Just got back from Israel where we stayed in the CP for 6 nights...
I had emailed ahead and asked for adjoining renovated rooms as well as a crib in one of them.
When i checked in, the couple ahead of me in line was waiting for the manager and advised me against staying there. They had opened the door of their room and the handle came off in their hands. They were standing there holding the door handle and requesting the manager. They said they had also found two dimes on the floor of the room indicating that the room was vacuumed very well.
I asked the employee checking me in if my PC gold status could get me any kind of upgrade and was told i was already upgraded to the renovated rooms.
There was a nice complimentary box of mints waiting for us when we checked in as well a bottle of water. Thats its for the nice stuff...
The crib was very rickety and was clearly not safe. It would rock from side to side from the slightest touch. One complete side was missing screws and my toddler would have been able to climb right out. Im not sure what they were thinking putting that in my room, but a phone call and half an hour later, we had a "better" crib.
The hotel does not have an option that one room can have air conditioning and another have heat. Everyone is on the same unit. You can control the heat if the hotel is on heat and control the A/C if the hotel is on A/C. It was really hot outside, yet the hotel was still functioning on heat because some other rooms complained it was too cold. We couldn't open the windows for fresh air because there were no windows. Instead there was a door out to the balcony which we were afraid to leave open lest my toddler wander out there. It was really really hot in the rooms and calling downstairs did nothing. At one point, a maintenance guy came up to fix something was shvitzing. I asked him if he was hot. He said he sure was. I asked him why we couldn't have A/C and he radioed down and told me he would try and get them to turn it on. It was a hot, hot 6 days and there was no way to turn on the A/C.
All the rooms have motion sensors that turn off the lights and A/C (or lack thereof) when you leave the room or leave the door open. There is an option on the wall to disable the sensors for shabbos. When we first arrived, we could not get the A/C / heat unit to turn on because the setting on the wall said the door was open. A maintenance guy fixed it by stuffing pieces of paper in some hole on top of the door).
Several times i went to the front desk during regular business hours only to find no one there. I would have to wait sometimes several minutes for someone to come.
I can count at least three times that i requested something done and had to call back down repeatedly in order to have it done.
The faucet in the bathroom was falling off the sink and walls of the rooms were not as we call clean.
Neither room had shampoo in the bathrooms and we had to request some.
The renovated rooms do not have fridges in them. Instead they have mini-bars which are automated (very ghetto ones). There was a sign saying that guests can not put their own stuff in them, but could rent them for approximately $5.00 a day. We chose that option and were told to take everything out and put it on the counter and would be picked up the next day (6 days later it was all still there). The mini bar/ fridge was apparently connected to the whole room sensor system and shut itself down when we left the room. We kinda figured that out from our spoiled milk and food etc. The hotel claimed its not their responsibility as an outside company runs them.
I asked them if i could have fridge and was told only the non-renovated rooms had fridges. When i asked what those were like, he told me i really dont want to see them as they are pretty run down. It seems the higher floors are the renovated ones (i figured that out from the carpeting when the doors opened on the lower floors). We were on the 15th floor, which was kinda high for shabbos, but we dealt with it...) There is a shabbos elevator but we didn't use it as we didn't know if it was reliable or not (i heard some shabbos elevators in israel have a hechsher on them-this one didn't).
I usually bring along a cooler which can be folded up very small to use in the event we dont have a fridge. I would normally go down the hall and fill it with ice and have my own portable fridge that stays cold for 2-3 days before i need to replace the ice. This hotel does not have ice machines. The only place to get ice is from the restaurant opposite the check in counter. They were not to pleased when i asked to fill up my cooler.
Every day when we came back to find our room which was made up by some arabs, the way it was cleaned got worse and worse. The first day it was made up correctly. The second day, the black decorative sheet that goes down the middle of the bed was put on the foot of the bed instead of down the middle. The third day the sheet and decorative pillow were left on the floor in the corner. The next day it was made correctly after i commented on it to the front desk. On one day, our dirty towels were folded and put back on the shelf instead of replaced.
The hair attached to the blow dryer in the bathroom and the dirty band aid on the curtains were a nice added touch
The newspaper was delivered on random days. We didn't get it the first day. We got it the second and third day. We didn't get it the fourth day and got it again the fifth day.
There is a shul on the bottom floor which has minyanim on shabbos. Fri. night, shabbos morning, early shabbos mincha (i think it was at 1:15) and ma'ariv.
The food in the hotel is not mehadrin.
I know i focused alot on the bad here, but that's what sticks out in my head. Ill add more if i remember more.
Cliff notes: if you are staying here on pointbreaks-its not bad. If you are paying 25,000 points or $180.00 a night, i would never even consider it...
