most awful hotel experience ever
By A Yahoo! Contributor, 10/17/07
I stayed 3 nights at this hotel just a few days ago (October 2007). This was by far the most awful hotel experience I have ever had - in fact, I have never really had a bad hotel experience before. Staff were generally rude and arrogant, and some even tried to cheat us out of our money when they saw the opportunity. Things were going wrong from the moment my colleagues and I checked in.
First of all, when I was given the key to my room, I found that the room was already occupied. I entered a room that had another guests' belongings; I could have taken anything I liked. It took three more trips downstairs to the reception to finally receive a key to a room that was available, but not cleaned. Throughout all of this we were treated with arrogance and disdain. My colleague went through a similar experience, and other people waited over 2 hours for their reserved rooms. One colleague who arrived late at night, was, also after having been kept waiting for two hours, put in a tiny room on a camping bed, even though she had a reservation!
Next, we wanted to book a tour to the pyramids. One of the receptionists arranged a car for us and sold this service to us, including, he said, entrance tickets to the grounds of the pyramids. When we asked for a receipt, he told us 'we don't do receipts'. In the end it turned out the grounds were closed, because of a holiday. We were, however, allowed entrance on horse or camel back, for a large amount of money of course. It is hard to believe that neither the receptionist, nor the taxi driver were aware of the fact that the pyramids were not open for visitors on this holiday, which was the end of Ramadan. It became clear to us why the receptionist had refused to give us a receipt, since he was obviously cheating us.
The next few days were mishap after mishap, culminating in the check-out procedure, where all of us, and other colleagues, had numerous items from the mini-bar on their bills, even though none of us had touched it. I was also billed for a phone call I never made, since I was at my conference when it was made. I was made out to be a liar, and was refused my money back after I realized the mistake they had made. When I complained, I was again treated with the greatest disrespect by all the staff at the reception.
Many guests may not be aware of the fact that this hotel no longer is part of the Movenpick chain - for obvious reasons. Still, the Movenpick logo is still seen at several places in the hotel. Le Passage is trying to profit from Movenpick's excellent reputation, but comes nowhere near their standards.
Traveler, be warned!!! This is a place you want to avoid!