As a black person, I would not stay at this hotel. I stayed for five days, I was the only person of color I saw aside from the people working there, the entire time. Not only was it uncomfortable, I was then accused of taking a bottle of grey goose from the mini bar that I did not take. It seems like quite a coincidence that the only person of color at the hotel, is being accused of essentially stealing. When I told the hotel that there’s no way possible I took this bottle, being that my room had been turned down the night before and the bottle was still there, they sent me back even more accusations. This hotel is priced too high to go back and forth with a paying customer about whether or not they took $130 bottle of 350ML grey goose. If I was of another demographic, they would have absorbed this charge and said “so sorry for the misunderstanding, we’ll take care of it” which is exactly the response I received before I received another response saying that had to “open an investigation” if you’re reading this and you’re black, you know exactly how that feels. To spend over $4000 to stay at this hotel, consume food and beverages there with extreme room service fees, buy alcoholic drinks from the bar, feel uncomfortable because you’re the only black person there….and to still be accused of something like this. All my friends say they don’t do turndown service or cleaning because they might get accused of taking something. I would always tell them, “you’re crazy these people are just doing their job” and for my next stay to be this terrible experience is just….ironic. I’ve attached a photo to show the complete 180 that’s been done as it relates to this charge. This is the response most people would receive, just not me. Maybe he sent this out and thought I was of a different demographic. Because why would you send me this and then all of a sudden need to investigate. Also, the second email says that the bottle had been consumed from, and that there was evidence. But the picture of evidence is the bottle being completely gone….instead of taking your guests word for it (who has already spent thousands) they are quite literally accusing me. Do not stay here if you want to be treated like a person and made to feel comfortable. The whole time I was there everyone looked at me as if I didn’t deserve to be there; the pool attendants didn’t even look at me and when they did, they rolled their eyes.
As others who have stayed here have stated, you can get much better service at much nicer hotels. Go stay at the St. Regis Bal Harbour or the Ritz Bal Harbour (both of which I’ve stayed at) much nicer properties for the same price. You would think this hotel wants return guests but it almost seems as if they don’t care whether you come back or not because their property is cool and trendy right now.
