TLDR: DO NOT BOOK HERE, it's a scam!
I know now why this hotel was so highly rated. There's a wheel at the front desk where you can spin and win free items, but only after you leave a 5 star review. This is done at check-in. People are encouraged to name the front desk reps in the 5 star reviews, and I heard "5 star review" probably 20 times while standing up there.
When you walk in the lobby, it looks clean and smells nice. This is the only positive thing that I have to note in this review. People came and went through the lobby, and no one looked happy. The staff looked semi-embarrassed, and the families coming through as well as anyone coming up to get something from the desk seemed to be having issues.
I want to start off and make sure that it is VERY clear that this is NOT a pet friendly hotel.
The check-in process is bizarre. I've been staying in hotels with pets for probably 30 years. Some years, I've spent up to 3 month out of the year in hotels. I've never been asked to scan a QR code with 20 minutes of reading material, their rules and regulations, before checking in. If you were to actually read this documentation before signing instead of scrolling through or just scanning, I would guess that it would an average American reader about 30 minutes to read through. I was encouraged to just scroll through and that it was "common sense stuff".
I don't scroll through something I'm signing. This stuff can be legally binding.
There were sections about dress code. The pet section stated that they don't allow pets, but that this is changing soon. There is a section stating that you must wear clothing and shoes on the way to and from the pool, as well as nothing "offensive" at any point in your stay. There is a section that states that there are no refunds, no exceptions. This should have been a red flag, but I honestly had no intention of cancelling at that point, because we'd already paid in full on the booking.com site, so I wasn't concerned.
At this point my opinion on the lobby décor changed from "strange and whimsical maximalism" to "collection of unrelated objects curated by a 14 year old Instagram influencer."
Mind you, I booked this room on booking.com after searching for pet friendly hotels. The pet policy wasn't visible, but the booking.com page stated that I should call the hotel directly to ask about pet fees, which I did. I called and was told that there was a pet fee of 50$ for the entire stay which was 3 days. I had already called a different hotel that didn't look as nice in the pictures and they had said that it was 50 $ a night, so I thought that 50$ for the whole stay sounded better, plus the Kompost hotel had a hot tub. The person on the phone did not state anything else about pet policy, just the price. When I told the front desk guy this, he assumed I was lying and asked me the name of the person who told me that. It was a month and a half ago, and I am a normal human who would not think that the name of a person who confirmed a pet policy would be something I needed to store in my brain.
So after pre-paying $350 for the hotel before arrival, and then $150 for incidentals which currently also seems to be non-refundable, I was finally shown the pet policy, which states that you can never leave your pet in the room alone for any reason, and that there was a $200 fine for doing so, as well as you being kicked out of the hotel.
At this point, I say "there's a problem. We can't stay here because of this policy here which I should have been made aware of on the booking.com site, or when I called."
I was told that there was nothing I could do, that I needed to take it up with booking.com.
After maybe 2 hours of trying to get someone human on the phone from booking.com, and then 30 minutes explaining to someone on the phone through a clear language barrier exactly what the issue was, I was finally told that there was nothing he could do because the hotel has a no cancellation policy. My boyfriend, who had really been looking forward to this trip as a romantic getaway, actually said, "then get us the manager, or someone who can." He did not, but he put us on hold for a few minutes and came back and stated that he is sending a request to the hotel for an exception, and that I should go inside and ask them to respond to it.
I went inside and was told that there was nothing that they could do. They suggested that I leave my dog at the pet resort next door. It was 5:30 and my vet was closed so I could not get shot records. I did not bring them, as I didn't expect to need them. Besides that, we didn't budget for that. I reiterated to the front desk folks that this is information that should be provided to customers BEFORE BOOKING, not at check-in. If I had known about this policy, we would have booked somewhere else. Witholding that information from potential customers and allowing them to pre-pay, but having them sign this weird 112 phone pages (not exaggerating, I read more