First of all, my kitty is fine, and I do think he was fine most of the time he was at the Cat Hotel. They gave him his food and his medication and he survived the ordeal. For me, however, my peace of mind was really wrecked during my time away from my pet and after my experience with the people at Cat Hotels I would not consider working with them again. Even though, again, I think my cat did fine and didn't suffer any trauma with them, I really left there lacking confidence in their ability to do their job. They were overwhelmed by kitties. I paid extra money for a stay during the holidays - so they should've hired extra staff - but I didn't get the feeling that my extra fees were helping them run the business any more smoothly over the busy holidays. Here's what happened: First, my kitty was put in a room with a web cam where I could see him. The first couple of days I could check on him, see him just sitting there, or sleeping, or looking out the window, or whatever, so that was fine. Then, I got an email saying that they were a bit concerned about him because he wasn't eating his food. Was he usually like that, and what did I do to get him to eat? Well, he's not usually like that, he's usually ravenous and snarfs up whatever we give him, but I thought he might have a period of adjustment to being in a new place, so he was probably just stressed out. But, when I went to check on him again with the web cam - he was no longer there. I wrote them an email responding to their "he's not eating" email and I NEVER GOT A RESPONSE. Now you can imagine how upset I'm starting to get because first I hear he's not eating and then I can't see him anymore! I tried opening all the different web cams in the place but some of them I was unable to log on to and they have so many web cams that I eventually had to give up trying. It was heartbreaking to not be able to see him any more and not hear back from them how he was doing. Finally after 3 whole days - what seemed like an eternity for this worried pet parent - they wrote me back and said he was moved to a different room and they gave me the link to that web cam. Nothing about the food or how he was doing or anything. So, at least I was able to see him again, and I could tell he was surviving.
Later, I got an email of apology about not telling me that they had moved him and not following up on the questions about his food. The guy who wrote me the email admitted that they should've been more on the ball in answering my email, oh, and a voice mail I had left, too! But I let it go and just reassured myself that I'd be collecting my cat soon. When we went to pick him up after the holidays were over, it took forever to get us checked out of there. No one seemed in charge; none of the people who had written me emails or checked me in at the beginning were there. I saw my kitty and he was fine, but I needed to collect his pet bed and his medications. They looked all over for his pet bed but couldn't find it. It was supposed to be in his cubicle with him, but it turned out it was in some other cat's cubicle!! And then, no one thought to give me the rest of his meds back, even though we had more than half of a bottle left and each bottle costs $35.00. I don't think they did anything maliciously, I think they were very overwhelmed and disorganized. It seemed like one of those situations where so many little mistakes could've possibly added up to one big mistake, and I will not be trusting them with my kitty again. read more