Nightmare vacation at Breezes Bahamas

Here is the letter I sent to the General manager of Breezes Bahamas after my recent 8 day stay there. Beware Breezes!

To: John Issa, CEO; Paul Pennicook, President; Jackson Weech, General Manager; Gary Williams, V.P. of Operations


Date: Friday, October 2, 2009

Dear Sirs:

I am writing for two reasons: First because I know that as smart business people you want to hear about the truly unimaginable and horrible experience of my recent 8-day vacation at your Breezes SuperClub in the Bahamas. And second, because I also know that, as smart business people, you will not only comprehend but also agree that the only possible resolution to my horrendous experience at your club is a full refund of my expenses.



Let me explain.



This is the first vacation I’ve taken in 7 years. I am self-employed -- a vacation is extremely difficult to actually make time to take because if I’m not working, I’m not making money. I have no vacation, sick time, holidays nor benefits. I anticipated the trip of a lifetime, and I spent over $1800 for which I scrimped and saved, working 7 days a week, 365 days each year. I needed this vacation badly and have never been so ANGRY AND DISAPPOINTED!


I arrived on Friday, September 11th, and left on the following Friday, September 18th. I spoke to manager Vernel Rolle within 5 hours of my arrival and asked to be moved to another hotel. He said he couldn’t do that. Apparently, he is not familiar Breezes’ “Satisfaction Guarantee”, which starts “Satisfaction Guarantee: We want you to be satisfied with your Super Inclusive vacation. In fact, we guarantee it…”



I suggest very strongly that you put yourself in my place. Would you put up with what happened to me at your hotel if YOU were on your first vacation in 7 years (or any vacation for that matter)? What would you expect a company to do for you to make it better if all this happened to you? Please, read on.



Here are my top complaints and why you’ll agree that Breezes did not only live up to its guarantee of satisfaction, but actually made my vacation at your hotel a living hell:



1. There was water leaking from the ceiling vent in my first room (#726), which created a puddle. I stepped in that puddle on my way into the room, slipped and fell, and hurt my back and head on the hard tile floor. I reported this to the front desk, and also flagged down a housekeeping woman in the hallway and showed her the water leaking. I was told it would be reported. It took several hours for the bruises to appear and my back and neck to ache – but this turned out to perhaps be the lesser of my problems when the bedbugs started in on me. It took more than 24 hours to get me a new room. However, the new room (#417) was on the poolside of the hotel, and as soon as the band started at 9:00 pm, and the door SHUT, I had to turn up the television to even hear the tv over the band.

2. I was bitten alive by bedbugs every night I was at your hotel. I had to make repeated visits to the nurse’s first aid station, where your staff claimed not to have any idea of what a bedbug was, nor what a bite looked like. I asked the nurse if we could look it up on a computer but she didn’t have one (and I couldn’t look it up myself because your customer computers weren’t working!) I was then told by a security man (with whom I filed an official report) and housekeeping that my bites were from “Sun Flies” which enter your room at night or at dusk and are so small you can’t see them and so to keep my sliding glass door closed. I find it very hard to believe that a nurse working in a tropical hotel isn’t extremely well- informed about bedbugs. I believe your employees have been instructed not to confirm bedbug bites to guests.



3. Let’s add insult to injury: At my first visit to the first aid station to have my bites and open sores examined, I asked the nurse if she could give me the small tube of antibiotic that she put on some of the bites and she refused, telling me I could “buy it in the gift shop”. Nor was I offered calamine lotion or anything to help the itch. She only put antibiotic and a bandaid on the open wounds on my stomach and back that I had scratched raw in my sleep.



4. When I spoke to your manager, Vernel Rolle, for the second time within 5 HOURS of my arrival on Sept 11th of the variety of issues I had experienced just on my first afternoon, including the fall from water leakage from the ceiling, no snorkeling available, barely passable buffet food, lines and lines for drinks or food outside, he apparently thought a gift certificate for a half hour massage would placate me and said there was no way he could get me into a different hotel.



5. I continued suffering horrendous itching from the bedbug bites from my second day at the hotel, Saturday, Sept. 12 through and including my first three days AT HOME – a total 10 days!!! As it is, only now, a little more than a week after my return home, are the scabs gone. On my way home on the 18th, I spent hours on the airplane unable to scratch the bites as I was in public. It was seriously embarrassing and more than a little uncomfortable -- I had to rush to the ladies room at each airport.



6. Let’s not forget to mention the extraordinary measures I had to take before I could even enter my house, fearing that I would be infecting my own home with the bugs. This involved repeated washings, dry cleaning and leaving the clothes, bags, suitcase, knapsack, pocketbook and every single solitary other thing I had with me outside in the sun on my deck for days. Even then I still fear that any itch or mark on my skin means I had brought them home with me and my home is now infected. All it takes is one bug to lay hundreds of eggs. Perhaps it would be wise to educate yourselves and all staff members at your hotels about these nasty things. By the way – housekeeping only looked at the mattress – bedbugs hide in boxsprings and furniture as well. I may even have transported them from the first room I was in and infected the second room!



7. Internet access: Of 3 computer terminals for guests, one was not working at all the entire week I was there. Being a small business owner, it was critical for me to be able to check email every day. The Florida server was down on Sunday through Tuesday. On Monday night, I was practically in tears after wasting an hour trying to get the computers to work with the help of the one person on the front desk, and a helpful manager, Mrs. Bowe, who was kind enough to let me use the computer in her office. She appeared to be the only staff member who cared what I was going through (even though she couldn’t do anything about it all). On Wednesday I was finally able to log into my email from the guest computers, only to have the entire system crash 5 minutes later. I was unable to get on the computers at all before I left. During the week, I heard several other guests complaining at the front desk about the guest computers.



8. The “hot” food served at the buffet was very ordinary, mediocre, bland, and many times barely warm. The evening roast beef was served, there was not one piece of rare roast beef! The entire roast was well done. I had to search for a table that didn’t have dirty dishes on it, and many times had to flag down a waiter/waitress just to get some water. AND, There were birds flying around the inside dining room, alighting on chairs and tables, crapping wherever they pleased – can we talk sanitation!? The lack of variety of desserts was also disappointing – many of them, from day to day, were the same dessert merely cut in a different shape. The beach grill served overcooked cheeseburgers; were often out of the salads on the menu, but even though, I ended up preferring this over the buffet most days.



9. There was no on-site snorkeling, which was the reason I booked this particular hotel in the first place – your reservation clerk assured me there was on-site snorkeling, my favorite activity. I then spent ½ a day running into town to buy snorkeling equipment, and I returned to the hotel to be told that not only is there no snorkeling on-site, but that there are NO REEFS anywhere without taking a very expensive excursion! Do you think Mr. Rolle might have apprised me of that before sending me off to buy equipment!? How many brains does it take to know that snorkeling involves a reef and fish, not merely seaweed and sand, which is all your teeny swimming area offered!?


10. Your internet site touts “You’ll find spectacular water sports in the clearest Caribbean waters you’ve ever seen.” The entire bay was incredibly cloudy due to the construction taking place near Paradise Island, according to the Sports Staff and Front Desk personnel. At no time during my stay was the water clear and beautiful as it should have been.


11. The walls are paper thin – I could hear conversations around me and I was woken up every single time the toilet in the room above me was flushed.


12. Your multi-pool water quality: Poor – very cloudy and dirty every single day.


13. Softball is listed as an activity in the Breezes Notebook in my room, yet I was told that “the idea of it had been tossed around in the board room” but there is no softball activity at this time.


14. Your internet advertising says there’s a NEARBY casino. Well, it’s been closed for some time now apparently. The nearest casino is Atlantis, which wasn’t viable for me since I’d have to take a very expensive taxi. This would have been a really nice alternative to the lousy band in the hotel and watching television in my room.


15. The poolside games were quite lame – I participated in several anyway – still trying to have fun, and had a handful of chips to turn in on my departure day at 11:00 am, but that hour was spent in talking with Mrs. Bowe and going over each and every problem I had since I walked in the door on September 11th. (I had asked for Mr. Weese, the General Manager, and was told he was on the premises but he was unable to speak with me, thus I ended up with Mrs. Bowe.)


I demand a refund of all monies spent - $1,800 on this horrible “vacation”. You, personally, would accept nothing less if this happened to you.



Sincerely,

Paula Cutcomb, a seriously DISSATISFIED CUSTOMER