Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows

My husband and I booked the Fairmont about a year before our wedding, which was on 5/31/08.

Let me begin with the actual wedding. The wedding day was flawless (or at least we didn't know of any flaws). The banquet staff was professional, had the timing down impeccably and really impressed our guests. Our room was a beautiful ocean view suite which we really enjoyed for our two nights, and was decorated beautifully the night of our wedding.

Getting to this point was a battle.

We dealt with 4 catering managers in time we had booked and paid our deposit for the hotel to the wedding day. Every time one manager left, we didn't know about it until we received an "out of office" e-mail saying the manager no longer worked there. No follow up from the staff, no one saying that so-and-so would be handling our wedding. Every time we dealt with someone new, we found out about new details that either had not been handled, or written in our file (actually, our file was lost at one period). For a few months, we tore our hair out trying to figure out how a supposedly luxury hotel was running more poorly than a Motel 6. The last straw is when we called to confirm our tasting, another manager had left and the tasting wasn't even booked with the banquet team. GRRR. Finally, a new catering director sat down with us, went over every detail and was the final one who pulled off a great wedding.

There was a lot of talk about there being turnover since the Fairmont took over. I completely understand that, but there were multiple times that my husband (then fiance) and I felt like we should be paid a salary by the Fairmont for doing their job.

Hopefully they have it together now and can execute flawless customer service and attention BEFORE the event in addition to the day of. I only give the Fairmont 4 stars because our day of staff was amazing, and in the end it was a incredibly memorable day.

Moral of the story: luxury hotel doesn't mean your work is done when you hand over a deposit.