eric

Review of Spa Zuiver

I went to Zuiver several times over the last year ...

I went to Zuiver several times over the last year and was happy to receive a birthday offer from them in my inbox, inviting me to visit the spa for free. They knew my birthday date because I provided it with the initial registration. When I followed the link in the email, I arrived at their booking system, which allowed me to select a date when I was available. I then received an email confirmation, which clearly states that the price for the booking would be 0,00 .

When I showed up on the date of the booking, I was informed that I couldn t use the free entry because it was a week before my birthday and the offer was only valid on the actual day of the birthday. That would be fair enough, but there seems to be a problem with the booking system, since it allows you to make a booking and then sends you a confirmation clearly stating the price as 0,00 .

While I accepted the fact that I could not use the free entry offer on that day, I was very disappointed by the attitudes of the two people I spoke to at the reception (one was apparently the manager), because they absolutely refused to acknowledge that there was a problem with their booking system, or to consider the possibility that they could try in future to provide more clear information to their guests.
The confirmation email I received contains a lot of detailed information, in English, about the spa s age restrictions, swimwear days, opening hours, cancellation policies, etc, but it says nothing about the birthday offer limitations.

The people at the front desk just kept saying that it would be impossible for them to allow people to use the birthday offer on a day before the actual birthday, because then the spa would be filled with too many people. First of all, it is actually not uncommon for businesses to give one-off birthday vouchers which people can use throughout the month of their birthday, or indeed at another time. Secondly, if you do not want to offer such a thing, then don t send people email invitations and confirmations which are clearly misleading!

Anyway, I accepted, and ended up paying full price for entry to the spa anyway, since I had put the day aside and travelled all the way there with my towels etc.

Then I planned to come back on my actual birthday day, and actually use the voucher, in the following week. Once again, I followed the link that was provided, and I completed the steps to make the booking. One of the steps in the booking process allows you to also book for a friend, free of charge. I found a friend who would be free to join me on my birthday, and I completed the booking. Once again, I received an email confirmation, which said that the cost for each entry would be 0,00 and the total due for two people would be 0,00 . Once again, the email contained no information about the specifics of the birthday offer that I had used to make the booking.

But when we arrived we were informed that the entry would not be free for my friend, she would have to pay full price. When I asked why there was the option to also make a reservation for a friend at the price of 0,00 , I was given a bizarre answer: that s only if you have a friend who has the same birthday as you. Whaaaaat? Do you know what the chances are that the friend who is available to join me at the spa on that particular day has the same birthday as me?

Once again, the Zuiver staff refused to acknowledge any responsibility. So we ended up paying *another* full price ticket, since my friend had come all the way to be there. And that s when I decided to never visit Zuiver again.