AVOID AVOID! PREJUDICE HOTEL!

AVOID AVOID! PREJUDICE HOTEL!

I sent an email enquiry for a group booking.

2 Days later I followed up the booking and was initially offered a contract booking but it was ADVISED and it was CONFIRMED by the hotel that I should go with a 'courtesy' hotel reservation instead

The reason for wanting to book HOTEL DEREK was because we were looking to hold a conference August 2018 and we were building a package for those travelling so they could begin to budget especially those from other countries.

We waited the 24 hours as stated by the hotel only to be told it wasn't ready (fair enough) however, this continued for a FURTHER 3 DAYS!!! With constant promises, it got to the weekend and I very much needed the code to pass onto our guests so I called the hotel for over 6 HOURS!! Trying to get something sorted Rahule the Ops Manager was kind enough to even call Stephanie who originally signed this off for which she decided not to respond to me. Later that evening I received an email from Aiesha who sold me the package say she would follow up on Monday.

As I'm sure you can image I wasn't please to say the least as the 1-3 days from the original request had ALREADY PAST! .... But I waited till Monday.

On Monday I spent ANOTHER 2 HOURS trying to speak to someone at the hotel to then finally receive a phone call from Stephanie who open with: " Hello and how are you today?" I replied, " I good but I could be better if we can get this code as I really do need it." I then received the following reply from Stephanie:

" Errr I'm sorry to have to tell you but we can no longer help you with your enquiry or booking, we are not going to be able to help you any further!"

I was shocked as you can imagine and I immediately said "Why?!" Stephanie's response was, " I have read your emails that you have sent to Aiesha and I don't think we can help your group.... and we are not taking bookings outside of 365 days. we can't help you any further...."

I was horrified that I had spent a good amount of time with this hotel, made an agreement which STEPHANIE signed off on and suddenly without explanation they wanted NOTHING to do with as Stephanie described 'Our Group'. I expressed to Stephanie that I wasn't sure what had suddenly changed that if Aiesha had sold something she shouldn't have that was an internal issue but an agreement was made and I accepted it. She continued to reply " We can't help your group anymore!"... I was angry and said the only thing that I could conceive was that she had picked up that we were a 'Foreign group, Christians with people of colour'(due to my name) and was this the real issue and they did not want us in the hotel? I said if this were the cause this was PREJUDICE!! ... Stephanie then said, " Err well if you want to stay you would have to pay a 25% deposit, if not we cannot help you any further you will have to go somewherelse." ( SHOCK SHOCK SHOCK).

I asked her to ask for Mark Noise the General Manager to call me. I waited OVER 12 HOURS!! With no callback NOBODY CALLED! I periodically called and I was advised I would have to go through a PROCESS TO GET TO MARK! I first had to speak to Rahule and he would pass a message onto Mark. For OVER 12 HOURS I kept getting messages that Rahule was in a meeting and he WAS aware and WOULD call me back.... NEVER RECEIVED A CALL BACK!

I genuinely believed that we lived in 2016 and this type of PREJUDICE had long gone with abolishen of the Jim Crow Law, but evidently it still alive and well. THINK TWICE if you are a:

GROUP
NOT FROM THE LOCAL AREA
A GROUP WHO HOLDS A FAITH
TRAVEL WITH PEOPLE FROM DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE WORLD.

The sad part was that I also wanted to update them that we would have had over 300 guests, plus wanted to secure a Friday, Saturday and Sunday Conference at the hotel to help give them extra revenue so could we update the agreement, but I think in this instance Stephanie did me a favour but letting me know that really our 'Kind' of Group was NOT WELCOME HERE!