The Mosaic Hotel in Beverly Hills

This week, I got invited on two incredible trips-of-a-lifetime.  And I received a call from a hotel that a guest had booked a room because they read about it on this blog!  I also spent three great days exploring L.A. and meeting old and new friends.

Back in February, I toured The Mosaic Hotel in Beverly Hills with the nice general manager and left thinking it was a charming boutique hotel in a great location.  But I never wrote anything until now, which will unfortunately be reporting on a bad experience. The room cost over $400 a night.

I've now stayed in hundreds of hotels and am not known as a complainer.  But I couldn't believe the generally indifferent and lazy service by most of the staff.

When we arrived, we were in a hurry to get to a dinner at Mr. C's and by the time we got back, we were exhausted. I noticed how flat the pillows were but it wasn't until the next morning that the kinks in our neck made us take a closer look.

Mosaic bedPicture cardboard pillows and when you take the pillowcase off, they are stained and look 25 years old. Leaving that morning, we passed an open room and noticed they had fluffy pillows.  How did we get stuck with paper-thin hard ones?  My boyfriend asked for new pillows and this is what he was told.

• "Oh yeah, you have to ask for the nicer pillows.  See, we are across the street from a back surgery center and a lot of our guests are patients & will stay here after surgery. They like those harder pillows." 

Why would they tell us that? Does my healthy, handsome boyfriend look like he just had back surgery and needed those pillows? It was a comically bad response that really made us laugh. 

LobbyHere's a pro-tip at this hotel: the front desk guy is also the valet. When you pull up to the front of the hotel, he's supposed to come out from behind the desk and park your car for you. That wasn't clear in the slightest. When the Mosaic lot was full and there wasn’t any Valet guy to be found, we parked our car at the parking lot next door.  We were then verbally reprimanded by the front desk guy (nowhere to be found earlier) for not allowing him to park it:

• "You what? You can't park there. Are you serious? You’re going to get towed and it’s a little sketchy. I'm the valet guy too. I was sitting right here.  Did you even pull up?”

A “sketchy” lot next door? Ok. The rest of our stay we just parked it ourselves and were charged for one night of parking.

I did fall on the bed laughing for a second time when the phone rang.  Instead of a normal ring, a loud, booming "ARE YOU THERE? ARE YOU THERE? ARE YOU THERE? ARE YOU THERE?" echoed throughout the room.  That was the ring!!

The hairdryer was also missing the front face so I could turn it on but not fix the controls. The Internet, while free, was extremely slow and I couldn't use it to work.

PoolThe hotel is within walking distance to Rodeo Drive & a Starbucks. Bulgari bath products were a nice touch and I did like the small pool area. But I can’t recommend the Mosaic.  So disappointing for such a great location!