Sheraton Ft Lauderdale Beach Hotel Review - This Hotel destroys the brand

Sheraton Ft Lauderdale Beach Hotel Review - This Hotel destroys the brand

This is one of the most disappointing hotels I have ever stayed at. I have stayed at Sheratons around the world, and this is not a Sheraton, not even close.  As a professional speaker i was presenting to 4 seminars in Ft Lauderdale and thought that we could stay at a beach hotel. The hotel is scruffy, old and totally lacking in good management. I paid extra for a balcony room overlooking the beach. What i was not told was that there was going to be a music festival right outside my room and my view was of a construction site, cranes and building work and no beach view.  To get to the room you had to go from inside the hotel to outside with a door in-between that banged the whole time when people were going in and out at all hours (avoid all rooms ending in 11 and 12) The room was tiny, pokey and old and nothing like any other Sheraton I have stayed in. The only saving grace in the hotel was a receptionist called Andrew who tried his best, but my advice to him would be to go and work for a professional hotel group. Although free internet is advertised on the website, when you check in they tell you it is only free in reception, in the rooms it is $9.95 a day (what a con).  Fortunately Andrew tried his best and gave us free internet for the week, but it was so slow and the signal so weak that we gave up using it. When I complained, they put me through to technical support in some foreign country (I could hardly understand the accent) and after an hour on the phone I gave up. It was a far walk to the beach and the beach area is nice, but again a total ripoff. To hire a bed with canopy on the beach was $121 a day, this is Ritz Carlton prices without the luxury. Parking is $20 a day for self park and $25 for valet. I opted for valet and then found out that the self park cars were under cover, but valet parked in an open lot in the sun.  Despite asking asking 3 times for my car to be parked under cover, this was never done and the car was filthy every day. The one day I was going to speak at a large conference, when my car was brought around it was full of bird droppings and I had to have it washed before going to the conference (my own cost) The restaurants and coffee place was good and the staff friendly there (I imagine that this is outsourced) Overall a totally disappointing stay and I will never go there again. This is definitely not a 4 or even a 3 star hotel, more likely 2 star (we spent a lot of our time next door at the Harbour Marriot whch was a proper 4 star but could not accomodate us as it was full, otherwise I would have moved and forfeited what I had paid at the Sheraton) Apologies for the long review, but I am a professional speaker and author on customer service and specialize in the hospitality industry as I spend over 250 days a year in hotels and will share this story on stage in in my next book. There are certain hotel brands that have no overall standards like the Sheraton and Hilton groups and others that you can always rely on like Hyatt, Intercontinental, Ritz Carlton and Marriot - I will stick to there in the future.