HIFS- yes we have your reservation, no we don't have your room

[drdelsol]

Add this to the list of those that have had poor service at HIFS. I had reserved a sweetheart suite over a month in advance for a Valentines day get away. This is a very big deal for us since we run two businesses with store front hours of close to 70 per week. My wife and I work them all. We usually get half of Saturday and all Sunday off. A short trip to Orlando is the only getaways we get. We show up last Saturday( I was even wearing a new suit that I had bought for the trip) they look us up , note that they have all our address information etc. They have down that we are for a sweetheart suite, but no they don't have one. Their excuse is that they were full the night before and let some people stay over in the suites. We were offered their lowest suite, ( A cheaper one) at the same price with no other compensation. They could not even tell me why if they knew that morning and they had my contact information why I was not called. I informed them that with all the arrangements we have to make including bordering pets I was out $100 just to be able to walk through the door for the night. They did not care. Needless to say we left. We went to the Orlando visitors center where they were very kind and hooked us up with a room from the last minute book they keep. We did end up with a nice Embassy Suite room for less then half what we were going to pay It turned out ok but just add this to your list if you are considering HIFS.

 

[Robinrs]

What a horrible experience, drdelsol! I would definitely follow up with a call or a letter of complaint. This was inexcusable.

Let us know what happens.

 

[Boots]

Seems to me that since your room was reserved the others should have been told that yes they could stay but they would have to switch to some other room. I don't blame you I would have been upset too.

 

[hercamore]

Boy, this is a bummer!

Yeah, why didn't they give the other guest a different room.

I hope you find time to write a lengthly complaint letter to Holiday Inn main office.

So far I have avoided this HI.

I am glad you went elsewhere!

Herc

 

[horseshowmom]

drdelsol,

Could I ask a few questions? Did you go to the Visitor's Center on I-Drive? Did they offer you a selection of hotels to pick from or just ES? Which Embassy Suites did they get you into? Also, may I be so crude as to ask what you wound up paying for the room?

The reason I ask is that we really loved the ES/Convention Center when we were there for a meeting, but the price is generally more than we spend on a room. It would be well worth waiting until we got there to see what's available (with a back-up reservation, of course) if we could pick from nicer properties with excellent rates.

Thanks for answering!
sbc

 

[drdelsol]

sbclifton- Yes it was the "official" vistors center on I-drive, somewhere around the 8500 block. I had stopped in before to pick up a magic card but this was the first time I had used the hotel service. I just remebered reading about it on Frommers. Some of the local hotels call when they have rooms left and what they will let them go for. There was probably around a dozen on the list. The staff was happy to go over the hotels and what they were like. Theembassy suites was the most expensive at $75. Next closest was $60 for by the convention center, but I don't remember the name something with a one word name( not Peabody ). Ours was I think the convention center at 89-- I drive. It was a very nice place.

Since we just usually go over for one night, my wife and I are going to just stop in next time and see whats available. Especially since our last reservation was in December for French Quarter and I never did get transferred. I've just about finished drafting that letter. Hopefully they'll plug that hole for someone else. I'm only an hour away, what if you had flown 1000 miles for that?

 

[horseshowmom]

The convention rate that we had for ES/Convention Center was $165 a night! I would be thrilled to give them $75 a night. We were extremely impressed with their breakfasts (especially considering there were 4 of us). We found it to be very convenient to Universal Studios (using Universal Drive).

Thanks for the information! I've got the Magicard but never have asked about room rates when we stopped in (although we have bought attraction tickets there). Nice idea for next time!

 

[Kermit]

I too would call the main Holiday Inn number. I've never actually had very good luck doing that, but it's always good to report it. [We had an incident regarding a theft from an employee at a Holiday Inn in Oklahoma, and they said that they couldn't do anything about it since it was a franchise. ] I know that they overbook hotels, but they should have at least offered another room at a discount. What they did is inexcusible.

 

[ncbyrne]

Oh, I do know your frustration! We had that happen to us at a Sheraton. Only they had NO rooms left to give us...excuse was that people from a convention stayed over. I didn't care and told them I made the ressie months in advance after researching for just the right hotel for our special occasion. I said that if they didn't find us a room, I'd be happy to stay for free on the couch in the lobby! THAT statement brought out the manager. They obviously did not have a room for us, but that didn't stop me for making a scene. The end of the story is that they called around and got us a beautiful room at an even nicer hotel for less $! The squeaky wheel gets oiled!

 

[jesse]

We had a similar occurance, we arrived at 2:30am due to a delay in our flight, with our written confirmation in hand, to discover for whatever reason, they had changed our room type from classic suite to the residence suite which only has one bedroom, and they had thoughfully increased the rate for us as well. Since we had 4 adults and two small children, we couldn't use this room, we NEEDED a classic suite. Thankfully they found us on after 35 mysterious minutes typing on the computer. We have stayed there 3 times and every check in has resulted in problems. My #1 piece of advice when using HIFS is get a written confirmation of dates, suite type and rate.

 

[Lewisc]

Jess-not to sound cynical but I suspect the 35 minutes was spent trying to decide which customer to downgrade instead of you.

drdelsol
Caribe-Royale has suites with large jacuzzi tubs if you're looking for an alternative to HIFS. They don't have that many so you may have to reserve early.

 

[Daisy2002]

Has anyone had this sort of problem with Holiday INN SunSpree resort? I just booked 5 nights there in March and I would be horrified if they didn't have a room for us especially with all the agonizing and research I did trying to pick just the right hotel at just the right price and location

Tammy

 

[LISALISA36]

WRITE YOUR LETTER TO:
http://www.planetfeedback.com/
THE CORPORATE OFFICE ACTUALLY GETS YOUR LETTER AND SINCE EVERYONE ON THE INTERNET SEE'S IT ,,THEY USUALLY RESPOND.

 

[coachv]

I am really surprised by HIFS in doing this. We stayed there last year in June and one person in our party decided she wanted a room to herself and left us high and dry. I talked to the lady at the front desk and explained to her the problem. They found her a res. suite at a good price and then knocked down our rate of $99 down to $89 for the last 4 nights of our stay. They were great!!
I called this year and made ressies for June and the price was way too high and when I mentioned I could stay onsite for $94 a night ..... they came way down on price for this years stay. I would write a letter to the hotel manager and also to the ownership of the hotel and explain what happened. I bet you will get great results.

 

[coachv]

sorry about the double entry!!!!