PSA: Watch Out for the Westin

[Schnabel]

I just wanted to put it out to the public of the security flaws that the Westin had while we were staying there this year. In total, we lost $60 from our room on Thursday to the maid service. We had left it in our suitcases (which was our fault) but we had no reason to worry as we had called to cancel the maid service for the entire stay. We did not put the please do not disturb sign out as we did not have one in our room and they were unable to give us one until Saturday Night. When we found that we had lost money ($40 from my bag and $20 from my teammate's) we called security right away. They finally arrived to our room 45 minutes later. When they arrived, they asked us what had happened taking down every detail that we provided them. They also took down all of the card keys that were used in our door for the entire day (pretty nifty how they do that too!). They then began to twist our story that we had provided to them, making it sound like we had stolen from each other. They said that they would call us back within a couple of hours on what was going to happen, yet this didn't take place. The next morning we took action, we locked all valuables in the safe (which we didn't know was there before) and took anything that wouldn't fit with us. We then strategically placed our bags and put the zippers in strategic places. Using the USA Today provided at the door that morning, we took pictures of everything the way it was. We called down again to cancel the maid service. When we arrived that night, they had tampered with our bags again, and the room had been made up. We called security again, this time without moving a thing in the room. When they arrived we showed them the room and then the pictures. They were absolutely astonished. They couldn't believe that we had taken pictures and proven that people were in fact messing with our bags in our room. The security officer then proceeded to figure out why our case had not been resolved from the night before and took the picture files with him to the office. We were informed the next day that our money that had been lost was going to be replaced and that they were going to look into it more. Our lead teacher went down to complain that night to the manager, only to be greeted by guests of different floors that had the exact same thing happen to them. This was not a one room happening, but a 5 room happening, with each loosing over $40 a piece. The absolute worst part of everything is that the rooms that were robbed were cleaned the way they should be, but every other room had little to no cleaning done to it. Please, next year when you are booking, make sure that you look into other hotels before the Westin as our stay was very unsatisfactory.