Sorry its so lengthy, but EVERYONE needs to read this!!!
Back in October 2015, I booked two rooms for our family vacation July 7th to July 10th. My husband, myself and our two children (4 & 6 years old) would be staying in a room with two queen beds, and my brother in law, his wife an their 9 month old son would have a room with one king sized bed. We are from the mid-west and were coming to California to visit Yosemite and the surrounding area. None of us have even been outside of our state of Nebraska, so this was a big deal to us. We flew into San Francisco the day before we were to head up to Sonora, we wanted to see the ocean and stay one night on the coast. After checking into our room that first night, I phoned the hotel to confirm our rooms again. The woman I spoke with said that she couldnt find our reservation, that our names were not in the computer as having two rooms for the next three nights. I told her that I have both e-mail confirmations in my hand, showing that we paid a $50 deposit per room and I had confirmed them by phone as well, around the first week of May.That seemed to trigger something with her. She was able to search for our names in a different way apparrantly and found that our reservations had been cancelled June 29th. I was beside myself. I told her in no uncertain terms were the reservation cancelled by us. She said she knew that WE were not the one who had cancelled them, but that the "NEW OWNERS" had! She then proceeds to be quite candid with me and explains the reason why. I was informed that the NEW OWNERS had just taken over the hotel around the end of May, and the first thing they did was to increase the room rates by $40 - $50 per room. I thought, "well thats their perogative if they chose to do so, but I booked our rooms well before they had taken over running the place". Well, unbeknownst to me that the dates that I chose for vacation are an extremely busy weekend for the area, due to it being the weekend following fourth of July, they have concerts going on in a nearby town, as well as the annual "Motherlode Fair", which was basically right up the street. They had been turning people away for weeks who had been looking for lodging in the area, since everyone seemed to be sold out. Seeing a money making opportunity apparantly, they were not satisfied with receiving our paltry $130 plus tax, per room, per night, when they could get paid far more per room from people who had waited until the last minute to make plans, and basically sell OUR rooms to the highest bidder. I was then told that there was a room still available, for the next night only, it had ONE queen bed, and it was an extremely small room, the smallest room they have, with barely enough room to walk around the bed, and that it was $179 plus tax. I asked what price that room usually was and she said It used to be an $89 room. I could not believe what I was hearing. Not only did we not have a place to stay, ANYWHERE near Yosemite, but this employee of theirs fesses up as to why, and basically throws her NEW EMPLOYERS under the bus and claims that they are, and I quote, "GREEDY FOREIGNERS"! I was beyond hysterical. Needless to say, we didnt get to see Yosemite, we were able to make the best of a "horrific" situation. We decided to stay on the coast, making our way further south each day, hitting Monterey, Carmel, Big Sur, went to Hearst Castle, even went as far down as Pismo Beach. All thanks to the suggestions of a very kind local of a town called "Princeton by the Sea", who overheard us in distress. But dont think for a second that those new owners, Gary and Janet, are off the hook. I intend to reap some form of compensation from them, they will be hearing from us again, when there is a civil suit filed, and the Better Business Bureau contacts them. You cant just do that to people. Im sorry if this in any way gets tne front desk girl, Tressa (?) in hot water, but she is just as culpable in the matter and her admission of the facts will be used in our complaint. She should be embarrassed to be working for such unethical people. read more