James Siminoff

Best Hotel Ever- Shutters Santa Monica

I am very fortunate that I have been able to stay in a lot of great hotels over the last few years.  I am a pretty easy person, it would take a lot for me to complain about anything, so I basically like them all.

I find that most great hotels, FourSeasons, Ritz, Mandarin, etc.,  are pretty much the same, great service, great rooms and great food.  Which is why it would be tough for me to pick a favorite, I like them all.

However I just spent a few nights at Shutters in Santa Monica and 2 little things that they do there have now made it my favorite hotel.

The first is the way that they survey their customers.  At almost every 5 star hotel I have been to they have the little survey/comment card thing on the desk to fill out.  I find customer surveying in that way offensive, call it a pet peeve, I just hate it.  So I was blown away to see that the comment card at Shutters is a blank piece of paper with a self addressed envelope to the CEO of the company that owns it.  Bravo!

The second thing is there embracing of technology.  They have began to integrate (not everything works yet) to a service called Runtriz (pretty bad name) that allows you to basically control lots of hotel/concierge functions from your iPhone or computer.  Right now I would still probably use the phone for everything but I like the fact that they are aggressively trying to incorporate technology to enhance your stay.