I’ve truly never had such a ridiculous stay at a hotel.
The four of us showed up on Wednesday the 5th around 5:30 pm and we were exhausted. We’d been delayed a few hours because of plane reroutes so there was plenty of time to contact us ahead of time about any issues with our reservation. First, the hotel looks completely different than the pictures. The pictures all showed a bright red orange building. The entire hotel is gray. Completely gray.
Second, the room we booked was inaccessible due to the elevator being out (part has been backordered since April) and the room being on the third floor. That kinda stuff happens, so I was trying to be understanding. We were already later than we thought we’d be arriving and we didn’t really have any other choice than to stay there as it was already 6 pm and the kids were exhausted. They offered us a double queen room on the first floor rather than the king suite we booked. Ok, fine, whatever. The communication could’ve been better, but it’s fine. The room was clearly nothing like we’d reserved, but it also smelled like pot. We have two kids with us and they don’t know why it smells weird, but I’d rather they not have to smell like pot, especially when visiting family. The front desk person who checked us in was nice enough, but he kept saying things like they’d “adjust the charges” (I sure hope so when it’s a huge difference in price) and that if we went to another hotel, he “checked with his manager and there wouldn’t be a penalty” (uh, I’d hope not since the room we reserved wasn’t accessible to us??).
I have mobility issues, so climbing three flights multiple times a day wasn’t really what I was hoping for a vacation, but we decided to switch rooms Thursday morning to the original room we booked- they gave us new key cards for the new room. It was so last minute and I really didn’t have the energy to find another hotel that fit our needs and all the prices were sky high for last minute reservations.
We come back that evening, walking in with a ton of bags from a grocery trip, the woman at the front desk clearly sees us, but says nothing. We get all the way up to the third floor and our key doesn’t work. My partner goes down to the lobby and the front desk woman says they’d gotten a new security key card system that day. My partner tells her it would be nice to know that and she responds “there are signs up”.
Ok, great. She clearly saw us walk in. We were the only guests around. She didn’t think to say hello, obviously, but not even anything about the key cards? When you know people are having to hike up 3 flights of stairs to their rooms? We didn’t see any signs on our way to the room- but they probably blended in with the signs about both the elevator and atm being out of service.
Why were we not warned about the new security system the day before or that morning when we received our new cards for the room?
I was willing to over look the communication failures about the status of the elevator, but being rude about your hotel’s failures that further impact peoples stays is definitely a choice.
It’s also interesting that instead of providing actual customer service, that this hotel is depending on basic taped up signs everywhere (only in English, no other communication options for guests with disabilities, no emails, no calls).
The new room was fine except for the tiny ants around the moisture damaged windowsill. I woke up Friday morning with ants in the bed. Before leaving the room for the day, I sprayed OFF! all around that area to hopefully deter them. I didn’t bring it up to the hotel because their only response would either be to move us to another room which we didn’t know would even be available or without ants or to spray something and I’d rather not have unknown bug spray where I sleep.
I would seriously consider updating your photos to properly represent your hotel, attending some basic courses on customer service, improving your understanding of expectations for communicating with guests, and setting ant bait out in the third floor king suites.