Adequate Hotel Refund??

Tregaddra

Hi there,

Just after a bit of advice really.

We recently stayed at hotel attached to very well known children’s theme park. We prepaid a whopping £1041 for 2 nights, which included tickets into the park for 2 days (this was a deal if you stayed on site).

Whilst checking in, we overheard 2 members of staff talking about a foul smell in one of the bedrooms. Following check-in we went to our room - when we opened the door we were hit with an overwhelmingly strong smell off musty smoke / burnt rubber smell. Just as we entered our room, another member of staff appeared, who had been informed that there had been a bad smell reported in our room, and he had come to check it out. We absolutely could not contemplate staying in such a foul smelling room, so I went to reception to get our room changed. I was told that the hotel was fully booked, and that we had to stay in the assigned room. A member of Housekeeping, and two cleaners came to the room - all able to smell the problem, one of whom wondered (rather worryingly) if WE thought it might be an air conditioning fault!! However, when the Duty Manager came to experience the smell, she was defensive, and couldn’t smell anything although she did admit she had just eaten some strong chilli, and that may have affected her sense of smell. She did not offer a refund as we had prepaid.

Unfortunately one of our children felt sick the whole time we were in the room. My wife also felt sick for the two days we were there and was unable to sleep properly as she was worried that the smell was coming from the air conditioning unit. Little was done to make things better by the Duty Manager, except from offering us some aerosol which we had to decline on medical grounds.

We have since contacted Customer Service, and have been offered a 10% refund, and we feel this is inadequate. We feel that we should be offered at least a 50% refund as our holiday was ruined. We couldn’t contemplate moving hotels as we had prepaid so much. We never really complain about anything....but feel very wronged by this situation. Please help....what should we do next? Is 10% refund inadequate?

Leona

pinkshoes

Why would you stay for 2 nights in a room that made your child feel sick?!?!

Is this Lego Land? If so, did you ask about the other themed hotel on site? Or any of the other hotels in the area?

If it was bad enough for a 50% refund then you surely would not have stayed?? Perhaps negotiate 20%?

Tregaddra

Thank you Pinkshoes.

The other on-site Hotel was booked up. We posed the option of moving to an off-site hotel to our young children...and were met with tears as they wanted to stay. They had been sucked in by the reception decor / entertainment and characters walking around. Ordinarily we most definitely would have moved hotels.

I guess we were caught between a rock and a hard place.

But at the end of the day, you pay good money to stay in a good hotel, and we feel they didn’t keep their end of the bargain, so to speak.

Aylesbury_Duck

£1041 for two nights and park tickets! Wowee.

I think you'll have to negotiate given that you willingly put up with it, whereas you could have had a 100% refund had you walked away. I agree that 10% is a little mean, but I think your expectation of at least 50% off is disproportionate.

One thing you could ask for is a discount off a future stay. That might cost the hotel less than a cash refund and give you a 'discount' greater than the 10% offered already.

SHAFT

Aylesbury_Duck wrote: »

£1041 for two nights and park tickets! Wowee.

I think you'll have to negotiate given that you willingly put up with it, whereas you could have had a 100% refund had you walked away. I agree that 10% is a little mean, but I think your expectation of at least 50% off is disproportionate.

One thing you could ask for is a discount off a future stay. That might cost the hotel less than a cash refund and give you a 'discount' greater than the 10% offered already.

The time to negotiate was before accepting the room.

elsien

Tregaddra wrote: »

Thank you Pinkshoes.

The other on-site Hotel was booked up. We posed the option of moving to an off-site hotel to our young children...and were met with tears as they wanted to stay. They had been sucked in by the reception decor / entertainment and characters walking around. Ordinarily we most definitely would have moved hotels.

I guess we were caught between a rock and a hard place.

But at the end of the day, you pay good money to stay in a good hotel, and we feel they didn’t keep their end of the bargain, so to speak.

If you were so worried about the air conditioning, ill and unable to sleep, would that not have outweighed the children's tears, at least after the first night? Surely safety would take priority?
I don't think you can have it both ways. You can negotiate but given that the price also included the park tickets, other facilities, entertainment and possibly some food, you're not going to get 50% back.

pinkshoes

Tregaddra wrote: »

Thank you Pinkshoes.

The other on-site Hotel was booked up. We posed the option of moving to an off-site hotel to our young children...and were met with tears as they wanted to stay. They had been sucked in by the reception decor / entertainment and characters walking around. Ordinarily we most definitely would have moved hotels.

I guess we were caught between a rock and a hard place.

But at the end of the day, you pay good money to stay in a good hotel, and we feel they didn’t keep their end of the bargain, so to speak.

At over £1000 I'm afraid I would have told them it wasn't acceptable and insisted on a full refund, then rebooked another time.

(I am currently planning the same trip with my 3 kids, and yes, it is eye-watering expensive. We only live 1 hour away thankfully)

I would try negotiating more than 10%, but you cannot use the "making you ill" thing, as if was that bad you should not have stayed!!

Ps - did you stay in the castle hotel or resort hotel? Is the castle really worth the extra???

Jumblebumble

SHAFT wrote: »

The time to negotiate was before accepting the room.

Of course it is
Talking to some disinterested check Duty Manager who has no authority to do anything is going to be very fruitful (NOT)