Cosmopolitan sucks
02-16-2012
, 11:14 AM
02-17-2012
, 06:52 AM
03-04-2012
, 12:00 AM
05-13-2012
, 02:06 AM
05-13-2012
, 06:10 PM
05-14-2012
, 04:49 AM
05-18-2012
, 12:00 AM
Quote:
First, let me apologize to the proprietors of The Cosmopolitan Las Vegas. After finishing my weekend there, I decided that my first reactions to the property didn't appreciate it's unique qualities, and the special way they combined the striking design sense of properties like the Bellagio and Aria with the level of service and execution you would expect only at the Imperial Palace.
Secondly, let me state that I also believe that if most of the posters on this thread (with a few exceptions including TT) worked for Steve Wynn, the first words out of his mouth after a 30 second conversation with any of them would be "You're fired!".
Third, here some pictures of my wife posing on the deck after I was able to extrict her from that enormous bathtub. Rest assured I will demand she lose weight so she does not further embarrass me on 2+2.
It seems most of the comments here were focused on one complaint or another, thinking it was ridiculous that I was trashing the Cosmo for not offering to wash my car, or for not having Grape flavored Vodka, when that wasn't even close to my point. I'm trashing Cosmo for dressing up and masquerading as a luxury hotel, when it's service and amenities don't remotely justify it. The Cosmo is like that really pretty girl with the smokin body you can't believe is going out with you, until you required to have hours of inane conversation before finally getting in the sack, where she reserves her mouth solely for making complaints and giving directions, while requiring you go down on her for a half hour before allowing you to enter her disappointingly large and loose v*gina.
It would be fine if they skimp on drink selections, or valet services, or a few other things. I said they suck because they skimp on far too much, and most of what they don't skimp on they do poorly. Unfortunately due to the lack of wifi in my room and having baller time in Vegas I couldn't detail more in real time.
Let's address my initial complaints in detail. Many people drive to Las Vegas. And unlike the typical poster ITT, some have cars they aren't embarrassed to be seen in and might want to drive around in, provided their cars aren't covered with dead bugs. I know restaurants that will wash my car, so the fact Cosmo wouldn't wasn't a big deal, just another example of managements lack of attention to service.
What every single response missed was the valet pocketing my large tip as he watched me lug two heavy suitcases out of my car and drag them up to the casino, without mentioning that we were at the wrong entrance, as far a walk from the lobby as is possible. My visit would have started off 100% better if he had simply told how to valet right next to the lobby. That's basic customer service 101, which 80% of Cosmo service staff flunks.
Also, I don't give a fig about grape flavored vodka drinks, that's what my wife likes, and she didn't whine or complain, was just disappointed. I complained because she orders those same silly drinks everywhere we go, and it's extremely rare they don't have it. In fact, 90% of the bars we go to will list off a dozen different flavored vodkas if she asks, so why would a pretend luxury resort restrict every single one of it's bars to four? Just another example of their lack of execution, I suspect they got a special deal from a single four flavor vodka line to keep other vodka vendors out, which isn't how a resort that wants to cater to it's guests wants should think.
As far as STK goes, I'm not that disappointed in the meh meal. I was irritated that I wasn't even asked if we wanted to wait for dining room table, and that the hostess treated me like Flounder at the Omega rush function.
And let me review why getting lost in a casino that pretends to be a luxury resort is bad. I come to have a good time, and to spend as much of my time having a good time as possible, and as little traveling around trying to find stuff as possible. There appear to be two schools of thought on Casino/Hotel design, the old school that crappy casinos follow is that everything should lead to a very confusing casino layout that can "trap" their dumb guests so they give up on going to where-ever they planned to go, and just settle in to drop their life savings in the nearest slot machine.
But if you are building a luxury resort you might consider that many of your clients, like me, aren't falling for the stupid casino trap. If I can't find my way quickly I'm never surrendering to drop money into any machines or table games. I came to gamble, and the less time I spend getting lost on the way somewhere the more time I have remaining to actually gamble when I'm ready to gamble. The best luxury las vegas resorts understand this, and make it relatively easy to get to your room, and to the pool, etc, so you are both in a better mood and have more time to go gamble. Whoever designed Cosmo made it pretty, but also clearly planned the layout to irritate and annoy the guests.
The example of getting trapped in traffic walking back from Aria is perfect. Not only did they build a staircase to take pedestrians from Aria down to the back of the Cosmo, but they then trap them to force them to either risk life and limb, or backtrack to the Aria and walk another block to cross back to Cosmo. I drove back through that intersection twice more on my visit, and each time had to dodge multiple pedestrians jaywalking all over the entrances/exits and street between Aria and Cosmo.
Cosmo is a great design example of form over function. My room was amazing, I wish the same designer could do my house. But it was also almost devoid of helpful information. I never realized that the resort offered free Wifi, because it said it nowhere, not on the pretty TV menu screens or on a placard, etc, was I told. I tried my ATT iPhone, no internet service. So I switched to my wife's Verizon phone, it's internet barely worked. It's bad enough that a brand new hotel has a bad router that they didn't fix the entire duration of my visit, it's worse that they also didn't prep all the floors for good cell coverage and install repeaters to fix dead zones before opening.
There was no informational book in my room, no room service menu, and the worst minibar I've ever seen. When I tried to order room service they told me to get the menu off the TV. Of course that was when the remote stopped working the first time. I was truly boggled they didn't have any video tutorial on craps (every vegas hotel I've ever been to runs those on loops on some channel on their primitive tv systems) or that their craps personnel didn't spend an iota of effort to help my wife become a craps degen.
There was no map of the hotel, I had no clue about it's layout. So when I awoke the first morning, I've got a text from my wife. She's at the Boulevard pool, but wants me to check out the adult pool. I find the other remote and am finally able to pull up a description of the pool, it says 21 years +, nothing else, it shows a map of the friggin pool (I care only that the water is poop free, not how it is arranged) but offers no directions to get there other than 17 floor East Tower. I go to the 17th floor, find only rooms. The first helpful employee I encounter says, oh the topless pool? And tells me I"m in the wrong tower. I need to walk all the way across the casino in my swimsuit, which almost caused a riot among all the attractive girls (and guys) at the roulette table. There is no connecting floor to make the walk easier and less irritating than wending your way through the casino floor, or if there is no one deigned to make it easy for me to know about it.
When I get to the location, there is a line, at first I think for the elevator. But there are also doormen, and the lines not moving, and finally I ask, and they tell me it's $25 for me to go up and check the pool out for my wife. I tell them if I want to see big fat naked titties I can see them for free by taking my shirt off and staring in a mirror. Another wasted side trip that could have been avoided if the idiot who put the pool information up on my TV had added two or three lines of description.
So I go to my wife's pool and she's up on the third level and I'm starving. So when finally a waitress gets to our pool chairs (which were magnificent, I'll be fair to say), she has to lean over and close talk for us to understand over the thumping dance music that she doesn't carry menus around with her. Another wait and when she returns with menus I find nothing but salads and a couple sandwiches and appetizers. I tell her I need breakfast (it's 11 am. In vegas). That's the only menu they give her she says, and waves me to go ask at the restaurant. So I walk all the way back down to the entrance (over green astroturf chosen over cool deck for some reason that is already too hot to walk on during a late spring morning) and the restaurant menu has just a little more of the same, and no employee can offer me (with the typical Cosmo employee deer in headlights I don't know the answer to anything look) any other options other than going back down to the casino in my swimsuit and causing another frenzy among hot chicks and bisexual men.
I'm sure I'm forgetting bunches of other minor things they screw up that add up to their miserable service atmosphere, but suffice it to say my impression is they launched far too early. They would have been better restricting sales to 75% of capacity until they got service right, even if their employee to guest ratio was too high for a while.
As it is, service consistently sucks, when even in an empty bar that is 20 minutes away from being packed with patrons you sit around and wait for service. Employees usually have their heads down doing only the minimum in their areas and never try to do anything extra to notice your needs or help make your stay better. Management's utter failure of execution wasted plenty of my time and good will, and sapped me of any desire to hang out and gamble higher in their casino. Every night, we vamoosed instead to Aria, Bellagio, Hard Rock, etc.
The only employees I feel bad for were the hookers I was in pissed off to recruit for some magical threesomes with my wife and I. Those girls missed out on badly needed college tuition payment due to the arrogance and incompetence of Cosmo's senior management team, and I promise to make it up on my very next visit.
Secondly, let me state that I also believe that if most of the posters on this thread (with a few exceptions including TT) worked for Steve Wynn, the first words out of his mouth after a 30 second conversation with any of them would be "You're fired!".
Third, here some pictures of my wife posing on the deck after I was able to extrict her from that enormous bathtub. Rest assured I will demand she lose weight so she does not further embarrass me on 2+2.
It seems most of the comments here were focused on one complaint or another, thinking it was ridiculous that I was trashing the Cosmo for not offering to wash my car, or for not having Grape flavored Vodka, when that wasn't even close to my point. I'm trashing Cosmo for dressing up and masquerading as a luxury hotel, when it's service and amenities don't remotely justify it. The Cosmo is like that really pretty girl with the smokin body you can't believe is going out with you, until you required to have hours of inane conversation before finally getting in the sack, where she reserves her mouth solely for making complaints and giving directions, while requiring you go down on her for a half hour before allowing you to enter her disappointingly large and loose v*gina.
It would be fine if they skimp on drink selections, or valet services, or a few other things. I said they suck because they skimp on far too much, and most of what they don't skimp on they do poorly. Unfortunately due to the lack of wifi in my room and having baller time in Vegas I couldn't detail more in real time.
Let's address my initial complaints in detail. Many people drive to Las Vegas. And unlike the typical poster ITT, some have cars they aren't embarrassed to be seen in and might want to drive around in, provided their cars aren't covered with dead bugs. I know restaurants that will wash my car, so the fact Cosmo wouldn't wasn't a big deal, just another example of managements lack of attention to service.
What every single response missed was the valet pocketing my large tip as he watched me lug two heavy suitcases out of my car and drag them up to the casino, without mentioning that we were at the wrong entrance, as far a walk from the lobby as is possible. My visit would have started off 100% better if he had simply told how to valet right next to the lobby. That's basic customer service 101, which 80% of Cosmo service staff flunks.
Also, I don't give a fig about grape flavored vodka drinks, that's what my wife likes, and she didn't whine or complain, was just disappointed. I complained because she orders those same silly drinks everywhere we go, and it's extremely rare they don't have it. In fact, 90% of the bars we go to will list off a dozen different flavored vodkas if she asks, so why would a pretend luxury resort restrict every single one of it's bars to four? Just another example of their lack of execution, I suspect they got a special deal from a single four flavor vodka line to keep other vodka vendors out, which isn't how a resort that wants to cater to it's guests wants should think.
As far as STK goes, I'm not that disappointed in the meh meal. I was irritated that I wasn't even asked if we wanted to wait for dining room table, and that the hostess treated me like Flounder at the Omega rush function.
And let me review why getting lost in a casino that pretends to be a luxury resort is bad. I come to have a good time, and to spend as much of my time having a good time as possible, and as little traveling around trying to find stuff as possible. There appear to be two schools of thought on Casino/Hotel design, the old school that crappy casinos follow is that everything should lead to a very confusing casino layout that can "trap" their dumb guests so they give up on going to where-ever they planned to go, and just settle in to drop their life savings in the nearest slot machine.
But if you are building a luxury resort you might consider that many of your clients, like me, aren't falling for the stupid casino trap. If I can't find my way quickly I'm never surrendering to drop money into any machines or table games. I came to gamble, and the less time I spend getting lost on the way somewhere the more time I have remaining to actually gamble when I'm ready to gamble. The best luxury las vegas resorts understand this, and make it relatively easy to get to your room, and to the pool, etc, so you are both in a better mood and have more time to go gamble. Whoever designed Cosmo made it pretty, but also clearly planned the layout to irritate and annoy the guests.
The example of getting trapped in traffic walking back from Aria is perfect. Not only did they build a staircase to take pedestrians from Aria down to the back of the Cosmo, but they then trap them to force them to either risk life and limb, or backtrack to the Aria and walk another block to cross back to Cosmo. I drove back through that intersection twice more on my visit, and each time had to dodge multiple pedestrians jaywalking all over the entrances/exits and street between Aria and Cosmo.
Cosmo is a great design example of form over function. My room was amazing, I wish the same designer could do my house. But it was also almost devoid of helpful information. I never realized that the resort offered free Wifi, because it said it nowhere, not on the pretty TV menu screens or on a placard, etc, was I told. I tried my ATT iPhone, no internet service. So I switched to my wife's Verizon phone, it's internet barely worked. It's bad enough that a brand new hotel has a bad router that they didn't fix the entire duration of my visit, it's worse that they also didn't prep all the floors for good cell coverage and install repeaters to fix dead zones before opening.
There was no informational book in my room, no room service menu, and the worst minibar I've ever seen. When I tried to order room service they told me to get the menu off the TV. Of course that was when the remote stopped working the first time. I was truly boggled they didn't have any video tutorial on craps (every vegas hotel I've ever been to runs those on loops on some channel on their primitive tv systems) or that their craps personnel didn't spend an iota of effort to help my wife become a craps degen.
There was no map of the hotel, I had no clue about it's layout. So when I awoke the first morning, I've got a text from my wife. She's at the Boulevard pool, but wants me to check out the adult pool. I find the other remote and am finally able to pull up a description of the pool, it says 21 years +, nothing else, it shows a map of the friggin pool (I care only that the water is poop free, not how it is arranged) but offers no directions to get there other than 17 floor East Tower. I go to the 17th floor, find only rooms. The first helpful employee I encounter says, oh the topless pool? And tells me I"m in the wrong tower. I need to walk all the way across the casino in my swimsuit, which almost caused a riot among all the attractive girls (and guys) at the roulette table. There is no connecting floor to make the walk easier and less irritating than wending your way through the casino floor, or if there is no one deigned to make it easy for me to know about it.
When I get to the location, there is a line, at first I think for the elevator. But there are also doormen, and the lines not moving, and finally I ask, and they tell me it's $25 for me to go up and check the pool out for my wife. I tell them if I want to see big fat naked titties I can see them for free by taking my shirt off and staring in a mirror. Another wasted side trip that could have been avoided if the idiot who put the pool information up on my TV had added two or three lines of description.
So I go to my wife's pool and she's up on the third level and I'm starving. So when finally a waitress gets to our pool chairs (which were magnificent, I'll be fair to say), she has to lean over and close talk for us to understand over the thumping dance music that she doesn't carry menus around with her. Another wait and when she returns with menus I find nothing but salads and a couple sandwiches and appetizers. I tell her I need breakfast (it's 11 am. In vegas). That's the only menu they give her she says, and waves me to go ask at the restaurant. So I walk all the way back down to the entrance (over green astroturf chosen over cool deck for some reason that is already too hot to walk on during a late spring morning) and the restaurant menu has just a little more of the same, and no employee can offer me (with the typical Cosmo employee deer in headlights I don't know the answer to anything look) any other options other than going back down to the casino in my swimsuit and causing another frenzy among hot chicks and bisexual men.
I'm sure I'm forgetting bunches of other minor things they screw up that add up to their miserable service atmosphere, but suffice it to say my impression is they launched far too early. They would have been better restricting sales to 75% of capacity until they got service right, even if their employee to guest ratio was too high for a while.
As it is, service consistently sucks, when even in an empty bar that is 20 minutes away from being packed with patrons you sit around and wait for service. Employees usually have their heads down doing only the minimum in their areas and never try to do anything extra to notice your needs or help make your stay better. Management's utter failure of execution wasted plenty of my time and good will, and sapped me of any desire to hang out and gamble higher in their casino. Every night, we vamoosed instead to Aria, Bellagio, Hard Rock, etc.
The only employees I feel bad for were the hookers I was in pissed off to recruit for some magical threesomes with my wife and I. Those girls missed out on badly needed college tuition payment due to the arrogance and incompetence of Cosmo's senior management team, and I promise to make it up on my very next visit.
05-18-2012
, 04:17 AM
