liamdoug

Don't Even Think About It

Today is Friday, 2/15/08: My partner and I are sleeping in a queen balcony room, perhaps other rooms/suites are more in keeping with the images portrayed on the Las Palmas website. The room is cramped, the bathroom miniscule. We checked in on 2/12/08. Our receptions was pleasant, but perfunctory. There was not another guest in the hotel -- thus the pool was freezing cold and not usable as a place to relax. Swim laps? Maybe, if you're preparing for the Olympics and don't mind enduring mild hypothermia. The jacuzzi is warm (not therapeutically hot) and the jets functional. After 8pm there is nobody in the front office -- you're on your own... totally. I didn't discover there were no bathtowels or washclothes in the room until 6a.m. the next morning afater checking in. Thus, we had to wait until the frontdesk clerk showed up at 7:05am to get any. His response? "I just got here, you're going to have to come down and get your own towels. I'll open the laundry room and you can take what you want." When we returned to our room the evening of the 13th, the bed had been made, but the bathroom left uncleaned/unrefreshed. The "extended continental breakfast" is limited to tepid coffee, a few teabags,watery orange juice, a choice of three cheap cold cereals, even cheaper bagels, and I think there may have been some packets of cream cheese and jelly... if there is anything put out at all. The young man at the front dest told us that more guests would be arriving soon. One did. Perhaps more will follow. At least they turned on the pool heater. To be totally honest, the purpose of our visit to PS is to help my brother and his partner with our aging parents, so a jam-packed gay hotel is not a high priority for us. If it were, however, Las Palmas would have been a huge disappointment. There is a certain old-world charm to the uneven and cracked tiles, the overall unkempt appearance, and the casual approach to cleanlisness, however my suggestion is DO NOT rely on what you see on the website. A couple more observations: the rug in our room could use a good professional steam cleaning, it's a bit on the grotty side. Also, the air-conditioner/heating unit is noisy and inefficient (the room is either freezing or suffocating). And, the actual location is in N. Palm Springs right on busy Palm Canyon Dr., so there is traffic noise. I wouldn't think of returning.