Bahia Mar Review

      The next few posts will be all about my recent business trip to Fort Lauderdale. Starting with the hotel we stayed at. But first, a well deserved shout out to Delta Airlines. I know, I know, it's very unusual for ANYONE to have anything nice to say about an airline in this day and age, (Still love you Jet Blue, lower your prices). And after the total fiasco we had with Continental last year, (stuck on the runway for 1/2 hour waiting for a plane to leave our gate, only to find out said plane was broke, missed connecting flight to Vegas, no hotel vouchers as it was FAA fault, RIGHT !!!). So we had a very tight layover at JFK , 40 minutes, and when the plane had to go through deicing, I was really worried about missing our connection. But then the captain,(are they always captains? No privates or Corporals in airline speak? Wouldn't fill you with a ton of confidence would it, to hear "This is Private Ed, way up here in the driver thingy seat, letting you know we will be flying way up high today), came on and said they were given a more direct route and we would make JFK in 50 minutes, YEA, leaves plenty of time to catch the next plane. Got to the edge of the runway and he turns off the engines, oops, that is never good.

      Broken engine sensor, back to the terminal, NOW here is where the tale takes a strange turns, once back in the terminal, we are told, we will call out your cities and you can come up and get new flights, we have them all rescheduled for you. WHAT?? no begging, screaming, hollering, WHAT? So we get new assignments, getting into Fort Lauderdale at 7PM that night, sigh, there goes my afternoon of vacation. But she says, stop at the service desk in JFK and get meal vouchers or she may be able to get you an earlier flight. Well, meal vouchers are way more than we got last year, (YOU SUCK, CONTINENTAL), so off to the service counter we go and surprise number 2, really nice lady says we have a 1pm flight out of Laguardia, I can pay for your cab, if you don't mind going back through security again, gets you into Ft.Lauderdale at 4 pm so you can enjoy a bit of 85 degree weather, WOO HOO, Delta we love you !!!

      Oh yeah, this is a review about the hotel. So what have we learned so far, Delta good, Continental bad. Bahia Mar Doubletree Hotel, just OK. This is quite an old hotel, that Hilton has bought and is updating. At this time the furniture seems pretty updated but the bathrooms, walls and doors are still very old. The good, location, location, location. Right on route 1A1, with the ocean on one side and the waterway on the other. And only a short walk to all the action of the Fort Lauderdale strip. AND a water taxi stop just a few hundred yards away, (but good luck catching one, we waited for an outbound boat for over an hour one night and one never came, not a very efficiently run operation).

  The bad, doors and paint in room are very chipped up. bathroom is old and looks it. Be aware that if you stay here with friends the bathroom door is a pocket door made of slats, not much privacy. Good and bad, the employees, Karen at the front desk and Patricia at the concierge desk were both incredible, extremely helpful, (Poor Patricia must of made and cancelled a dozen restaurant reservations for me ,as the boss's flights kept getting delayed). On the other hand, the first morning my colleague and I went to breakfast, I asked for a menu and the employee told me "We are doing a buffet for $17.00 each, (not exactly a lie as you notice he did NOT say we couldn't order a la carte, just never offered us a menu, so we paid over $40, (18% tip automatically added), for a really sub par buffet that at Hampton Inns is free. The 2nd morning we had a better server and she gave us menus, but the sausages I received came out ICE cold , so not a whole lot better. She was very apologetic but for some reason the kitchen just could not get them back out to me before we were all done and leaving, (why not pull some out of the buffet, I assume those were hot?).

      So all in all a totally average experience. Location is great, views are incredible, some employees are wonderful, some not so much. Some of the room is updated, alot of the room still needs serious work. If you can get a great deal, I suppose the location would make up for the rest. But as we paid $180 a night, I would not stay here again for that price. Not before I was assured the rest of the updating was finished. All in all I give the place a 2.5 stars (out of five).