taliward
Google
The most disappointing hotel experience we have ever had. I work in the travel industry and I stay in and visit a lot of hotels for business and pleasure. You only have to look at my history of reviews to see that I am very fair and reasonable with them. This is probably the most dirty hotel I have stayed in and the customer service from the manager is poor. I am so sad to have to write this as I love my industry and I love to support more independent businesses, especially those that champion sustainability. However, I have no choice but to share what we encountered to help those making a decision on whether to stay or not. I hope that our stay was the absolute exception and that lessons have been learned so that guests and staff have a much more positive experience.|||| ||||This was meant to be our last stay on our 2 week Italian road trip and we were so excited for this part of the trip. It definitely wasn’t the cheapest of stays but it was designed to be 3 days of relaxation and a nice way to end our trip. On booking we had a choice between a hotel room and a luxury tent, both were the same price and so we opted for glamping as there was air con and it looked a fun experience. We’ve glamped before in Thailand and Sri Lanka, but this looked far more luxurious and spacious.|||| ||||The hotel is very isolated and is up a very narrow, steep driveway accessed through gates. They do give you a key fob at check in to get back in. On check in, our luggage was taken to our tent by golf cart as it’s very steep. We were shocked to find the tent zipped up, with no air con on and no fan. The temperature outside was late 30s and inside was unbearably hot, bordering on unsafe. It would have been sensible to have put the air conditioning and fan on for at least an hour before check in time as it really was overwhelmingly hot and in some guests could cause serious illness. We didn't know there was a fan in the room until we trekked back to reception and we were told it was in the bathroom in a hidden cupboard. Again, at the very least we should have been told about the fan on arrival at the tent.|||| ||||When unpacking I placed some clothes into the green cupboard under the television. I continued unpacking and later wanted to put something else in there on the bottom shelf. To my horror, there was an infestation of ants in there and so I quickly removed my items and placed them on the sofa. These ants wouldn’t have just appeared and should have been picked up on cleaning. It felt a bit like our tent had been zipped up and unoccupied for some time.|||| ||||We reported both the extreme heat and ants to reception and asked to move to the hotel which we were told was not possible until the following day which we were not entirely happy about but accepted. We went to the pool and spent a couple of hours relaxing and decided to make the best of it. My husband went back to the room briefly to collect his book and bumped into the employee who we'd complained about the ants to. She seemed surprised by how many there were and she said she'd sprayed them, left the spray for us and admitted it was quite bad.|||||| ||The pool area is pleasant and relaxing with some amazing views. The pool is quite small and more of a plunge pool, not for swimming. I love the sustainable ethos of the pool and hotel and enjoyed the surrounding nature and even made friends with a beetle who shared my lounger for a bit!|||||| ||At just before 7pm we headed back to our room. I got ready to take a shower and my husband went to pour two glasses of wine. Unfortunately, the glasses were absolutely filthy. It looked as though someone had made coffee in them and left the residue in the bottom. Again, this involved another trek up the hill to reception. My husband spoke with the owner and said she looked horrified at the state of the glasses, apologised and gave him new ones. Again, I am really not sure how this was missed and it made me start to look at everything more closely.|||| ||||By the time he had returned, I'd stepped into and back out of the shower. The shower was not clean. This involved a further trek up the hill. By this stage I was totally fed up with the constant issues and treks up the hill! I was disappointed and angry and felt we were being charged a lot of money for something that had been mis-sold. When I complained about the cleanliness, the owner said that this was glamping. The glamping we’ve done in Sri Lanka and in Thailand was in far more basic tents and bathrooms but they were clean and with no infestations. We had all sorts of wildlife with us in those tents and this was no different but the cleanliness was absolutely unacceptable. I got the impression the owner was trying to tell me my expectations were unreasonable with it being glamping and so I tried to explain my expectations were fine as I'd done this several times before but she said she didn't care and actually said “I don’t care” which is not the right thing to say to a customer who is paying a lot of money and encountering basic cleanliness issues. This only added to my anger and frustration at the whole situation as to me, she really had no intention of making any changes. She kept on telling me how everyone loved the hotel and it got great reviews and she’d been doing this for 15 years. I just wonder when the last time the service, offering and value was evaluated. I do see hotels which start off doing things well and keep doing what they're doing without changing anything despite the passage of time, so what was once great is now more mediocre or is missing a few key improvements. And all because 95% people have a good time, you cannot ignore the 5% and pretend it’s not happening.|||| ||||As the owner of my own business, I make my customers my priority and take great care to make sure they're happy. Even if I don't always agree with some issues they raise about the services or experience they've had whilst on their holidays. Even if it's not my direct fault, I help as much as I can because customer service is the important thing and can turn everything around. Here, I didn't receive an apology even despite several members of staff agreeing with our complaints at the time, including the owner.|||| ||||By this stage I'd lost all confidence in the establishment. I didn't trust the room to be cleaned properly, and in any event this should have been done before our arrival. I asked for a cloth and spray and cleaned the bathroom myself. The shower head was filthy and didn't take much effort to remove the limescale. Once this was clean, I took a shower and the tray filled quickly and so I had to remove the plug which by this stage, unsurprisingly, I discovered was also dirty and clogged with hair. I continued to find more issues the closer I looked including cobwebs, animal or insect faeces, more ants, a dirty milk frother, specks of black on my pillow, unclean surfaces, a dusty hairdryer etc. We took lots of photos and videos. We stayed in a hostel earlier on our trip and that was spotless. There is zero excuse for a dirty room but the owner could have dealt with this in a far better way and turned everything around but instead, she didn’t want to listen and was almost adamant nothing was wrong despite being horrified earlier with the very dirty glasses.|||| ||||We had told the hotel we'd be down for dinner but I felt so uncomfortable by this point and so we left the property and ate out instead.|||| ||||I don't think either of us slept that well, not helped by the loud sprinklers that went off around 4:30am. Breakfast was mixed. I think it would be nice to have the option of having breakfast at the hotel instead. One of our juices was missing, and coffee came as a pod which we could have just made in our room. It was a nice touch to deliver the flowers however. Sadly there is no shade at the back where the view is, and so we ate at the front.|||| ||||On closer inspection, the room was far more dirty than initially thought and I was concerned about the standard of cleanliness throughout the hotel. Had the owner dealt with the situation professionally we may have stayed, but in the hotel room. However, she made us feel so uncomfortable that this option was not something we couldn’t consider. We felt we had no choice but to check out after one night. On checking out I did run through some of the issues again with a member of staff who smiled and nodded and then we later received an invoice for the 3 night stay. I wrote a letter of complaint that day stating that given our experience and our conversation, I would not have expected to have been charged the 3 nights and would have actually expected at least a partial refund on the first night. I had no response after 2 weeks and so I chased and received a very brief email which included, “I'm very sorry that you didn't have a good experience, we have 95% of positive reviews and it may happen that some customers decide to leave earlier than expected, but this remains the customer's decision.” Again, ignoring our experience which is not how you run a hotel and certainly not how you deal with complaints.|||| ||||This was meant to be 3 stress free days after a busy 11 night tour of Tuscany but it ended up being very stressful and we felt totally cheated. It could have ended very differently but it wasn’t to be
