A brief note about myself-I have been a Hospitality Professional for over 40 years-20+ in food and beverage and 20+ in hotel management. I have worked at or stayed in world-class hotels around the world and this is NOT one of them. These folks need to learn that fake marble and dark wood do not make a great hotel. What makes a great hotel? Smooth, seamless and generous service. You won't get it here.
A bullet point of the low points of my bewildering and frustrating 24-hour visit:
Food and Beverage: While seated at the VIP table for a luncheon banquet, I was forced to ask for a portion of the soup course, I then had to ask for butter for my roll, I then had to ask for a beverage and then to finish our meal off I had to ask for a cup of coffee. Again, all the while seated at the VIP table with high-ranking US government officials! My observation is that the waiters were too busy holding up the walls to really bother to serve anybody. Shameful.
Lobby Bar: a surly bartender (Rogelio) who doesn't even know how to make a Margarita! Totally tasted like pure sweet and sour (no tequila, no orange liqueur) and when I asked Rogelio for something else, Mr Antipatico stated, "that's how we make them here!" Also, we were celebrating a 57th birthday and the waitress offered the three of us a celebratory glass of Champagne which we accepted since I had declined the tasteless Margarita. In order to reciprocate their generosity, we ordered a second round which we really did not want. The bar bill arrives and we are charged for both rounds ($155 for 6 small stems of Moet??) which translates to 440 pesos for a 115 ml portion. Outrageous highway robbery in addition to the sleight of hand with the "complimentary round".
Room: I happily paid a 400-peso upcharge for a suite only to be awakened at 3:43am when my a/c had defaulted from the icy a/c in the room I programmed to Heater and it was 29 degrees celsius in my suite (middle of the night power outage at the pool and spa area, I was told later). Also, no clock next to the bed ("oh, housekeeping must have forgotten to place it back in the room") and, believe it or not, no coffeemaker in this "suite" ("oh, we get lots of complaints about this, but our owners won't let us put coffeemakers in our rooms"). Plus, no free internet-not even in the suite!
Upper Management: Prior to check out, I voiced my too long list of concerns to Marina and Guillermo in the concierge office. In light of the deficiencies encountered, Guillermo graciously offered a refund of the 400-peso suite upcharge which I accepted. When asked about the serious misunderstanding and outrageous expense of the bar debacle, Guillermo stated that there was nothing he could do about it. When I asked who DID have the power to resolve my Guest complaint, Guillermo called the Food and Beverage Director, Mauricio Salas, who came out from the back office, listened to my observations and then asked for a moment to go behind the scenes for some resolution options-only to NOT return ("oh, he had to go into a meeting"). Are you kidding me?
So, I asked to speak to the General Manager, who was "not available". I asked Guillermo to provide the GM's name, Gabriele Aru, and email address which he provided. After departing property, I looked at my "revised" folio only to find that the offered 400-peso refund for the suite upgrade had NOT been removed from my bill.
A very sad and disturbing side note regarding billing-4 out of the 7 of us travelling together had errors (in their favor, of course) on our folios!!
Upon returned home, I wrote a very detailed email to Mr. Aru, the General Manager, asking for him to call or reply by email. He assigned this chore to...Marina, the lovely young concierge who unfortunately didn't have the power to do anything. When asked what Mr. Aru had assigned her to do, she stated he wanted her to call me and apologize and ask when I would be coming back!!
I expressed to Marina that this did not satisfy me and that I expected to either speak with Mr. Aru OR preferably receive an email (paper trail) response to my detailed email. The next day, Mr Aru called me and insisted there was nothing else he could or would do. When pressed, he would not even authorize the previously proffered 400-peso suite refund!! I then asked for the contact information for his district or regional director and Mr. Aru assured me he would email the info later that day. All he said was, "Mr. Scott, you've got to respect my time" about 3-4 times and then proceeded to hang up on me!!! Not surprisingly, he never fulfilled his commitment to send the contact information.
Well, dear readers, this comedy of errors gets worse!!
I then went to the Quinta Real website and filed a complaint asking for some Corporate assistance. I waited 3-4 days and no response. So, I then filed a second Corporate complaint on their website and this time I attached a copy of the original, detailed email I had sent to Mr. Aru, t read more