Rant – Misinformed, Misdirected, and Miserable: My Hotels.com Experience and Why I will Not Use Them Again

In case you haven’t figured it out, this is a rant. This is also a personal narrative example concerning my recent travel experience.

Since I wanted to go to the Impact event a couple days early for some Florida fun, and since the hotel conference h hotel – the Walt Disney Swan and Dolphin Resort – was RIDICULOUSLY expensive, I needed to find an affordable solution for the first couple of nights. I truly HATE having to switch hotels. It is a chore for anyone, but more so when you have extra difficulties navigating and are traveling with a guide dog.

Now imagine this. I’m mostly blind. I’m traveling with a guide dog. I obviously don’t drive, and therefore I have some very specific needs and questions.

That being said, I called Hotels.com and first got a guy who said his name was Albert (yeah right), who barely spoke English.

Feeling less than confident in what I would get from him, I asked my specific questions, which were these:

1. Is there a hot tub, and is the hot tub working?
2. Is there a shuttle service to Discovery Cove? What times does it run?
3. Is there a shuttle to Sea World, and what times?
4. Is there a restaurant on property?

“Albert” put me in a hotel called the Imperial Swan Hotel & Suites, which was cheap. However after the call, I discovered that customers had given the hotel ratings of 1 out of 5 from guests. Gee thanks. Just what I need. I don’t require a luxury resort, but I don’t want a dirty dive either.

So I cancelled the first reservation and by that time had found a different one that supposedly was better. The International Plaza Resort & Spa. Customers had given good rating. I called Hotels.com reservations and talked to Jaime, and also Ernest in Customer Care..

At first I was really excited, because Jaime talked directly with the property, and I was given the following answers: Yes there is a working hot tub. Yes there is a shuttle to Discovery Cove and Sea World. The shuttle runs all day. I told them about the guide dog so they had her on file as a guide dog and set up the reservation. I then made my Discovery Cove Dolphin swim reservation, which was for 9:25.

Excited for my upcoming dolphin adventures, I got up at 4 AM the day of the trip and left at 4:30. The drive to the Springfield airport is 1.5 hours, then 2 airplanes and a Mears shuttle from the airport to the hotel later, I checked in at the front desk.

I don’t know how to spell the woman’s name who checked me in, but the first encounter was not good. first she tried to charge me $50 for Molly Flagtail. To her credit, once I reminded her that Molly was a guide dog and there was no charge, she backed down.

This should NOT have been an issue. We’ve had guide dogs for about 80 years, and we’re  a couple decades past the Americans with Disabilities Act.

However, she gave me my room keys, and that’s where I soon discovered that I wanted to find a new hotel. The bellman, who was the only person on staff worth his salt, started taking me to the room. A dozen twists and turns, and a long walk later, we were still not there.

Unacceptable. Why would any hotel put someone with a disability out in Egypt? Can’t people understand that it might be harder for me to find my way around a complicated and huge property?

Back to the desk and this time talking to Ann, the manager. Ann apologized and put me in a closer room, but nothing more.

I So wanted to leave. But I was expecting a roommate to arrive the next day, and I didn’t have an easy way to figure out where else to go and how to get there, so I was stuck with a miserable situation.

to make matters worse, the hot tub was NOT working. This was a big deal for me. One of my biggest criteria was a working hot tub.

The property at International Plaza Resort & Spa itself is nice, though confusing, but I will never go back.

It got worse the next day. I discovered that there were not shuttles running all day. There was one shuttle at 9 AM returning at 5:30 PM.

also, the shuttle did NOT go to Discovery Cove. I would have to ride to Sea World (a 45 minute ride, by the way), and then take another shuttle to Discovery Cove. That is WAY too much hassle for me, especially since figuring out where I’m supposed to stand and wait can be a big deal when you can’t read signs and people are often clueless.

So I take a cab. I’ve already had the wind taken out of my sales a half dozen times from this hotel, and at the start of one of the most exciting adventures of my life, I have to spend $10 because the folks at both Hotels.com and the International Plaza Resort & Spa have misinformed me.

Now that I’m back home and have caught up with business, you can bet I’m going to talk with Hotels.com. rest assured that I will NOT be using this service again.

And by the way, if you’re running an event, please don’t delude yourself into thinking that your attendees want to pay $200 per night for a fancy hotel plus hideously expensive food, plus airfare, plus the conference. try for something affordable, and consider having a place that includes a breakfast. Aim for no more than $99 per night. If the conference hotel had been more affordable, most of the headaches I dealt with wouldn’t have happened.

Oh, but the Walt Disney Dolphin Hotel had a broken hot tub too, so I still never got a soak in hot bubbles.

Ronda Del Boccio is a transformational speaker, mentor and author known globally as The Story Lady because she teaches authors, entrepreneurs and business owners to easily connect with your ideal customers and contacts through the power of your story.

She is the author of numerous stories, poems, and articles, as well as her books I’ll Push You Steer, and other upcoming books.

Discover how to explode profits, prospects and prime media opoprtuntiies with her latest book is the Instant Credibility system, which teaches any business owner, entrepreneur, coach, speaker or writer to craft a lead-generating book that grows your business.

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