. I am able to function on about 4 hrs of sleep for extended periods of time, husband on the other hand becomes a different person on anything less than 6 hrs...I see a nap in the future later today. So we ( dd and I) decided to get up.

Poor husband braved it on sofa bed and is still asleep. Now I am wishing we slept on sofa bed as I need my coffee as I am hitting the gym here shortly. Also, if you want to use laptop in bed, forget it, unless you bring an extension cord that will reach wall, no outlets close to bed. Hmmmmm.

So, I will keep everyone updated on our adventures. We are going to hang here in the room most of the morning. Bella is taking a swim in the tub. Pool is not open ( not that we would use, still too cold for us!), but I guess guests can use Bellagio's if they want, no thanks. We might try to see Matsuri @ 4pm, we have tickets we never used from NYE. We really wanted to try and catch another show while we were here as well..I think we will venture down the other end of strip. OK, so here is the kicker for this morning.....husband just came in master bedroom and said " hey, add this to your report", I guess the sofa bed was very uncomfortable, no shocker there. Well, the brains that put the mattress in, put it in upside down, so he basically slept on the springs all night. He said he was so tired did not notice until now. Nice...

 

~just shakes my head

Good Golly, the place has been open over 2 months now
the kinks should be all sorted out by now, from management learning from those who stayed before you ~ Growing pains are one thing but should all be settled by now

I"d be jotting down notes and sending a scathing letter off to management
after all it is *MGM* and they aren't rookies in the Vegas Hotel department!

Regardless, of all your woes from the hotel, I hope you , hubby and Bella still can have an enjoyable trip

 

Wow! Hats off to you and your family's patience! If it were me, I would have given a piece of my mind to the management (especially since a kid is present!). Seriously, sounds like this is a place to stay far far away from! GL on the rest of the trip.....

 

"After all it is MGM".....yeah that's exactly what it is, incapable of building their own top-level hotels, can only subsist off what Steve Wynn provided for them. I'd say that's MGM in a nutshell. All the props that were non-Wynn are horrific. The only plus I give them is they USED to spend a little more than Harrah's on upkeep.

The thing is you gotta try out the new places or you'll never know what you could be missing, and especially Vdara with its location and unique amenities, kitchen, etc. for those required to prep some of their own food.

At this point it sounds like its reaching the ridiculous level I experienced in City Center. Might as well just enjoy spotting everything they do wrong, not that THAT is a challenging sport by any means, but it passes the time!

 

First hand customer reviews are extremely difficult to overlook. Guests are the eyes and ears of these properties, and in cases such as this one, the keyboard is mightier than any apology or resort comp. As of late, it seems I am reading more and more articles, reviews, and blogs addressing the fact that Vegas customer service is down. Let me get to the point- this ain't good. VegasDiva is right to suggest a letter to management. Remember, eyes and ears!

I hope you all enjoy your Vegas Valentine's Day together.

 

I would be MAD MAD MAD.. and demand something... thats so uncalled for!

 

Bellamom6 - thanks for review!
We have reservations to stay there next month when my youngest daughter is getting married but now...

Not sure she and fiance can change since they got a special deal through Expedia. We were all so looking forward to a smoke-free, slot-noise-free place to stay, esp with kitchenette.

Sigh - I think I'll email the concierge and tell him what I'm reading - maybe I can parlay into a double suite for me and oldest daughter AND a panaramic for the bride and groom.

Gotta' work it

 

just an FYI, as I'm sure you are all becoming painfully aware, customer service is becoming a lost art in Vegas.

At this point you might as well ride them for whatever you can get comped, god knows I would and do, but as far as any real "satisfaction"?

They don't care.

 

Absolutely not noise free. You hear every siren that goes by every 5 mins, 24 hrs a day! The lobby is dead, I mean quiet.

 

That's the thing.... trying new and different hotels....... so far since 2005, I've had 6 trips to Vegas and stayed at the IP, BestWestern Mardi Gras on Paradise, Flamingo 2x, Harrahs ,Paris and Mbay 3x ....... most of the rooms were comp'd........last June I was NOT impressed with the Flamingo(my 2nd stay) (I did a TR) and sent off an email when i got back, I did get a reply but it was *standard* I said
I know economic times are strained for everyone, and I do appreciate the offers , however...... in the big picture , my stay at Flamingo was so-so not exceptional .........would I recommend this hotel to anyone? perhaps but I would advise folks to shop around first ..... the rooms need a good *sanitizing* /cleaning ~~ the phones , thermostat remote control should all be swiped down too as part of the room clean process.... even our 2nd room had a grimy phone and thermostat..... its these little things us average folk will notice ..... Got the standard reply of sorry of your experience , I will forward to the areas of concern .......... yadda, yadda


This past trip in Nov with my hubby, we got players cards for PHo and Venetian/Palazzo, both of us have had offers , good til end of March for 2-4 nights at V/P, I just got one for PHo for 2 nights , includes some room/food credits ..........
since my 2007 trip, when I signed up for MGM-Mirage and HET cards, I've gotten all sorts of offers for MGM Grand, NYNY, exalibur, luxor, MonteCarlo but haven't taken them up on it..... then theres the resort fees lol

Will I try Aria , Vdara etc......not sure, I did get a promo for Aria on the players club website but its vague and I have to phone ......for *special* rates .......

I feel bad for Bellamom and family...... it is THEIR vacation and hard earned dollars and seems no one cares from the front desk and beyond.... its like the attitude of We gotcha now, shrug! I do hope they have a superb vacation , nevertheless and I thank her for her input

 

We are looking to book something in May...looks like we will cross Vdara off the list!!!

 

With all the problems with Vdara I wonder how long before they close down floors because no one is staying there. I hope your trip gets better and you get a suite that doesn't have any issues.