Rude Customer Service; inaccurate reservations.
By A Yahoo! Contributor, 3/5/11
We booked online and mentioned in the beginnging of the notes for our reservation that we would have our dog with us. Four hours after checking in, we went to bring our dog up to the room and the front desk told me, "oh, we didn't know you had a dog."
I was never asked at check-in if I had a pet, and it was right on my reservation, so I was upset that we were not informed immediately about the $20 a night NON-REFUNDABLE pet fee.
We were in town for an Administrative Hearing for the State of Alaska, and after the Hearing we placed a DO NOT DISTURB on our door, and I was in the shower and my wife was trying to take care of our 11 month old when housekeeping decided to knock on the door!
They didnt call first, which would have been polite, instead they knocked at about 11am (which isnt even check-out time, and we were already scheduled to be a stayover anyways.) Apparently DO NOT DISTURB at the Super 8 means DO DISTURB.
They said they had to vacumm the room because the dog was in the room, but the dog wasnt even in the room at the time as I took her back out late at night and let her sleep outside the first night because I was upset over the unannounced non-refundable pet fee. Then the customer service......at one point my wife asked Melissa, the front desk supervisor, if she could get some change. Melissa said nothing, just opened her till and began rudely slapping the dollar bills on the counter like it was an inconvienence for her. She never even replied when my wife said thank you for the change.
She then, got on her cell phone and called someone and started arguing with them about, "where are you," and "I need a cigarette NOW!" I am not sure if she was upset that we had a pet, or that we were staying in a room that pets were not supposed to be in, but her conversation seemed to imply that her stress was OUR FAULT!!
The second night of staying I got the ill-pleasure to ride the elevator with Melissa while she was "simply floored" because the woman she "got hired" was doing something wrong with the company van. I am not sure why she feels the need to complain about her own front desk staff to a hotel guest.
Here is my side, I have been in the hotel and government industry for ten years. My wife, 11 months son, black lab, and I came all the way up from Soldotna with ALL INTENTIONS to stay at the Super 8 because the rooms are AMAZINGLY CLEAN, and during my two years as the night auditor and night manager of the Red Roof Inn I cooperated with the Super 8 and other local hotels quite often to warn them about troublesome guests that could be on the way to their hotel.
At check-out I was honest with the front desk about using the room safe, and the woman behind the desk seemed ASTONISHED, as apparently "no one ever" admits to using the safe because its an extra $1.50 a day and there is no way for housekeeping to be sure that you actually used it. Since she was the nicest one we had encountered during our stay, I chose to not bring up the pet fee or the rudeness of Melissa.
Also, upon finally realizing that we had our dog, the night shift crew got upset with themselves because the hotel books say "NO DOGS in room 308" and that was the room they checked us into. So for a moment they wanted to move us out of the room and into a new room, but I politely explained that this wasn't possible as I had already unpacked two full suitcases and our son fell asleep early, so they were actaully NICE at that point by not moving us into a different room.
We were never informed of the continental breakfast. I think what upset us the most was the inability of the staff to accurately make our reservation for the right room, and being disturbed only minutes after returning to our room following a stressful Administrative Hearing when we CLEARLY had the DO NO DISTURB sign displayed. Also, last but not least, the wireless quit working the second night were we staying, and the front desk did NOTHING to help us fix the issue.