Hotel not responding...help?
 

Has anyone had this happen? The small family run hotel/restaurant I booked for our last night in Italy has not responded to 4 emails of mine to reconfirm the reservation.
The hotel is only an hour or so drive from the airport so we really want to stay there. They emailed me promptly on my request...no credit card info or deposit taken. What would you do? I do not want to show up late in the day to find they are not in business or some such thing and have to scramble to find a place.

Why don;t you just call them? Better during their daytime hours when it;'s most likely someone with solid english is available.

Very simple - phone them.

Many European hotels don't answer e-mails as quickly as one might like.

Yes, I did have this happen to me with a hotel in Rome. I received responses as to availability and room rates, but when I started asking more questions, there was absolutely no response. After three e-mails I gave up.

If you have the hotel's fax number, I would suggest that you send a fax to them asking for confirmation of the reservation and any questions you may have right now. In my experiences, hotels in Italy usually respond to facsimiles.

I was posting at the same time as nytraveler - same message - use the phone . . . . .

Hi lowcountrycarole, do you have a fax no. for the hotel? If so, and if you do not want to phone them I would fax them. Most Italians take a fax message much more serious then they do an email message. Best wishes.

Someone, Rick Steves I believe, said that if you have not made a deposit or given a credit card for guarantee, and you have not heard from the hotel, assume that you do NOT have a reservation. I would definitely follow the advice given above, call the hotel.

Thanks for all the responses...I will call the hotel and hope that my limited Italian will do. In my experience it seems harder to communicate over the phone than in person. Unfortunately they do not show a fax number on the web site.

lowcountrycarol,

I suggest you post the name of the hotel and the town it is located in. Maybe, just maybe someone on this board will have their fax number.

You'll never know, unless you try.

Call them and talk to them. They may check e-mail only infrequently, and may not even have a computer on their premises. When you call, you can ask about their fax number for purposes of getting written confirmation.

Also, ask them if they "parla inglese", if you're worried about language barrier. Very likely, they'll have someone who can.

I've had this happen to me with hotels in Paris, in the past, I would most certainly phone them, its no excuse to be so unprofessional, but with small hotels it often happens.

Answering a fax might be just as "not likely to happen" as their non-answers to your e-mails. I suspect they DO answer their phone, however...so what happened?