Our Whine Wednesday this week is about hotels that are renting out their facilities for private functions and thereby deprive guests of using important elements of the property such as the swimming pool.
Last week I planned to stay at the W Kuala Lumpur but canceled my reservation the same afternoon after I discovered that the hotel had once again (not the first time) rented out their popular pool deck and bar to a local company for a corporate event.
We have covered this issue multiple times already and it’s still one of the major pet peeves that I simply don’t accept.
Hotels are selling rooms at high prices to their guests and at a minimum, they can expect that all facilities the hotel advertises are available to them for the duration of the stay.
I was actually looking forward to staying at the W Kuala Lumpur again after not being able to visit the country for more than two years so I had a two-night reservation here.
After checking in and being assigned a corner room to wait for my suite I decided to go down to the extremely popular swimming pool for a swim and something to eat.
It wasn’t meant to be as a sign already greeted me that the pool would be closed after 5 pm and the bar also being unavailable to the public as the W Kuala Lumpur rented the entire space out to Decathlon for a company function.
This pretty much eliminates any reason to stay at this property. There’s really no point whatsoever to stay here, paying double the rates as other Marriott hotels in KL charge, and not being able to enjoy either the pool or the wet deck bar in the evening. This is totally unacceptable!
Since this happened back in 2019 as well this is far from the first time and it seems to be a general management style to shaft the paying guests by making extra money with local corporate clients by using the facilities to which hotels guests are entitled as disposable event space.
This annoyed me so much that I summoned the hotel’s General Manager and also canceled the reservation on the spot. Instead, I moved to the Westin over at Bukit Bintang where not only do they have a club lounge, and a swimming pool that’s open until 11PM but also a more convenient and lively area.
Even the W itself seems to think this is the prime part of the hotel and advertises accordingly:
I did file a complaint with Marriott Customer Care about this. Not expecting to hear anything of this (they never respond to complaints) I will call them next week to get a resolution for this matter.
Conclusion
Once again a Marriott (W) hotel stay ended with a cancellation because the property management wouldn’t concentrate on providing proper guest service and instead prefer to rent out their main facilities to local customers for a private event.
Hotels have ballrooms and similar options to hold company events. Closing things such as the swimming pool and the hotel’s most popular F&B outlet is unacceptable, and a complete no-go. This is a business decision by management so they better compensate every single guest affected by this. I will certainly force this every single time that happens and file an official complaint as well.
