Kevin T.
Yelp
[TLDR] - the customer service here is good until something goes wrong, then it becomes atrocious. Will not be coming back. GM and rest of management will cause this place to be the least desirable hotel on the South Beach strip.
Full Story:
My fiance and I were woken up at 1:30am by multiple bugs crawling on us and flying around the room. We spent 30 minutes in a panic searching through our clothes and bed sheets, attempting to kill all of the bugs, and inspecting where they were coming from. After searching, we discovered a hole in the bed frame fabric and could see antennas sticking out whenever we shined a flashlight on it. That tells us that for the duration of our stay up to this point (2 nights), we had been sleeping right on top of this infestation the entire time. Fun stuff.
Once I called the front desk to inform the staff of our issue, they said they would send their maintenance person to come to our room and take a look. After inspecting our room himself and seeing the bugs, he said that we could not sleep in that room and would have to move all of our belongings to a different room. We were informed that all other rooms at the hotel were booked except for one. This room was available because it had a defective air conditioner.
We were told that the air conditioner had issues with cooling and that our room would struggle to get cool. Given that all the rooms were booked and it was past 2am at this point, we decided to move to the room anyway rather than continue to sleep with the bugs.
We spent the next 30 minutes packing up all of our belongings and moving them in multiple trips from the 3rd to 2nd floor to our new room. After 10 minutes in the new room, I stood up to use the restroom and stepped in a puddle of water beside the bed.
It turns out that the air conditioner did not have an issue with getting cool, it actually had an issue with leaking water that flooded the floor. As a result, our house slippers got soaked with AC water along with the bottom of our suitcases and our belongings inside.
h the front desk receptionist and asked to speak with a manager, they questioned us and said that the issue had been resolved since we were moved to a new room. When we continued to ask for a manager, he finally called for a woman named Patricia (a manager).
After 10 minutes, Patricia came and spoke with my partner and I. She told us that all they could do at the moment was to keep us in the room we had been moved to. She also said that the GM, Stephen Smith?, would be at the hotel the next morning at 7am to discuss the situation and offer something to make up for our experience. She reassured us that he had already been made aware of our experience.
The next morning, we went to the front desk and waited from 7:00-7:20am but were told that the GM or any other manager was unavailable.
Overall, this was a frustrating, sickening, and inconvenient stay at the Cardozo Hotel for my partner and I who were visiting south beach for the first time and wrapping up our vacation.
The issues we encountered negatively impacted our experience at the time. We have not been contacted or reached out to by anyone to address this situation and are now having to spend time and energy after our vacation to write this email and breakdown the situation.
The incident occurred on 10/14/23. I have emailed the GM directly. I have called the Cardozo hotel over 5 times over the past 2 weeks and have the same interaction every time. The front-desk employee answers the phone, they question why I'm calling, I explain the situation and say that I want to speak to the GM directly, they continue to question me (in a very skeptical and reluctant tone which they all do and really is something to experience - it's like a twilight zone experience), and then they take down my information and say they will provide it to the GM who will call me in the next couple of days. I haven't received one call back or email reply since all of this occurred. VERY strange behavior by these people, and terrible customer service.
All I can do at this point is share my experience and at least hope that someone reading this avoids having to deal with what we did.