colinscotsman

Well, you would think that the best hotel experience would be the most dollars well..I have stayed here in the past when it was part of the "Cliveden experience" which was fantastic Four Seasonesque service and thought just because it has changed hands means very little.
Well how wrong was I..


The story so far

It started with the rooms on arrival being incorrect i.e. rooms facing the garden on booking were in fact...rooms through the garden but overlooking the busiest street in Bath with absoluteley no view of any garden....no room for changing as the hotel was fully booked. ....

The room was dirty, no maintenance...toilet with leaking water on floor (I think it was water)- shower with mold on grout - bath with leaking from pipes this room is a mess waiting for a complete remodel and at inflated Prices to match..I have stayed in better Motel 6's.

Dinner was the worst experience of service that I have ever had...I live in the US in CA with average to fantastic svc..asking for everything ....from asking multiple times for help and receiving none! to asking on one occassion over a 10min period 4 different waiters/servers and finally the duty manager for a drink and... guess what had to ask again...

Can I have a cocktail.. yes let me get the desert menu...the service is a joke no one speaks English except the absent managers on duty..When asked to complain to the manager...manager arrives and starts to justify why his staff is absent and blah blah blah....

This hotel should be struck off any guide and the rating should be reduced to just plain crap crap crap...If Fodors does not catch this posting and publish then shame on them to save others from this experience. Tel# is available on request as this is not a slamming posting from a competitor, just a highly disgusted customer who will tell as many people as he can to avoid this hotel and their sister properties under the Von Essen name.

colinscotsman

Sandi - As I said in my posting I had stayed at the hotel in the recent past and it was fantastic!...now it is awful..I also used fodors 07 travel book in Europe...anyway their you go...

Mr Dukey...I complained and subsequently checked out of the hotel early with my family and took my $1000 per night to another hotel...my duff was not being sat on...did you read the posting or are you just being beligerant

janisj

first post - let me guess - you are rushing all over the internet finding every free travel forum to post this. Right?

Your story may or may not be what really happened - but how about sharing something else - like what you enjoyed in Bath . . . .

(BTW - there are 44 reviews on TA w/ an average 4.0 for service and 4.5 for cleanliness - so perhaps you were unlucky, or??)

colinscotsman

Janis,

I am not too sure why you are questioning my posting regardless as I used Fodors 07 for a recommendation it made perfect sense to provide feedback to the same company.

Pretty simple story of dissapointment.

Bath is a great city in the SouthWest of England to use as a base. The town itself has great energy being a University town with an enormous amount of entertainment pubs and restaraunts.

If any traveller is looking for a base to cover - Cotswalds/Devon and Cornwall then this is the town to stay in...Just choose a different hotel.

jbass

Don't we all have to start with a first post?

Barbara5353

I appreciate your post. It is enlightening to read about bad experiences as well as good.

colinscotsman

Thanks Barbara for your normal response, I am surprised that the fodors forum editors seem to be just plain upset to see a truly negative CURRENT posting on a hotel versus embracing critical feedback as well as oh we loved everything that you told us..

colinscotsman

Janis,

To move from my "first posting" and become an accepted traveller with real feedback I also posted a positive review on a great experience in the "New Forest"....hope this balances your view on my perceived agenda.

nanabee

I agree barbara -it is very impportant to hear about the good and bad experiences unless this site is designed to only highlight good experiences. i am glad to know the good places to go so i can avoid bad experiences.

Zeus

It would be nice if Fodor's offered us a "block poster" option. There seems to be a little clique of people that love to question the motives of their fellow posters - especially anybody unfortunate enough to post an opinion for the first time on this site. It's getting more and more irritating seeing the same names accusing others of imaginary crimes.

Barbara

colin, no forum editors have posted here. They let you know in no uncertain way that they are editors and they're not going to mind a negative post about a hotel in their book.

Katie_H

Hi Colin,
Sorry that you had an unpleasant experience at a hotel that we recommend. I would encourage you to post your review and rating online in our Bath destination guide:
http://www.fodors.com/miniguides/mgr...erty_id=178368

I hope you enjoyed the rest of your trip!

maitaitom

"I complained and subsequently checked out of the hotel early with my family and took my $1000 per night to another hotel"

Because of your thread title, I was wondering if the hotel clerk responded to your leaving by saying, "Come back here and take what's coming to you! I'll bite your legs off!"

nanabee

Zues -- well said.

nanabee

opps sorry zEUs

Michel_Paris

Hypothetical situation...

I own the 'other' hotel in a small town. I don't have a lot of scruples so I decide to "kneecap" my competitor. I do a bit of research, and find out what are the most popular travel guides ( I own a hotel, should be easy to do).

I then go to the forums that these guides run (good for their business), log in, and tell a story of bedbugs, sloppy service, double billing,etc... at my competitor's hotel.

Is this impossbible? No. Similarly is it impossible that, again as the owner, I go to these forums and talk about the bucolic views out of my hotel windows, the friendly staff, the free tea and sonces in the afternoon...etc...

On the internet, you don't know who is posting. There have been posters here who appeared only to "stir it up"

So...when the first thing a person posts on this forum is...not a travel report, not a question, not a response to another's questions....but either a rant or a rave....us cynical might question what's up. Sorry to say, but with the internet sometimes it's hard to just accept things 'at face value'

Got to go...seems like my bank wants me to confirm my account information

lyb

I totally agree with the reasons why some people get cynical when the first post is to slam a hotel. I usually just ignore it.

Since my sister owns vacation rentals on Oahu, Hawaii...I take what people say with a grain of salt, unless I hear others with similar opinion. Some of the complaints that my sister gets, though luckily rare, are so laughable that they do make great stories at cocktail parties.

So, OP, don't take it personally, if some are cynical, but unfortunately, some of us have heard so many tales that it's hard to take every complaint at face value.

Since I am going to Bath in Sept of this year, would you mind sharing some of what you did and would recommend?

Thanks

fnarf999

From colinscotsman's remarks here, I think he may be operating under the misapprehension that this forum represents the official recommendations of Fodor's editors. Colin, the only one of us who works for Fodor's is Katie H, clearly marked in red as a Fodor's editor. The rest of us are just anonymous internet joes. We don't have anything to do with what hotels Fodor's recommends.

janisj

zeus and nanabee think I've been unfair and "cliqueish" - PLEASE go back and read what I wrote. It wasn't nasty. I said it "may or may not" have happened. I said that TA has 44 mostly very good reviews so colin maybe was unlucky. And I asked what they enjoyed about Bath . . . .

Now, the bit about posting all over the internet - could have been taken as a slam but it wasn't. I honestly wanted to know, because if that is where colin was coming from it would explain a lot.

(Using Bath as a base for touring Cornwall does make one wonder though, since it would take about 4 hours just to get to St Ives.)

goldilox

Recently, I had a horrible experience with Cliveden- another von Essen hotel. After taking the situation all the way up the chain of command (to the founder and CEO of von Essen hotels- Andrew Davis) and receiving no response I was incredibly frustrated.

I questioned why they were so highly recommended by the guidebooks... why they had so many stars from the rating agencies. So I wrote to each of the guide books and rating agencies to let them know how unhappy I was.

They do want to know if you are legitamately unhappy with their recommendations. And being in the accommodations industry I know it takes very few complaints before they take a closer look...

Here in North America, the AAA guidelines for a hotel/inn/B&B under 50 rooms are as follows:
3 complaints- Warning letter.
5 complaints- Close monitoring.
7 complaints- Property in jeopardy of downgrading or dissaporoval.

I assume the guidebooks and foreign rating agencies have similar guidelines.

So take your complaints to the people who truly matter to the hotel (as it is my experience that the general public simply does not...)

What guidebooks are the hotel listed in?
What agencies have rated tham?
What associations are they members of? (Especially 'discerning' ones like Relais & Chateaux, Leading Hotels)