Melbey Castillo
Google
Extremely Unprofessional and Poor Communication – Avoid if You Can
We were supposed to stay at Parker Beach Lodge, but after a deeply unprofessional experience with the manager, we chose to not stay here — even though he made that process unnecessarily difficult too.
The manager called the morning of our check-in claiming he had been trying to reach me every day since I booked and had left multiple voicemails. In reality, he only called three times, and only left one vague voicemail saying he “wanted to ask me something.” Naturally, I assumed it was something minor — like confirming my husband’s AAA info — and not anything urgent or important. I even called back twice, but got no answer. When he finally returned my call, he made no mention of the urgency or problem in advance. No email, no text, no proper voicemail — just poor communication.
That morning, he informed me (for the first time) that the king suite we booked was no longer pet-friendly, and our only option was to switch to a two-queen room for a $45/night pet fee. That’s not what their website says — it lists a $75 flat pet fee. After a long pause as I tried to process the surprise fee, he suddenly offered $35/night and said that was the best he could do because we used an AAA discount.
We asked if, under the circumstances, we could shorten our stay to just one night. He agreed — but we still felt uneasy. A few minutes later, we called again to ask about the cancellation policy, and he said it would be 50%. When we asked if that was 50% of the new one-night stay, he hesitated, then admitted he didn’t know what the system would charge us, how taxes would be calculated, or what the final number would be. It was incredibly disorganized and confusing.
When we finally said we wanted to cancel the reservation completely, he told us he couldn’t cancel it — again, offering no real explanation or help. We were left feeling like this entire experience was unprofessional, misleading, and honestly, a bit of a scam.
We never even checked in because we no longer trusted the business or felt safe staying there. I don’t write negative reviews often, but travelers deserve transparency — and this was the exact opposite.