David Pecora

Review of Hotel Derek Destination Hotels...

Awful experience. I absolutely DO NOT recommend s...

Awful experience. I absolutely DO NOT recommend spending your money at this business.

My two sons and I stayed one night at this hotel on 1/26/18. I very much expected a premium experience after being charged a premium price. After already booking online in advance, I was told at check-in that there would be an "extra" $15 fee per person that is charged so that I would have access to the shuttle that could take me around a 2 mile radius, and also would have access to the wi-fi. I informed the employee that I had my own car and that due to security concerns, I NEVER use free public wi-fi. He (the employee) just said, "I'm sorry, everyone has to pay it whether you use the service or not--it's stated on our website". Well, I booked through Expedia and no where did it mention that there was an extra "fee" for services I do not want or need. There are several words that describe this behavior. Price gouging, bait and switch, stealing from customers...any of these are adequate for this type of poor, distasteful business behavior. I'd like to point out that people who depend on "free" wi-fi can get it at Holiday Inn and many other hotels where it is legitimately free.

Oh, and after getting ripped off and charged $15 for the wi-fi, and a shuttle, expect to pay an additional $30 to park in the garage here at Hotel Derek. Want to know what you get for this price? A parking space barely big enough to fit a motorcycle. I drive a Nissan Rogue. A nice mid-sized SUV. Not a huge suburban, and not a small Mini Cooper--an average-sized SUV. After using my parking cameras and perfectly centered myself in the $30 parking space, there was about 4 inches on each side between my car and the two vehicles that flanked me on each side. Barely enough room to get out. Perhaps climbing out of the trunk would have been easier? Additionally, the parking garage is very poorly configured and is not accessible from the hotel. So you have to drive all the way up to level 6 (valet service reserves level 1-5) park your car; then go all the way back down to 1 just so you can enter the hotel on the ground floor, then get in another elevator to go all the way back up to your room. That childhood see-saw where one person goes up and the other goes down...yeah: it's like that. Annoying and inconvenient. Pro-tip: parking at Holiday Inn is free!

Now, we go up to our room. Go to brush my teeth, and notice there is hair in the sink. Easy to notice when the sink is white. I washed it down the drain, didn't really worry about that too much. Perhaps it fell off the maid while she was cleaning the room? No big deal. Then I go pull the sheets down to get into bed. White comforter and white sheets. I immediately notice that there is hair all over this bed. Not one or two strands...more than could be counted in 5 minutes. It is very obvious that they remade the bed from the person/people prior and didn't bother to change the sheets. Disgusting!

So I call down to the front desk to report this problem, and after they finally bother to pick up the phone...they ask if we have unpacked and apologize for the poor condition of our room. Then I'm told they are going to upgrade our room to a deluxe (whatever that means) and move us up from the 8th floor to the 11th floor. A bellman meets us at our room and swaps keys with us. We get up to the 11th floor, and it's the exact same room, only a mirror image of the prior room. There was no upgrade, no deluxe, just another room that hopefully will be actually clean this time. This room (like the previous room) has diamond back rattlesnake scaled print wallpaper in the bathroom. Whomever the interior decorator is for this hotel should be jailed for having such hideous taste in decor. Cringe worthy wall paper aside, the room appeared to be clean so we went to bed.

Wake up the next morning and go to the kitchen/bar combo and have the continental breakfast. $16 for a danish, fruit, and juice. The same selection that is available at Holiday Inn for free.

Save your money, go somewhere else!