CORAL GABLES, Fla. – Vanessa Dorado-Walker and her new husband, Eric, have only been married two weeks, and they decided to celebrate their union with a stay at the Biltmore, a five-star luxury hotel in Coral Gables.
"We drove in. I thought, 'Wow we get one night at the Biltmore.' I've never done that before I went in with my dress initially it was great, but it just went downhill from there," Dorado-Walker said.
Hours into the stay, the couple said they were roused from their sleep.
"We started hearing a lot of noise from the roof. It was very clear. It sounded like it was right next to us," Dorado-Walker said. "It was banging. It was drilling. It was everything you could think of when it comes to construction so needless to say that morning we didn't get any rest considering we had a wedding the night before."
Eric Walker said the hotel didn't notify them about the construction.
"We were completely blindsided that this construction was going on particularly at the side of the hotel we were on," he said.
The hotel is the middle of a multimillion dollar renovation project. The plan is mentioned on the hotel's website, but does not say anything about excess noise or customer inconvenience.
Still, the Walkers booked the room through a third-party website.
"There were a lot of guests actually complaining about the noise," Dorado-Walker said.
The couple complained to the front desk and to management but said their frustrations fell on deaf ears after spending nearly $500 for the one night.
"It's the Biltmore. You expect more," Dorado-Walker said.
The Biltmore Hotel, which will complete the construction in December, released a statement about the Walkers' stay:
We are truly sorry for any inconvenience that may have been experienced by any of our guests during our hotel redesign program. Our top priority has always been and remains to provide the utmost personalized luxury experience for all our guests and as such every precaution was taken to inform our guests and all travel partners well in advance.
Unfortunately, despite our best efforts for transparency with our travel partners, it is not possible to control all the information provided by third party suppliers. We sincerely regret this unfortunate situation which we believe had been resolved after meeting with the guest and communicating with the booking originator.