Darryl G.
Yelp
I booked a 3 day stay here with my wife as a much needed getaway that was supposed to be relaxing and worry free but it turned into a nightmare before we even arrived.
Right after I booked, I began getting inundated with redundant emails requesting the exact same information I had already provided at the time of booking. I called the front desk and was unable to reach them so I left a message.
A couple of days passed and nobody had followed up so I called again with the same results so I emailed them and called again a couple of days later and finally reached someone.
At this time, I tried to make a reservations at the restaurant but I was notified that the restaurant would be closed during our stay which was disappointing to say the least. They responded by upgrading us to a villa which has a fully equipped kitchenette. So I though, "No biggie, it's not ideal but that'll work", and we accepted the upgrade.
At that time, I also booked a couples massage with my wife at 3:00 p.m. on the 21st of December. Shortly after I received a confusing email stating that it's 2023 and she was looking at 2024 when she booked it so it's not Saturday it's Thursday and it needs to be my wife at 1:30 p.m. and me at 3:00 p.m.
Her email made no sense at all so I called back to sort out the confusion and spoke with the manager who, after a brief hold, got back to me and let me know that she had sorted it out and she had booked both my wife and I for 3:00 p.m. on the 21st.
Fast forward a couple of weeks and we arrived at the inn and checked in on December 20th in the evening. The room looked great with a beautiful patio, hot tub, barbecue, comfy furniture, a great king sized bed, etc... we were impressed. But that was the only highlight of the whole stay.
We had a late night and slept in til the afternoon the next day and, while we were making our late breakfast, received a call from the spa saying that we were late for our 1:30 p.m. appointment. I corrected the spa attendant, letting her know that after speaking with the manager, we had been confirmed for 3:00 p.m. for a couple's massage, but she decided to make it an argument and told me that the manager had never let her know that and that my only option was to either come right now or cancel.
I decided to go speak to them in person at the spa and when I arrived there, the attendant was very rude, refused to try and work out any type of solution, and again reiterated that my only option was to either be seen at separate times or cancel the service because she was just an attendant with no power and couldn't do anything to solve this problem. She was so unhelpful that I requested a manager, but of course, conveniently, no manager was working that day. One of the RMTs came out from the back when he overheard our heated discussion and, while he was much more polite than the attendant, all he did was make excuses for the poor management and the resulting customer experience we were having.
We ended up with no resolution, no solutions offered, and so, what should have been a relaxing getaway was now just an overpriced hotel stay with ZERO spa service and no restaurant.
If we wanted to cook for ourselves, do dishes, and not get spa treatment for these 3 days, we could have saved ourselves the exorbitant price tag and just stayed home.
If you follow my reviews, you'll see that I much prefer to leave kind words to celebrate a job well done than to leave bad ones because of poor service but this place is, by far, the most disorganized, unaccountable Mickey Mouse organization I've ever dealt with and I felt that it needed to be exposed.
If you're reading this review, do yourselves a favour and AVOID THIS PLACE at all costs. It just isn't worth the headache. You'll find better views, better rooms, and exponentially better service, with dignity, at one of the other resorts on Vancouver Island like Brentwood Bay, The Kingfisher, or Tigh-Na-Mara.
0 stars