We chose to stay in Hard Rock Hotel as it was one of the few pet friendly resorts available. But I had to say, I was really quite disappointed by the experience. I guess the reputation of the Hard Rock chain kinda raised my expectations and unfortunately, the experience fell short of the expectations.
There were several incidents that kinda cheezed me off. Here it goes...
1. The place was advertised as being pet friendly. Ironically, the only pet friendly thing about it was that it allowed pets in the rooms. Period. The room was pretty pet unfriendly in fact. Maybe I was expecting too much. The room was pretty much similar to hotel rooms around the world - fully carpetted with arm chairs in awkard position. Zim and I had a pretty stressful time chasing after Sam, making sure he didn't pee or poo wrongly (which he obviously did anyway). Besides that, there were nothing indicating that it was pet friendly. We had to make a call to the concierge to double check and then only then did they send us a pathetic bag of 'goodies' containing a door sign (to indicate that there is a bit), a bag of treats (that I threw away anyway), a plastic food and water bowl (which I didn't bother using) and a bottle of water. It was completely different from what I have expected from the
Lowes Love Pet programme. I needed some advice from the concierge about other Pet sitting options (the hotel offered such services at a costly price) and the reply wasn't helpful at all. I was better off googling for information on my own. The only places that Sam was allowed in the hotel were our room, a courtyard (which was actually pretty good) and the lobby. He wasn't allowed near the pool area nor outdoor dining and Universal's citywalk, which was a complete disappointment. In the end, we decided to check Sam into boarding for a few days to spare us all the agony of having to chase after Sam.
2. After checking Sam into boarding, we kinda started chilling out at the pool a fair bit. The first day we were there, we were unable to order any drinks as we didn't have our IDs with us. So we went back to our room just to retrieve our IDs (our driver license - which we also used to buy alcohol at other places in Universal as well). The second day I headed to the pool on my own to chill (equipped with my ID and my room card) and attempted to order a cocktail. The stupid waiter stared at my driver's license forever and finally told me that he could not accept my driver's license as there was a policy that foreign driver's licenses are not accepted and I had to bring my passport with me. I was completely annoyed. Which idiot would risk bringing their passport to the pool side? What if it gets misplaced? And, why was I able to get a drink the day before and at other places in the area with my driver's license and not here. I stomped back to the hotel room and got Mr Lim to lodge a complaint via phone to the concierge. No surprise, no reply was given after they promised. We raised the issue to the staff upon checkout and was given a 'standard' reply that just simply put me off further.
3. We bought our 2 days pass from the concierge at Hard Rock Hotel. We happily did our visits to the two parks, putting Islands of Adventure on our second day. While we were there on the second day, we learnt from the greeter at the park that there was a special arrangement between the Universal Resorts and IOA - apparently, hotel guests get the special honor of visiting the Wizarding World of Harry potter even before it's opened to public. I was ecstatic, yet angry. I was quite unhappy that we weren't informed of this privilege earlier and had to end up extending our pass for another day (we spent USD30 extra for this). Upon questioning the concierge, the explanation given was that it's a special arrangement by the park and the hotels and thus could not be publicised (Apparently, it was meant to be for a special group of ticket holders and they decided to secretly include hotel guests who happened to find out). I was pretty pissed actually. While I came with the understanding that the harry potter section will not be opened till 18th, I couldn't understand why the person whom we brought the tickets from didn't bother informing us. Mr Lim seemed to be more forgiving and kinda understood where they were coming from but I refused to do so. I simply could not understand any benefit of withholding such information from us. On the contrary, I would have blown my top if I had returned only to find out about this later. Thankfully, we had some time to spare and the weather was great. Otherwise, I would have screwed the management upside down. I can understand if we had bought the tickets online and thus was not informed. But on this occasion, we bought the tickets right from the counter at the hotel and I really could not understand why the arse behind the counter couldn't even share this little piece of information. Did they not realise how appreciative and thankful we would be then?
4. The ice dispenser was crap. We chose not to take the key to the minibar as we would not consume anything anyway, but it kinda slipped our mind that we needed to chill the drinks we bought from walmart. As a result, I had to rely on the ice machine. The first day I went, the ice was out. I decided to let it go. I went to the machine again several occasions and there was ice. On the last day, there was no ice again. I was pretty pissed by this point of time after all the experiences above and decided to call the concierge to inform them. (There was a note on machine stating that we can call the concierge to inform them if it was out of ice.) I called them and was told that they would send someone to fix it. At the back of my mind, I was expecting that he would send someone to deliver some ice meanwhile. (well, this is after a 4-star hotel, am I expecting too much?) To my horror, the person ended the conversation by stating that there were other ice machines in other floors and I could get ice there. I guess I could have react more sarcastically and demanded for ice to be delivered, but at the moment, I was just stunned by how lousy the service was that I was dumbfounded. He actually had the audacity to ask me to go to another floor to get my own ice! (Btw, it was a pretty long walk to the elevator from our room.) What kind of service is this? Self service? Geesh, I'm pretty sure I didn't check into a 4-star hotel to serve myself.
5. The brilliant housekeeping just seemed to want to clean our room at 8.30am! WTF. We couldn't even really sleep in peace. The knock just come seemed to come everyday at this time~ Sigh.
Of course, there were some pretty good things about the hotel as well, but the cons just triumphed the pros and I couldn't even bothered to compliment them anymore. Maybe I was expecting a tad bit too much, but again, at the price we paid and the reputation of Hard Rock Hotel, I don't think so. Nonetheless, I'm extremely sure I won't be back in another hard rock hotel in future.
