Stacy T.
Yelp
I booked a tiny little cabin through booking.com. According to the booking info, I would pay half up front and the other half upon arrival. I booked cabin #23. But when I went to their website, it had pictures of almost every cabin EXCEPT that one. I did some digging and found a few pics online. It was tiny, basically just a bed and a bathroom, but that's all we needed.
I paid for half the room with my debit card. A day or two later, another charge appeared for a similar amount. I called booking.com and they told me to call the property. I spoke with a woman who was so defensive, she was more concerned about explaining the 'extra charges' (linen-which I wasn't even questioning) than she was about listening to my problem-that I had been charged twice! She copped an attitude when she realized it was a 'booking.com' reservation and proceeded to complain to me about how it costs them money to take booking.com reservations. Ok, first of all-not my problem. And it's completely inappropriate to tell me that; and second of all-guess what? That's the cost of doing business! No one is making you use booking.com.
I ended up calling booking.com back and got the charges squared away. While I was on the phone with booking.com, I mentioned that their site advertised that this cabin had a kitchenette, when it actually only had a small fridge and a microwave. I told her that it wasn't a problem for us, but that it might be a little misleading to some. She told me she would make a note of it. A few days later, I got a text from the property telling me to "please look up kitchenette" with a link to the Wikipedia page. Are you kidding me? What are you, five? Even if I was wrong (I'm still holding my ground and saying that a kitchenette is more than just a microwave), that is entirely inappropriate.
Flash forward to 2 days before we are supposed to check in. I get an email saying my reservation has been cancelled due to my credit card being declined. What??? Ok, 1. There was no way my card was declined, because it was my debit card and I had more than enough money in my account to cover the balance of 80-some odd dollars; 2. Why was I even being charged? I thought the balance was due at check in? 3. If you are going to cancel someone's reservation for this reason, wouldn't you at least call them and ask them for another form of payment instead of just cancelling the reservation (that was booked over a month ago and already half paid for) without their knowledge??? That doesn't even make sense!
So I called the property and the man I spoke with did seem concerned and said that he was going to look into it and get back to me. I even SPECIFICALLY asked him, will someone call me back on this number? He said yes, because we need to take care of this right away. So, I wait. And wait. No call. No text. No email. The next morning, I emailed them back asking the status of my reservation, and told them that I thought I was going to be contacted ASAP. The email response was 'sorry-we only had your booking.com email.' Really? Then why did the man I spoke with last night tell me someone would CALL me back? Still no explanation as to why my reservation had been cancelled. Anyway, they ended up 'upgrading' us to a bigger cabin with king size bed. Ok, I can deal with that. Except it's upstairs. Oh no.
Upon arrival, although the gentleman checking us in was not outright rude, he could not have cared less about us. He offered no map, no lay of the land-didn't even tell us where to dump our trash. He clearly did not want to be bothered.
After 30 minutes of lugging all our gear UPSTAIRS (a huge inconvenience, and NOT what we originally booked), we finally settled into the room-which was gross. A rustic cabin is one thing-but this was a run-down, poorly kept, dirty mess. Outside the cabin were old tires/machine parts/junkyard stuff-all out in plain sight. It looked like a junkyard. But inside was even worse. Two of the 3 lightbulbs in the 'chandelier' were out, there were dirty Styrofoam cups mixed in with the clean ones, no trash barrel in the room, the screen in the bathroom window had been cut out, the soap dispenser leaked, the makeshift bed (although a king) was a mattress on top of two stands of some kind, with the headboard nailed to the wall (not securely btw, so every time you moved, you took the headboard with you), the floor was filthy (I very quickly figured that out after taking off my shoes-gross), the 'clean linens' they provided were just tossed on the bed (really-they don't even make the bed, just leave you the sheets?), and the pillow cases were disgusting-stained and with OTHER PEOPLE'S HAIR ON THEM! They had clearly not been changed from the previous guests. But the worst part was that they left out a 'Housekeeping tip envelope.' Seriously? This room looked like it hadn't been cleaned in months!
Next time I'll stay someplace where they take pride in their property and appreciate their guest's patronage.