"Having worked in hotels when I was in University and having traveled for business and staying in incredible hotels, I am very conflicted about this review. First I will state upfront, I used Hilton points to stay at this SLH. Pls note, to stay for a few nights involves a large number of hard earned points. We were finishing a 3 week Italian visit in Milan and choose the hotel for the location as we were only staying 2 nights. The location is perfect if you are looking to be within walking diatance of key historical and religious sites. If you are looking for quiet, this is not the place to stay. You walk out of the hotel into the electric atmosphere of the historic Galleria. Go the the Galleria early in the morning when you can appreciate its beauty in the quiet of the morning because the afternoon becomes very busy. The hotel itaself is staffed with people who are extremely polite but one gets the distinct feeling they are handicapped by the management of the hotel. When we arrived by taxi, even though we arrived first, the doorman jumped to help a couple who arrived by Mercedes after us. He then hurried to assist us, and in his haste to control our hand luggage, a one of a kind hand made artsian ceramic platter ( we had purchased the day before for over 250 Euros), was dropped on the ground...I could hear it break. When we got to the front desk, I relayed to reception what had happened (very calmly) and they could see our distress( as we did not know the extent of the damage yet) and said they would have the customer experience manager speak with us. The customer service manager helped us unwrap the platter and we all saw it was broken into several pieces. He said he would talk to his management and see what the hotel could do to fix the situation. The options presented to us by the hotel, were quite insufficient and since we booked on points, there was nothing to be done. ( They did offer dinner at the hotel or an experience at the hotel but since we were only in Milan for 2 days our time had been accounted for already. I do believe the customer service rep would have reimbursed us for the platter but management seems to be less customer centric.
The management at the hotel doesn't seem to pay attention to details in its quest to be trendy.
They used Whatapp to communicate and much of it is automatic communication which does them no favors. Their systems offered 6 upgrade options when the majority were not available. What is the point? When I asked the AI why, an agent explained it was automatic and apologized for the confusion. I told them I would be interested in the one room upgrade available ( which was noted at 50 euros a night).
When we checked in the reception desk said we had been given a complimentary upgrade ( which I didn't question since I am Hilton Gold) At check out the charge was mentioned. After a simple discussion, he agreed to waive the upgrade charge. This was also a good gesture as during our stay, all night construction and drilling was occurring in the Galleria in preparation for fashion week . None of this was mentioned during our check in process. The morning buffet was ok but all of the hot offerings were luke warm at best and the weakest of all the hotels we visited.
I have stayed at many SLH and have enjoyed them all. While the staff was very kind at the Galleria Vik, I feel somehow they are hampered by their quest to be trendy and management's lack of attention to detail. Not the 5 star experience, we were expecting."
