The Madrid Edition Mini Trip Report

[Biki]

I thought I would write up a little trip report from our stay over the Coronation Bank Holiday weekend, as I haven’t seen many reviews of this hotel. I’m afraid I’m not a cunning linguist like @froggee, but I hope it helps someone.

We were originally planning on staying at a hotel closer to the IFEMA for the whole weekend as we had a late flight in on Friday night (with Iberia from T3 so we could do a lounge crawl of course…) and were going to the F1 exhibition nearby, but as my wife had a last minute work meeting in Madrid and managed to get the corporate rate extended, we did 1 night near the IFEMA and then Saturday onwards at the Madrid Edition.

Checking in at 2.30pm on Saturday we were told that the room wasn’t ready yet. No problem, we left our bags and went for a walk and explore, getting back around 5pm to pick up our room key. They said they’d send our bags up to our room, but 45 mins later and needing some of our things, we went back down and said we would take them back up ourself. 15 mins of waiting and a trip back up to our room with a staff member to check if they were in the wardrobe, it became apparent they’d lost them. Finally, after some nervous discussions by various staff members our bags were located (over an hour later) and we took them ourselves back to our room.

The room was nicely decorated, good size, well laid out and good amenities, but we swiftly discovered that because we were on an internal corner, with corridors on 2 sides of the room, every time someone closed a door that the TV shook. We spoke with reception and they moved us to another room, which on at first seemed much better… That night we realised that the sink was leaking water onto the floor below and there was a really bad smell of drains filling the room, so next morning we mentioned to reception. They offered to move us again, but after moving rooms once already we really didn’t fancy doing it again, so said if they could just fix it while we were out then that would be fine. After a day out we got back and found that they had fixed the sink, but it still stank. They sent an engineer up with a bottle of bleach but discovered it was coming from the aircon and not the drains so couldn’t be fixed quickly so we had to move for a second time. Third room generally ok, no shaking tvs, no stinking drains and no leaking sinks however now we had a shower (great showers by the way) that leaked water into the bedroom area. You couldn’t make it up. We couldn’t be bothered to complain/move again, so just went with lots of towels on the floor.

Other things to mention… the bar is very good and some great cocktails, the bar staff are really friendly. We ate at Jeronimo, which is the same chef as Pujol in Mexico city (Number 5 in the world) and was really good. Breakfast is in the same restaurant and the quality, and portion size, is very good, but service not so much. The first morning half of the order didn’t turn up, but as we were quite full, we didn’t chase them for the remaining items. The second morning they sent our food to the wrong table, we ordered hot chocolates which when it turned up was just milk, the ham and cheese omelette didn’t actually have ham or cheese in it, and a few other small issues. It really felt like the staff didn’t have much training or really care about sorting things quickly.

All in all, the hotel is nice looking on the surface, but it really feels like there are some issues with final touches and the training of the staff. As my wife put it, all fur coat and no knickers!

[JDB]

That sounds awful – you should be getting a full refund of cash or points. It simply isn’t acceptable for Marriott, when it is trying to play five star hotels, to have Edition branded hotels that are allowing unserviceable rooms to be given to guests. If you had three such rooms, there are surely far more problem rooms. You were lucky that the hotel was sufficiently empty to move you each time. The service issues are again a complete brand failure. You should write to the GM of the hotel, copying the Marriott CEO anthony.capuano@marriott.com setting out all the issues and failure to meet even the most basic hotel standards, let alone those supposed to be EDITION ones.

This will unfortunately get worse at the big brands just want to sign up new hotels and the existing estate is completely unmanaged/unsupervised so you need to complain!

[can2]

@JDB is right, complain. That is too much. Also it is a hygiene issue not just simple discomfort.

[Biki]

A bit of an update following the prompt from @JDB …

I had a chat with one of the managers before I left and explained all of the issues. They were very apologetic and keen to make it right, so without much prompt they refunded 2 nights and also are going to send a voucher for a further 2-night free stay in the future. Fingers crossed they sort things out when we go back!

[Guernsey Globetrotter]

So they are refunding you 2 nights (out of 3?) and also offering another 2 nights free in future – which you may not want to take them up on given your experience!

That doesn’t seem a terrible outcome but I’d be interested in how reasonable others with more experience (looking at you @JDB) may consider this?

Hope it didn’t spoil your long weekend @Biki and thanks for the useful and interesting report and updates 🙂

[Biki]

2 nights were what we paid for personally and the other 2 nights were paid by my wife’s work, so our portion where we had the problems were refunded in full. I was happy with that to be honest.

They seemed very sorry about everything and keen to make sure we were happy, so I’d give them the benefit of doubt and see how they address things in the future.

I had a great weekend overall though and while frustrating with the hotel issues, we still had a good time. I would recommend the F1 experience if you are a F1 geek like me!

[JDB]

@Biki – the refund of your stay is good and the minimum they needed to do. The value of the offer of two free nights in the future is more questionable and depends on whether you might plan to travel to Madrid anyway and be confident enough to risk staying there again. I think they rely on people probably not taking them up on these offers too often.

That’s why a ‘local’ solution isn’t always very satisfactory as they may not fix the issues which were totally fundamental and destructive to the EDITION brand and almost certainly not new. The smell of drains from aircon is an ongoing maintenance issue, not something that suggest happened and a potential health hazard. Water from the shower didn’t leak into to the bedroom for the first time etc. The service issues in the restaurant were quite broad. It all smacks of a complete failure of management; hence the effective cover up.

The head offices of all these brands need to be made aware of the problems in their empires and pay compensation for their total failure to maintain brand standards or monitor hotels adequately – and, as such, offer you two free nights at a hotel of your choice. It’s only when it costs the brand, rather than the owners money that anything will happen.