My husband and I arrived on a Monday night at 11pm to check into our room, which we had booked far in advance. We were excited because the hotel advertised that it had recently been renovated. When we arrived, we were told that the water had been shut off between 11pm and 5am due to an emergency. It wasn't ideal after our 14 hours of driving, but we figured emergencies happen, and planned to make the best of it.
We got to our room and discovered there were two double beds and not one king bed, as we were promised. The front desk said that was also due to the emergency. So, we washed our faces with our own bottled water (which we luckily had in the car) and pulled back the covers to the bed, only to see INSECTS! There were INSECTS in the bed!
We got dressed, packed up, and went back downstairs to cancel our reservation and change hotels. We didn't want bedbugs as a souvenir of Austin.
The woman at the front desk looked as though she was still in high school and didn't seem to know how to handle any challenges. She told us the Sheraton could "comp" us a room for the night at another local hotel, but any charges at the new hotel after that would be ours. That seemed fair, so we called Expedia to change reservations.
After we had a new reservation, the woman at the front desk told us that since they were able to cancel our reservation for a full refund, they would not be "comp-ing" our room at a new hotel that night. We would have to pay walk-up rates at whichever hotel we chose. We ended up spending much more money than we had planned due to the dire situation of being stranded in a strange city at 2am (by that time) with nowhere to stay.
We were baffled at her lack of customer service. To recap: we got the wrong kind of room, there was no water in the entire hotel, and we had insects in our bed. She apologized insincerely and went into the back room, safe from customer complaints.
Boo. Shame on you, Sheraton.
Pros: Pretty new interior
Cons: Insects in the bed, bad customer service
Sheraton Austin Hotel
