Looking for advice re: a trip we took (bad experience - a little long, sorry)

This was basically, and I'm even leaving out a lot of little things that went wrong just for sake of time, but this is basically how our trip went.

We tried to make the best of it - just enjoyed the time we had together, enjoyed the beach, sun, and pool which was lovely. Now that we are home I'm SO disappointed by what took place. It really isn't right that we were ignored and all of these problems occured... with no recourse. The vacation was NOT cheap.

What would you do? I wrote Cheap Caribbean and they are 'contacting' the hotel and will get back to me, I posted on Trip Advisor, and I emailed the hotel's site. I also emailed the company that owns Cheap Caribbean. Do you think this is all a waste of time? Have you ever had an experience like this and got anything out of it?

This is my letter and the issues in a nutshell... (thanks for reading and for your responses)

To Whom It May Concern:

My husband and I are leaving Majestic Elegance tomorrow morning - this was a trip we had planned and booked with Cheap Caribbean. We have had such a disappointing experience with the hotel that I felt compelled, even on my last night in the Dominican Republic, to write an email about what has occured.

My husband and I travel several times a year. We usually have our Agent book trips for us. This time we used Cheap Caribbean and took the advice of their booking agent over the phone to book Majestic Elegance. Up until the trip this site was great and I had planned on using it to book future trips. But, ON the trip we had such inexcusable experiences that it has made me not want to use Cheap Caribbean in the future because I feel we were lead in the wrong direction from our booking agent. Some examples, and I'm leaving some out to keep it from getting too lengthy...

When we arrived on Thursday 5-26-11 we were told our room was not ready, which was fine, we were told to give them about 40 minutes. We came back in one hour, more than the time they asked for. They stated that our room still was not ready - to go to the restaurant nearby on the property and wait. We waited another half hour and returned like they asked. When they sent us, it was pouring outside in buckets. In order to get to the restaurant, you have to walk outside so we were soaked. When we returned, soaked, because we had to walk back from the restaurant as well and it was still pouring we were again told the room was not ready. This time we asked if we could have the room right away as we have been waiting hours and we were drenched. After waiting another fifteen minutes wet, they took us to a room - it was dirty and the lights kept flickering. We stayed because we just wanted to change out of our wet clothes which we had been sitting in for hours.

The first thing I wanted to do was take a warm bath because I was wet - during my 20 minute bath the lights went out four times. We called twice about this but they kept coming back on so we didn´t call and disturb anyone too much. Then, out of nowhere, an employee came into the room WITHOUT knocking and saw me in the bathtub with no clothes on. When I screamed, he left. We immediately called management and filed an incident report - I had to write out what happened. It is on file with the hotel management - nothing, so far, has been done about it. They asked me if I got the person's name and I said there was no way for me to see his name tag - just that he had a hotel uniform on, then he left in a hurry after I screamed. Nothing happened.

They switched our room because of the electric problem which would not stop... the new room was cleaner but the air conditioning was not working. We had to again call several times to have it addressed. They sent someone to look at it and they said they fixed it. So, now instead of it not working it was barely working. We had now spent over six hours of the first day of our trip dealing with issues. We did not get to go to the pool or beach on our first day because of this. We were never offered to switch rooms a third time and we were tired so we tried to just enjoy ourselves.

Over the next few days we had a subpar experience to say the least in regards to customer service and management handling things - the food was good, but service at the restaurants was not that friendly. Also, my husband (who speaks Spanish, luckily) had to speak Spanish almost the entire trip - very few employees could speak any English. So, he ordered our food in spanish to the waitstaff, he dealt with management and customer service in Spanish for all of our room issues, and even talked to our Butler in Spanish. Aside from basic conversation everything needed to be communicated in Spanish. Furthermore, we saw our butler TWICE during the entire five day stay - upon entering and then upon leaving.

There were things in our room missing - like one robe vs. two, one glass instead of two. No towels. We would call and ask and nothing would happen. Our air conditioning got worse - we called and reported it at least three times and nothing happened. It was so hot at night I had to sleep with cold water bottles resting against my body from the mini fridge. The mini fridge, another issue, was never once restocked during our entire stay.

On our last evening we felt relieved the trip was almost over. We had gone to the French restaurant our first night and liked it the best. We wanted to go back the last night, we made a reservation. We were told by our butler (Junior) the one time we saw him upon arrival that the ONLY restaurant that required long pants was the Italian. This was incorrect. On the first night my husband happened to wear long pants to the french place. The night before our last, however, his long pants were RUINED by another guest who vomitted on them (he was heavily intoxicated).

This guest was given a BOTTLE of vodka from a bartender, permitted to walk around drinking directly from a vodka bottle all night, all over the property - many workers saw him and did nothing. He was FALL DOWN drunk and then threw up on my husband as we passed by the man, ruining his pants. We filed another complaint, again, nothing. Not even offering to launder them. The next night he had to wear dress shorts (all he had left). He wore a button-down collared silk shirt, dress shorts, dress shoes. I wore a silk dress with sequence. We were turned away at the french restaurant. We explained that our concierge told us it would be OK because of what happened to my husband´s pants. The hostess said no. We called management who was not in the building at the time. We were embarrassed in front of other patrons - it was humiliating. We filed yet ANOTHER written complaint about our entire experience with guest services on our last night instead of eating at the restaurant. There was no apology, nothing. They did not let us eat there even after all of that. The first night we ate there the man seated next to us was wearing sneakers! Why were we targeted? On our way back to our room, hungry and disappointed we passed the restaurant to see a man leaving after EATING in CARGO SHORTS AND FLIP FLOPS. We could NOT believe our eyes - they allowed him to eat and not us! I have never been treated like this in my life and I have never had such a bad experience at a hotel.

When management returns in the morning they supposedly will ¨talk¨ to us, we were told. At this point, I am disappointed with this website´s recommendation and I will never return to Majestic Elegance. I´m in such shock at how, day after day, the trip was just one bad experience after another - each one worse than the previous. All the while, nothing being done about it and not even a simply apology. This will be posted on Trip Advisor as well.

**FOLLOW UP SINCE WRITING THE LETTER**

When management returned in the morning we got no phone call, we had to leave to go home around 10am which we told them -- we went to the front desk at 9:30 and explained that management never called. I gave them a copy of the letter I wrote the night before (I printed it at the internet cafe) and they took it, a man who said he was the manager came out, said that they are strict about dress code, never addressed anything else, and said "there's nothing else I can do" in Spanish to my husband.

Today Cheap Caribbean told me they conacted the Hotel on our behalf - they are waiting a response. I told them not to hold their breath.

What do you girls think might happen? Any experiences like this?

Re: Looking for advice re: a trip we took (bad experience - a little long, sorry)

we had a really bad exp at a resort in antigua. we actually called travelocity from the resort itself and had us switched asap to another resort within a few hours. They even provided us with transportation.

with these big travel companies they will either do one of 2 things - a partial reimbursement or a credit towards a future booking. these resort have some type of contracts with the travel companies and they do answer them back (they dont the travel companies to not recommend them)

even if the resort doesnt answer them back, im prettty sure cheap caribbean will offer u something.

Good luck and keep us posted on what they say

eta: im so sorry u had such a crappy time

Message edited 6/1/2011 5:58:27 AM.

Re: Looking for advice re: a trip we took (bad experience - a little long, sorry)

geeez that sounds awful, im so sorry..i really hope they do something to compensate u... next time u should call the company while u r there and get the hell out of dodge!!!

Re: Looking for advice re: a trip we took (bad experience - a little long, sorry)

OMG that is awful! I can only imagine how dissapointed and angry you are. I would be as well. I think what you are doing is correct. Hopefully someone will get back to you. We were at Majestic Elegance in November and loved it. We experienced just the opposite.

Re: Looking for advice re: a trip we took (bad experience - a little long, sorry)

ugh.. i am soooo sorry about your trip. i would be livid!! no advice, but just wanted to send some

Re: Looking for advice re: a trip we took (bad experience - a little long, sorry)

I am so sorry you had to go through this! I had a similar horrible experience on an NCL cruise (and it was our honeymoon) I wrote a 3 page letter to NCL when we got home..and after some back and forth they eventually gave me credit for a future cruise..I didn't want to even go on another NCL but since it was only going to cost us $100 out of pocket for the 2nd cruise we decided to go and we had a better time! I still will not go on another NCL....but at least we basically got a 2nd cruise out of it!

hopefully you will get some compensation too! I know the last thing you want to do is go back there..but a 2nd time might be a better expereince bec you didnt have to lay all the money out again!?!?!?

good luck!

Re: Looking for advice re: a trip we took (bad experience - a little long, sorry)

Re: Looking for advice re: a trip we took (bad experience - a little long, sorry)

Re: Looking for advice re: a trip we took (bad experience - a little long, sorry)

Re: Looking for advice re: a trip we took (bad experience - a little long, sorry)

That's beyond horrible.

How did you not switch hotels after night #1?!?

In my experience with crappy resorts and agencies, I would be surprised if you get anything other than, perhaps, a voucher for a few hundred dollars form either the agency or the resort.

Post a concise review on Trip Advisor, with photos of the crappy room, if you have any.

Our best vacations tend to be the ones we book directly with big-name hotels.

Your trip sounds like a horror. I'm so sorry you went through that!

Re: Looking for advice re: a trip we took (bad experience - a little long, sorry)

We had a similar experience at Secrets Cap Cana in the DR. It was one thing after another and just left a bad taste. We booked thru our normal TA and contacted her after the second day, but she couldn't get us moved to another resort. We were given complimentary massages, but it really didn't make up for the lackluster service. She also followed up after the trip and tried to get us some compensation thru our insurance but didn't have any success. I'm sorry you had a bad trip, I know how disappointing it is when a trip you are really looking forward to ends up being bad

Re: Looking for advice re: a trip we took (bad experience - a little long, sorry)

Wow - so sorry you had such an awful experience! That sounds horrible. I cannot believe they didn't do anything about some strange man walking in on you in the bath tub. That is soooo unacceptable!!!!

The letter was well written and I really hope you get some sort of resolution from this.

Btw - I posted on another thread that Excellence Punta Cana wasn't that great, but it was definitely nothing like the experience you described, just not as nice as Mexico.