Bad experience San Juan Hotel!

[tiffstulips]

BEWARE of Hotel Miramar! :mad:

Just back from 2/14 sailing on Serenade. Made reservations with Hotel Miramar on Ponce de Leon Avenue in San Juan about 3 months ago. We wanted to spend an extra day in San Juan before sailing so the kids could see the town. Hotel reservations were made through an online booking company. During the online search I entered 2 adults and 3 children and their ages. It selects hotels avaliable for the criteria you enter. I booked Hotel Miramar and paid a small booking fee. I called 1 week before arrival to confirm the reservation. I told them I was making sure we had 2 double beds since we were traveling with 3 children. They assured me that was correct. Upon arrival the girl at the counter says you have 5 people? I said yes. she said our rooms are 4 people max. After making several calls to the owner she informed us we would have to rent 2 rooms. (by the way, the rooms were huge and the 2 double beds would have easily accomidiated our family.) We argued we had confirmed and had a print out of the online reservation and they simply blamed the online booking company. We waited about 2 hours in the lobby while trying to work out something. Finally we reluctantly agreed to rent 2 rooms for 2 nights but at $99 for the 2nd room we were being forced to rent. We paid the $472 for the rooms as we were exhausted and ready to get settled. The next evening the front desk girl approached my husband in the lobby and told him she made a mistake and forgot to charge us the 2nd night at $99 for the 2nd room and we would have to pay it at check-out in the morning. She was very apologetic stating she was only doing her job and what the owner was relaying to her. The next morning the owners wife was at the desk. She was quite harsh stating we would need to pay the extra night. My husband argued he had already paid above and beyond and it was not our fault the desk girl made a mistake. With a very bad taste in out mouth we paid the final $99 plus tax and informed her we would be posting this on Cruise Critic with a warning for others.

At the beginning of our vacation a hotel that should have cost us $322 ended up costing almost $600 and alot of stress! We also stayed at 2 other hotels over the vacation on Houston and Chicago and had no problem renting 1 room.

[gfargo53]

what a terrible way to start a vacation.i just hope your cruise was was great.maybe you can dispute the charges with your credit card company,sounds like you did your part 1 week before your cruise by confirming your reservation with the hotel

[Caribbean Sunsets]

Wow, that's terrible. I hope you do protest the charge with yoru credit card company. Can you contact the on line booking company for any recourse? I wish you luck getting some of your money back.

 

You may also want to monitor the San Juan board and when people recommend hotels, make your story known again and again.

[Lucyonthesea]

You should also post this on Tripadvisor. Lots of people look for hotel info on that site.

[Ojaian]

You should also post this on Tripadvisor. Lots of people look for hotel info on that site.

I agree you should post a Tripadvisor review for this hotel.

[tiffstulips]

Thanks for the advice! I don't think my cc company can do anything. Basically we were forced to rent an extra room. I will post on tripadvisor.

[RayInPR]

It sure sounds to me like the issue is with the "online booking company" and not the hotel. You should have called that "booking company" pronto from the front desk of the hotel before checking in. If they sold you a "package" (for want of a better word) that the hotel wouldn't honor, that's not the hotel's fault.

 

Bad-mouthing the hotel on TripAdvisor is not fair to the hotel. If their policy is 4 people/room, then that's their policy. Regardless of what the "booking company" sold you.

 

You should take it up with, and seek compensation from, the "booking company".

[spyderdezigns]

I somewhat agree with the last post but the hotel should not have charged for the extra room and allowed us to have our children in the same room. The hotel should also be responsible to double check the reservation from the online company. We had paperwork to confirm our reservation.

There are many families that travel together that would like stay in the same room if they know that they would not be forced to get another room if the one that is reserved is large enough for all of them. The child in question was only 10. We had two double beds plus furniture in the room large enough for her to sleep on.