My Bellagio Nightmare
Warning: There are photos of hairs that were found on the beds in three rooms during my recent stay at the Bellagio. I feel it is important to include them to backup my story and words.
Back in November for Black Friday, Expedia had a tremendous sale. During the sale they sold a select few properties at 90% off of the retail rate. One of those properties was the Bellagio, so I decided to book a room to enjoy a nice “staycation”.
I have long wanted to stay at the Bellagio due to the hotel’s good reputation and five diamond status. Since I am also an Mlife Platinum due to their partnership with Hyatt, I expected it to be a great stay. I could not have been more wrong!
The Arrival
My wife and I arrived at the Bellagio at 4pm this past Saturday. Thanks to my Platinum status I was able to go to the dedicated check-in line where I was almost immediately helped. The agent didn’t acknowledge my status, but I did ask her to make sure both my Hyatt & Mlife account numbers were on the booking.
Having Mlife Platinum status technically entitled me to an upgrade, but this was Vegas on a Saturday and a higher floor was all I expected. Since I saw she assigned me to a room on the 27th floor, I was happy. Once check-in was complete Jasmine and I headed to the room.
Dirty Towel & Hairs Galore
As we walked down the hallway towards our room, I noticed a dirty towel sitting on the floor outside of a door. When we got closer, I realized the towel was sitting outside of our room. Of course it was outside and anyone could have put it there, so it didn’t bother me too much.
When we entered the room I took my standard pictures while Jasmine waited for me. Before long I snapped several angles and decided to sit on the bed to do a little work on the laptop before getting ready to head out for the night. Immediately after I pulled back the duvet, both Jasmine and IÂ were taken aback at the sight of three long hairs strewn about.
They were spread out as if to indicate someone had recently been sleeping in the bed. Of course this is a five diamond property so they must have changed the sheets. (It sure didn’t look like it!)
The sight of those long hairs made us move in for a closer inspection and unfortunately what we saw was even more disgusting. In the sheets and under the pillows there were five more short curly hairs. I have spent 100 nights in hotels (ranging from 1* to 5*) this past year and haven’t seen anything like this. It wasn’t a random hair, but a collection. Disgusting!
On To Another Room
I know things happen and at this point Jasmine and I decided to head back downstairs to tell the front desk. The Bellagio is a huge property and it is a long walk, but I headed right back to the same agent who checked me in. After hearing what happened, she said. “Oh I’m sorry”, immediately picked up the phone to call housekeeping and handed me a key to a new room. It was as if this happens all of the time.
The new room I was given was a supposed upgraded room on the 7th floor. In reality the new room was the same size as a normal room, however the entry hallway was slightly longer and it was on the end of the building which resulted in more windows. Â I didn’t like being moved down to the 7th floor, but we had already lost an hour at this point and I did like the additional windows.
Since the new room had a slightly different layout, I decided to take photos once again before heading straight over to the bed to check for hairs. Do you want to guess what I saw when I lifted up the sheets? Yup! Three short curly hairs. Two on one side and one underneath the pillow on the other. Yikes!
A Call to the Manager
At this point I was still calm, but not happy. Since I didn’t want to walk all the way back down to the registration desk, I called the front desk manager’s line from the room and waited.
As I explained what happened, the woman on the phone didn’t seem too interested and placed me on hold for 5 minutes. When she came back, she told me the, “Housekeeping manager is going to come up to check… I mean to change the sheets.” Her slip made it clear that they didn’t believe me.
This was the second room I had been given which was dirty, I wasn’t asking for anything from them other than a clean room, had lost well over an hour already and then it sure sounded to me like I was accused of making the whole thing up. I was now getting angry.
T the “Front Desk Manager”
I asked to speak to her supervisor (the supposed front desk manager) and after a couple of more minutes T (I don’t want to publish her name.) came on the phone. T was abrupt, didn’t seem to care and didn’t want to help. She told me to wait for the housekeeping manager. When I asked her if she thought having hairs in a room was acceptable, she deflected and didn’t answer.
The housekeeping manager arrived 10 minutes after I got off the phone with T. I showed her the hairs, showed her pictures of the hairs in the first room and asked to be moved to a room that was clean. She told me to wait, that she would talk to the front desk and have T call me.
20 minutes later I still hadn’t received a call, so I tweeted their social media team and asked for help. About 10 minutes later I received a response that they had requested the front desk to call. About a minute later the phone rang. She claimed that she was the only front desk manager on duty (in a 4,000 room hotel on a Saturday night) and that she was busy.
I asked T for a new room and she moved me back to the 27th floor, this time with a fountain view. I had lost almost two hours now and just wanted to get ready to go out. She said a housekeeping manager would meet us at the room to make sure everything was alright.
The Third Room
When we arrived at the room, both a housekeeper and the housekeeping manager were waiting for us outside of the room. Neither came in when we entered and they just said to let them know if there was an issue and walked away. I immediately went to the bed and lifted the sheets. Do you want to guess what I saw? Yes, a hair!
I then quickly opened the door, walked down the hall and caught the manager. I brought her back to the room and showed her the hair and she apologized. At that point I just asked if they could put fresh sheets on the bed. I was tired of the whole situation.
As they were changing the sheets, T called to see if the room was satisfactory. When I told her what happened, she didn’t seem to care. Her tone made it clear that she was sick of me at this point. If that is how she feels then I am not quite sure why she would be doing that job.
T did very generously (*sarcasm) offer me a $25 dining credit to use in the buffet or cafe. If you have ever been in the Bellagio then you know that would barely get me a drink. By that time I was frustrated, tired of dealing with T and tired of complaining. I asked if she would waive the $25 resort fee instead, since I didn’t plan to eat at the hotel.
Conclusion
Things happen at hotels all of the time. I get that. This situation could have been easily fixed by sending someone to make sure the second room was clean. It would have been easy and frankly it is something that I would expect from a five diamond hotel.
In the end the staff at the Bellagio really fell short. I don’t believe for a second that T was the only manager on duty, however at some point you have to just give up and make it a good night. We had already lost 2 1/2 hours and I just wanted to enjoy the night as planned and we did.
On the positive side, our final room had an amazing view of the fountains and Strip and the decor was nice and the room comfortable. I don’t believe I will ever stay at the Bellagio, because there are many other comparable hotels which do know how to properly treat guests.
To close, I have stayed at over 60 hotels this past year alone and have had issues at 4 of them. While I haven’t had time to review every stay, you can find quite a few of my experiences in the Hotel Reviews section.I point that out, because the majority of my experiences exceed my expectations and I feel it is important to point that out.
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I had a number of less than steller experiences at Bellagio. Most of them were under the MGM ownership. For the most part the standard room is the same crummy room you get at just about any strip hotel property. The Bellagio hotel itself is nicer but the standard rooms are nothing special. Years ago via AMEX FHR I rented a Penthouse suite. Room smelled like smoke. I had to put up a huge fight and was on the phone with FHR to sort things out. First and foremost in Vegas they dont care what you pay for the room, $100,$500 whatever. Its the same to them. Unless you are a player. Hotel status? They laugh at that. And Vegas has become a real rip off.
I just finished the survey and can’t believe the similarities. We have been visiting the Bellagio for several years, 2-3x/yr. this trip was the exception and will unfortunately end our relationship. We upgraded to a Suite and found clothing from a previous guest in the bedside table. While we were out, the toilet overflowed soaking the carpet. Housekeeping and maintenance took care of the water as best they could and then ‘T’ the manager started with the 20 questions. Did we want a different room or is this one okay? Did we want security to take a report on our losses due to water? Did we want a bellman to help us move? We finally got moved to another upgraded room and my wife steps on broken glass cutting her foot. Minor but not what one should expect from a 5 star. I’ll wait to see if they contact me like I asked in the survey.
You aren’t alone. We arrived to our room door open and a pair of dirty women’s underwear left in the bathroom. We called housekeeping and they came up to get the underwear. Then there were fingerprints ALL over the mirrors (we got the purple/green “upgraded” room as well), as well as the shower head caked in limescale, and the shower was dirty (could tell by the water limescale on the tile and on/off handle), as well as the carpet wasn’t vacuumed (we arrived at night so we didn’t notice the fingerprints, etc.) When we complained to the front desk the next morning, we were assured everything would be cleaned. Yeah…the maid STOLE my husband’s prescription glasses. We’re still waiting on the “results of their investigation” which I was just told today could take “months and months” when the 3 initial conversations we had with security all told us we’d hear in 5-7 days. It’s been 2+ weeks. For half the cost, I’d stay at the Mandalay Bay ANY day of the week over Bellagio.
Wow! Thanks for sharing.
[…] interesting thing about 2015 was the amount of Vegas hotels I stayed in. It started with my Bellagio room full of hair that I booked during a 2014 Expedia Black Friday sale, continued through the middle of the year […]
[…] 99% of the time I have no issues when traveling, there is that 1%. A good example of that was my stay earlier this year at Bellagio. It revealed true failure on many levels within the hotel. Today I ran into a much smaller issue, […]
I have not stayed at Bellagio but have stayed at Aria half a dozen times, Mirage, MGM, NYNY, Monte Carlo, Luxor and Mandalay. I would say about 50% of the time I have an issue with my room. Not cleaned properly, not getting the room type I reserved, broken lights…. I have twice had a room where the key reader on the lock broke in the middle of my stay; locking me out of the room and requiring maintenance and security to come let me back in.
Honestly I think it is a bit of an arms race with the Vegas properties to cut costs. I am guessing the properties are way understaffed, lack employee training, and/or have a high turn over rate.
Still, I love the properties, shows, restaurants and casinos so I keep going back 🙂
I think my next stay in Vegas will be at Mandarin Oriental.
i have never heard anything like this. this is really horrible. i never want to spend any money at Bellagio.
It’s amazing to me any hotel in Vegas would permit a guest to be prevented from hitting the casino floor for 150 minutes. You could easily have squandered your first-born’ s room-and-board through grad school in that much time, depending on which surefire roulette system you favor.
I feel ur pain. I stayed at Bellagio for the first time in spring 2014 cause I heard so many good things about the place and it was 5 star. My room was lovely but there were hairs all over my room on the floor and counter tops. None in the bed. U would think they didn’t vacuum in there. I was picking up lots of hairs on my bedroom shoes. A few wouldn’t have been a problem but there was a ridiculous amount attaching to my bedroom shoes. Yuk. I had them revacuum the room. I don’t think I’ll stay there anymore until Bellagio get the stray hair population under control. Didn’t find any in the bed. In my opinion, the rooms are turned over so fast there r short cuts being taken.
I would have absolutely changed rooms. Shawn, you were right on the money. Rooms and bedding at 5 star hotels should be clean and spotless. Something could happen in one room occasionally, but not three rooms! No excuses for the dirty rooms or the lack of customer service.
For a hotel of that caliber I think you were more than patient with them. I hope you will post this on the hotel review sites to let others know. The hotels seem to only care when others get to see what happens at their resorts and ask for an updated review for return nights, etc. Definitely changed my opinion about them.
Crazy experience. Your perspective seems right on. And crazy replies from some folks. I’ll be interested to see if you hear from management.
3 hairs. Really do you have nothing better to do. The fact that you ended up in a room with hair at the end shows me you could have changed the sheets in the first room . maybe you were hoping for a upgrade
There were 8 hairs spread across the bed in the first room and I was not looking for an upgrade. In fact, the third room was a downgrade from the 2nd room, but I asked for it anyway.
I understand “hair” is not acceptable. To me, I would just call housekeeping and just tell
them to change the sheets and clean again. I dont see any reason to waste 2 1/2 hour, calling, changing room again and again. As to your frustration to the desk agent, you cant blame her attitude , after all , anybody can put some “hair” on the bed, and want to squeeze something out of the situation. Think , if you are in her shoes as a desk agent, you will be acting the same.
You know if I had it all to do again I would have probably just asked them to change the sheets. The first room change came as a result of me simply thinking I would get a new room and it would be done. In fact, changing rooms would have taken less time than waiting for a maid to come if the second room had been clean.
As for her attitude, I wasn’t asking for an upgrade or anything free, so I don’t understand that. I am also a near top level elite, indicating that I am a frequent traveler. There is no reason for her to assume I did placed the hair on the bed.
As someone with a business and management background and who worked in customer service for many years, I can honestly say I would not have reacted like she did. I worked in a restaurant and never assumed people did things like that. This is a five star hotel not the Motel 6.
Thanks for weighing in Jo! I appreciate your perspective.
It’s not a management issue, there are very few managers on the planet can manage a hotel with 8K employees and 5K rooms. It’s a rooms issue, that’s a LOT to handle and it will NEVER be perfect. If you want perfect hit a 200 room Ritz or Mandarin. There are a LOT bigger issues than a few hairs, heck you likely have hairs in your car your friends are sitting on. Maybe your guest room in your house? I don’t see the big deal and think you went too far to be honest.
That hotel has 3 master sommeliers, out of the maybe 150 on the planet. As far as effort goes I’d say they try their butt off.
I am relating the absolute truth of my experience. Every single word here is the truth. You may disagree with what I thought about it (You apparently feel 8 hairs spread throughout the bed on supposedly clean sheets is acceptable at a 5 star hotel), but the staff did not “try their butt off”. They simply did not.
Judging from other comments, I am not the only one who has had a negative experience. I also live in Vegas and have stayed at the majority of the hotels here (many of which have the same or more rooms) and I have never experienced anything like this.
With that said, I post my experiences and welcome and appreciate the opinions of others. Thanks for commenting Paul and for providing a counter argument. I see you are in Las Vegas as well based on your IP. Do you have an affiliation with Mlife or Bellagio?
In all honesty, people complain about EVERYTHING in Las Vegas, so they can get things for free or less. It’s amazing how many complaints the Front Desk people have to deal with on a daily basis, just to get the resort fees waived. It’s certainly no excuse for their poor attitude but something to keep in mind.
I had a bad experience and complained on the email survey. They gave me a free night.
What shocks me is how many people have reported having bad experiences at this hotel. It seems like it may be a management issue.
I had the hair on the bed problem at a Hampton Inn. We stayed 2 different nights in 2 rooms a week apart. What got me was, in the elevators were big signs about how clean the beds were. Something like OMGTBISC (oh my gosh this bed is so clean). There were also yellow post it notes on all the beds about them being changed after each guest.
Just got back from the Bellagio last night. Ours was a great stay, but your story rings true about the sloppy housekeeping.
We checked out at 3.05pm and arrived at the airport by cab about 20 minutes later. After going through security, we realized we left the phone charges in the room. I contacted the Bellagio and they said housekeeping had not turned them and…… a new guest was already checked into that room, so they couldn’t just send somebody back in without the new guests’ permission.
What? The time between check-out and the time we called was no more than 35 minutes. And a new guest was already in the room? I suspect that their cleaning crew is good, but not THAT good. Seems to back up your experience.
I stayed at the Bellagio in November. I had a similar experience with the front desk. I was told the wrong tower for my room (which was texted to me, so its not possible that I was mistaken). After lugging my things a very long distance, I found out that I my room was in the other tower. I called the front desk and was put on hold 10 minutes. The employees are indifferent to downright surly. The hotel is beautiful and I loved the decor of my room, but the service sucks. It is a 5 star casino and a 3 star hotel.
Thanks. It definitely was frustrating dealing with the staff. If they have to put people on hold for that long then they should hire more staff!
I had a pretty horrible experience as well. Make sure to fill out the survey email they send out.
Will do. I am kind of surprised by how many people have had recent negative experiences.