Hotel issues

Parent Cafe
1

As you might know if you read the wedding thread, our DDs wedding was Sunday, and it’s was great.

I wish I could say the same for the hotel room staff. We did have two receptions there…a welcome party, and a brunch. Those were fine but were handled by their events person who was fine.

The rooms…ack! I am trying to figure out the best way to deal with them. In our area, this hotel is viewed as a higher end place that also has been around with a good reputation for a long time. This is why we chose them. It is also right across the street from our wedding venue.

We did not have our wedding in the hotel.

I already have a written complaint sent to the event person who actually did our room block. She did not do the actual reservations,

Here are the issues.

  1. Several people had check in issues. They were supposed to have rooms adjacent to one another (families) and somehow, that didn’t happen...despite the reservations being made with the request I’ve received six months ago.
  2. I reserved and paid for four rooms for the night before the wedding for the bridal party and myself....because we figured it would be more convenient and we could get a little extra sleep by being just across the street from the venue. Well...

My daughters room was right above the ballroom where a wedding was taking place that night. DD went to the desk to ask when the event was ending…as the floors were vibrating from the DJ music. The desk staff was less than helpful…basically brushed her off. She asked if they had earplugs. Nope. Luckily my sister in law was there…and she did have earplugs. But come on. Why wasn’t that room assigned to someone from THAT wedding event?

My room was overlooking…like one floor up…from the patio outside of the bar. I can tell you…the the wedding ended at 11:30 because that’s when the group all headed out to the patio where they continued their celebration until 2 a.m. I understand that is within the OK of the venue…but again…why was I put in that room? Frankly, that one should be an office. I could have contributed to the conversations of the folks on that patio…they were that loud.

  1. The hotel was full. But at 3:30 pm housekeeping had still not been to my room. I needed shampoo and conditioner for that evening so had to find a housekeeping person to get those. She very nicely gave them to me, and did come in and straighten out my bed.
  2. My sister in law got a kick out of the chocolates that were placed on her pillow. The housekeeping staff didn’t make any effort at all to even straighten out her bed, or remove the towels from the bathroom floor...but they put chocolates on her pillow.

I should add…I didn’t have chocolates either of the two nights.

We chose the more expensive room option because we figured those would be the more comfortable and quiet rooms. Um…no.

We also paid for the bridal suite the night of the wedding. We specifically asked for the third floor, and on our reservation sheet, that is what we had. BUT…they must have put the bride having her wedding there in the third floor suite…because my DD and SIL were on the second floor…and were awakened at 6 a.m. by the laundry truck which pulled in right under their window.

My letter has been forwarded to the general manager of the hotel. I actually want to speak to him. So far, the desk person when I checked out gave me a $20 credit for the two nights of my room. TBH, I don’t think I should be paying for,the first night at all. They haven’t said anything about DD’s lack of sleep room.

Am I being unreasonable? When I make a hotel reservation it’s because I need a place to SLEEP. Right? Why would you put someone in a room above the ballroom where a wedding is taking place, or above a patio that is going to be open until 2 a.m.

Your thoughts?

2

I think the groups who requested to be near each other are probably out of luck. If there was another wedding in the hotel, they all probably wanted to be next to each other too. Some were probably staying Wed to Sunday, others Friday to Monday. It’s hard to get everyone exactly what is requested, and the not being near another room is the lesser of the evils.

The noisy rooms? You can complain. They were full and someone is going to have those noisy rooms. It may be that they assign those last, and since they had the other wedding there checking in earlier in the week, those rooms were the only ones available.

3

It sounds like the hotel was very full and understaffed, at least in housekeeping.

Did you call the front desk about the people on the patio? I’ve found hotels to be responsive if I complain about noise from other guests.

The 6 am laundry truck would not bother me as much. If it woke them up on the second floor, it would probably wake them up on the 3rd floor.

Hotels can’t guarantee adjoining or adjacent rooms.

I don’t think you’re unreasonable about your dissatisfaction about your room placement or the noise levels. Even if you got a refund, though, it’s not going to make up for the lack of sleep that your daughter and you experienced. I’d be writing an online review.

4

If you’re after a partial refund, you’re best bet is to complain via BBB. I did that once with a hotel and with a rental car company. A bit of hassle but I did get a partial refund from the hotel and a full refund from a car company. Needless to say and without getting into the disgusting details, I’d never use either companies for the rest of my life.

5

You should wait to see if/how your concerns are handled by the GM. If you are not pleased, post a review on Tripadvisor, being complimentary about what should be complimented & not so complimentary about the stuff you didn’t like. I have noticed that hotels seem to dislike negative Tripadvisor reviews very much.

6

@twoinanddone

We blocked our room block in March 2017. I know for a fact that the hotel had NO other events booked at that time. Zero. Because I specifically asked. Some of these folks, including me, booked our rooms immediately when the room block was created. Sorry…but the hotel being full happened LONG after these folks booked their rooms. LONG after.

Oh…and when the rooms were booked asking for adjacent rooms, the hotel DID guarantee that would happen…and then didn’t.

7

@thumper1, I’m so sorry these issues intruded on what sounded like an amazing wedding weekend. We, too, had issues with the hotel where we blocked rooms and I did complain, post-event, to the manager. I can’t remember what the resolution was but I remember receiving an appropriate apology and some recompense for the issues. It didn’t help the fact that those issues intruded on the enjoyment of my guests, but i would say it was handled well by the hotel. Have you included your event planner in your communications? If she is affiliated with the hotel, perhaps she will have more sway with the management. I hope you get the resolution you’re looking for, whatever that is.

8

@runnersmom I sent my complaint to the event planner at the hotel. She was the one who handled setting up our block of rooms over a year ago, and also did the reservations and food ordering etc…for the Welcome Reception and the Farewell Brunch…which were really great.

That event planner sent my complaint to the general manager.

Our wedding planner is not affiliated with this hotel…but it is a preferred vendor they recommend. I talked to her about it…and she was shocked.

9

Let me guess. Anything that was not in writing… the hotel will deny it was guaranteed. They probably decided that between the two wedding parties, the one that was giving them more revenue would get preferential treatment. Not Ok!

10

@BunsenBurner we have the preference for adjacent rooms…in writing. I also have all of the monthly updates with room assignment. They were changed sometime between the April update and May 26.

This hotel is a preferred vendor recommended by our wedding venue.

If the general manager has the gall to tell me they gave preference to the folks having a wedding there, believe me, I will put that in my review.

But really…the folks AT that wedding wouldn’t have cared at all about the noise. They were making that noise. It would not have kept them awake at all. They should have been assigned to those rooms.

Like I said…most expensive rooms in the place, and you can’t sleep? What’s wrong with that picture.

11

You can reserve a year out, but unless you booked the entire hotel, or a good portion of it, they are going to make promises to get the rest of the hotel, and the reception rooms, booked too. If you booked 20 rooms of a 100 room hotel and the other wedding booked 50 rooms, they are going to promise them the moon too. In your case, I think the holiday weekend and the other wedding caused checking-in/out issues as the other guests were ‘established’ earlier in the week and there may not have been guests checking out of adjoining rooms on Friday.

I do think you should bring it to their attention as you are local and when someone asks for a recommendation for a venue, you aren’t going to say nice things about this place, and your wedding coordinator may not recommend it to people who do it backward from you (who get the coordinator first and the coordinator helps them find a venue).

I do get frustrated with hotels where the desk people can’t seem to figure out a different arrangement of simply moving one room. I’m a puzzle person, so can look at the big picture and make 3 moves to make it all work. I find most desk clerks don’t have that ability. I really hate when they argue about a parking charge or something that is easy to waive.

12

I’m not sure there is much you can do. You can always request certain rooms but the hotel is not obligated to meet your request. Many times, rooms are assigned by which room housekeeping has cleaned first.

I would suggest TripAdvisor, since I know for sure hotel management checks those reviews. I also find Twitter gets the most prompt response. Businesses HATE it, when you tweet something bad about them.

13

I think things get lax when there are blocks of rooms for any event. Perhaps they think groups of (often) drunken guests won’t be aware enough to complain. I remember attending a wedding where there weren’t enough towels, and the hotel couldn’t seem to do anything about it.

I definitely would be contacting TripAdvisor and Yelp and Google reviews if you are not happy after speaking with the general manager. There is a lot of power in social media!

14

I am sorry that it caused a problem for you. But there was probably a problem with scheduling of rooms and whoever was there first PHYSICALLY realistically took precedence over time of reservation especially if the hotel was totally booked… Especially if their wedding venue was at the hotel. They can’t hold rooms back. It’s still a business. They still had rooms to cover your party, right?

The hotel’s first order of business is to fill rooms to the max. It’s a balance. They can’t really guarantee specific rooms–the most they do is TRY to accommodate you – how would you feel if you showed up, got a room and then be told you had to move this afternoon because someone else reserved the room a year ago just so they could be next to someone else? Would you have paid for extra days just for holding a specific room (which would be an option)?

I’m not downplaying your disappointment in the accommodations in the least. I’d be upset too. We all want everything PERFECT when we schedule everything (especially weddings!) and then it doesn’t work out to all our expectations.
But. don’t let the glitches spoil the memory. Better to let it go and bask in the afterglow of a great event.

About sleeping (and needing sleep) at the hotel for wedding events–um… I’ll disagree to some extent. .The young and old(er) guests (including bride and groom) I encountered at son’s recent wedding–never slept. All they did was party!

Hoping it was a total blast!

15

The hotel general manager just wrote me…and is fully refunding the costs of both my room, and my daughter’s room for the night of noise and poor sleep. His letter was very nice, and he agreed that this was poorly managed from a reservations point of view.

As a point…this is not a chain hotel. It is one hotel privately owned.

I’m satisfied with the resolution.

I will write a review, and basically highlight the positives…

16

So glad you got a good response. I does not change the experience but at least you were heard and respected.

I am learning that if I really want something confirmed that I need to contact the general manager either through email or a phone call. I also get names of staff both at hotels and restaurants and tell them that I will mention them in my review on TripAdvisor. I make sure I follow through. We just returned from a trip and I have 5 names including the General Manager of the hotel who I met, had a few nice conversations and made one request and one complaint which he promptly fixed. I have the Valet’s name who was fun to get restaurant information from and was always pleasant, and so on. When someone does great job they should be acknowledged. When someone fails to perform and it has affected a customer significantly it should also be noted.

So happy to know that the wedding was a success! Congrats to you and yours.

17

First, congratulations to you and your H and the bride and groom!

Glad you got just compensation from the hotel.

We just stayed at the W in SF for a wedding and even though my room was on the 17th floor, I could hear the pounding of the music from the bar on the first floor! Kept me up until 2am. Also, when my mom ran the bath in the adjacent room the pipes reverberated and made a huge racket that I can only describe as shrieking.

I also thought the rooms were on the shabby side and they are $500/night rooms (though we got the wedding group discount.) I’ll never stay at another W.

18

“I will write a review, and basically highlight the positives…”

If it was me, I’d either write a review and be honest about the problems but mention any positives including the GM working with you after the fact in a reasonable manner, or I would skip the review entirely. What I would not do is write just a positive review because I think that would mislead future guests by making them unaware of the issue. Although you got your money back, I’m sure you wish you hadn’t experienced any of the shortcomings to began with and would have liked to know any issues ahead of time from prior guests.

19

It sounds like as good a resolution as you could hope for. It doesn’t change what happened, but you were compensated for the inconvenience & hopefully it will keep others from having similar experiences in the future.

20

No matter how much of refund they give you, it is not going to make up for the unpleasant stay. If it is important to me, I would usually try to manage it before hand. I would have called the manager or the front desk before my stay. If I paid for a bridal suite I would check it out before I moved in. I recently went to a friend’s daughter wedding. I read up on the hotel and knew they had a newly renovated section. When I checked in I asked to get one of those rooms. I also noticed they had other wedding events at the hotel so I asked the front desk to put me in a quieter section. My friend also mentioned they allowed pets in the hotel. I told the front desk not to put me anywhere near those rooms. My rule of thumb (after many business trips), no where near an elevator, stairs, ice machine, not face the street, and at upper level.

No, I wouldn’t give them a positive review even they gave me a full refund. They could never give me back the time I lost, especially if it’s my daughter’s wedding.