The Doctor Weighs In

This, my dear readers, is a bit off topic. Not that I haven’t done this before. So, please bear with me.

I spend a lot of my working hours pushing for value in health care. Value is defined by how much quality you get per dollar spent.

I travel a lot for business and, therefore, I  stay in a lot of hotels.  I almost always choose mid-range hotels like the Marriott and the Hilton. I do that because these hotels offer me consistent value. For a modest sum, I get a decent size room that is clean and more or less attractive. I also get services, like free internet and late night in-room dining that make my life easier.

But every once in a while, I like to splurge. So, when close friends from business school invited my husband and me to their wedding, I decided to stay in the fancy-dancy hotel where the night-before-the-wedding dinner was being held. The hotel is the St. Regis Resort Monarch Beach in beautiful Dana Point, California.

Because I was flying in from Portland, Maine (a grueling 8 hour trip), I decided to reward myself with the Ocean View room, even though it cost, at $540/night (before taxes and service charges), significantly more than the garden view rooms. Yes, you read that right $540/night before taxes. Needless to say, I didn’t share this piece in information with my husband ahead of time.

I asked for early check in since I was arriving at noon California time. They said they would try to accommodate me, but (my words) not to get my hopes up. When I arrived at 12:30 pm, I was told the room was being cleaned so just take a little lunch on the patio and they would call me on my cell phone when the room was ready. I settled in with the NY Times crossword puzzle, a glass of chardonnay and an appetizer. After about an hour and a half, I asked my waiter to find out if my room was ready. “Sorry, Madam, it is being cleaned, it will be ready at 4.”

A trip to the front desk got me a different room, although I was assured it would still have an ocean view. I was
Ocean view from the far right hand side of the balcony, room 473, St. Regis Resort Monarch Beachshown to my room by a bellman who warned me that the ocean view was not actually from the room itself, but rather only from the balcony. He didn’t mention that it you could only see the ocean, in the distance, if you went to the extreme right hand side of the balcony and leaned over the edge.

Hmmm. $540/night for this? I called the front desk. The clerk on the phone said, “Oh, well, we will knock $100 off and give you the ‘pool view’ rate.” I didn’t mention that I could not see the pool from the room either, but, I didn’t want to seem like a chronic complainer.

The room itself is on par with an high-end Marriott, but I must say the bed was not as comfortable as the one I had the night before at the Hilton Garden Inn in Portland, Maine for $135. I don’t know how the HGI Hotels do it, but they have sheets that don’t bunch up every time you toss and turn --they are soft and warm and then you are topped off with a light as air comforter (that, in my mind, is value).

The wedding dinner was indeed lovely in a dark paneled room with tasty appetizers and lots of wine. The breads and desserts more than made up for the just-above-average entrée. Altogether, it was a very nice evening.

The next morning, guilt ridden from our caloric excesses of the night before, my husband and I rolled out of bed and headed for the hotel gym. This is a luxury property, remember. Three of the five treadmills didn’t work and two of the four ellipticals were out of order. We put in slightly less time than we intended, but felt we deserved breakfast anyway.

This meal was truly the low point of the stay. After being seated, we waited forever to get the menu and even longer to get the first cup of coffee. And then we waited and waited and waited for the food to come. In my experience, that usually means the food is going to arrive cold-to-lukewarm. Sure enough, the breakfast potatoes and baked tomato were cold and the omelet, although hot, was dry as a bone…what a horrible thing to do to a shrimp, lobster and caviar omelet. Evidently toast was not included in the $18 breakfast entrée, so I ordered some sour dough…unfortunately it never came and we were just too tuckered out from the poor service to ask for it again.

We requested the check and, in response to being asked, “How was everything?” we told the truth. The smiling maitre’d said he would give us a discount to make up for the poor service. Sure enough, when the bill arrived we were credited $3.75…thank you very much.

Ok, enough already you are probably saying. And, btw, my husband is standing here kibbitizing: “You got what
Frayed, dirty bathroom rug in room 473, St. Regis Resort Monarch Beach you deserve spending so much for a hotel room.” Oh, yeah?

But he may be right. I can’t help wondering if this is how the other half lives all of the time, do they understand the failed value equation? Perhaps it is because our expectations were too high and weren’t properly managed by the hotel staff? I don’t know for sure, but one thing is certain, it will be a cold day in California before we return to this luxury property and not so much because of the absolute cost, rather because of the lousy value.

Pat Salber, MD