Happy guests return to the hotel; angry guests do not. It’s simple.

Regardless, I would highly recommend documenting names, time, dates and other details of communication with hotel associates. You can never be too careful!

Reservation was from August 16-20 2008.

Hurricane and Tropical Storm Fay were in the Orlando area from August 18 & 19.

http://www.wesh.com/weather/17210142/detail.html

So according to these guys, I’m supposed to fly down for one day of a 4 day vacation but then its ok to leave early because there was no hurricane on the FIRST day of our vacation.

The logic, or lack thereof, of such a position just means that sooner or later – these guys will go bankrupt because they will upset enough people with mindless adherence to the rules that they get no repeat business – and NO business survives without repeat business.

Sounds like you’re an employee of Villas at Grand Cypress. Who else would defend their policies under the circumstances.

Thanks, Joe, for the report; I’ll be sure to take the Villas off my list and pass the info along to friends and family traveling to Orlando.

The management’s position is crap. If that is the sort of inflexible, idiotic policies that they’ve implemented, I would stay there for love or money. It would have been one thing is Joe just willy-nilly changed his mind. But any property that expects you to honor your contract during a hurricane should be ashamed.

It might be permissible under their policies, but it makes no sense from the greater public policy perspective.

You think its ok to take someone’s money who is following the request of government officials and not coming into what could be a disaster area? Ok, fair enough. Nex time I’ll just go and let the government and the property be responsible for my safety instead of doing the intelligent thing and staying away.

As I said, they got my money. I did not sue them or anything like that. But they lost out on the rest of my business, and potential repeat business. As I said, it made no sense from the macro financial issue – it gets them their ounce of flesh now and they lose the pound later. Its bad business. But its their business.

If not, then you have no beef with them. They simply followed the terms, as agreed.

I called the hotel and they REFUSED to waive their cancellation policy. I was charged for one night. It was the Villas at Grand Cypress.

When we went back to Orlando in February, we did not stay at that property. I sent the manager a letter, told him we had come back to Orlando and did not stay at his property because of their attitude, and that I will always dissaude anyone I know from staying at their property.

I urge ALL readers of this blog to NOT stay at the Villas a Grand Cypress – for gosh sakes guys – there was a HURRICANE coming that was in the area for two out of a potential 4 night stay.

The crazy thing is that I asked them to keep the money and give us credit for a rescheduled vacation and they refused that as well.

I’m with Brian. I’d get another credit card.

@Jason.

That’s not how the system works. Bonnie’s credit card company has nothing to fear from Ramada. Her bank is greedy. By siding with Ramada, the bank makes more money than by siding with Bonnie.

If the hotel has vacancies (unbooked and unused rooms), then the hotel is collecting a fee, even though there was zero hardship for the hotel. If the hotel is overbooked and they put somebody in the no-show’s room, then they are double-dipping for that room, also a reprehensible practice.

Personally, I usually use my corporate contract rates when travelling (even traveling personally, which is allowed under my company’s contracts), as it guarantees a 6PM day-of-arrival cancellation policy.

SirWired