What to expect as restitution?

[Jonathan Freinkel]

I just got home from my honeymoon and man am I disappointed.

We went to a resort in Cancun and it was far from cheap and it did not live up to expectations.

my main problems were:
1. I don't like being panhandled for spa treatments while sleeping on the beech.
2. 3 times the concierge made reservations for dinner and when we got there...they didn't exist
3. 7am weedwacker a every day
4. Could hear the toilets being flushed in any unit up to 3 doors away at any time.

I know these sound minor and if it was under $200 a night I would bite my tongue. My issue is it was far more. Let's just say I could buy a good few powermatic tools for the same $$

i confronted the desk staff and their ability to speak English suddenly disappeared. I escalated it but haven't heard back.
Monday I plan to talk to the travel agent.

The real question- what would be acceptable restitution? I go between reduce the cost to $200 a night on one end and send my wife flowers with an apology note not the other.

[Bruce Pratt]

go with the flowers...

[Bert Kemp]

Hey thats the way it is in Cancun its a tourist trap and its Mexico. Couple yrs ago I got a really nice Codo for a week just off shore on Isla Mujere's $500 for the week We rented scooters $10 a day, Nice dinner in the villa each night cheap. Pretty laid back no pan handlers, it was awesome.

[Mike Henderson]

Congratulations on your wedding! Other than the issues you mentioned, I hope it was a good honeymoon.

Mike

[Matt Day]

Congrats on the wedding!

I had a great time in Cancun - it's not all tourist traps as said above. There are a lot of very nice places and service.

As far as restitution, tough call. Free stay I would think but you might not want that! Credit would be nice, maybe 1/2 the cost of your stay or something. I dunno.

[Mike McCann]

Congrats on the wedding but I do not think you will get anything. if at the resturaunts you got seated then nothing, as far as asking for spa treaments nothing you can do about that. if you wnet through a travel agent that is who i would be upset with. they should have known about the thin walls with the flushing.

[Frederick Skelly]

Congrats on the wedding but I do not think you will get anything. if at the resturaunts you got seated then nothing, as far as asking for spa treaments nothing you can do about that. if you wnet through a travel agent that is who i would be upset with. they should have known about the thin walls with the flushing.

First off, congratulations Jonathan!

As far as "restitution", I agree with Mike on all points.

Your travel agent SHOULD HAVE been able to place you in a good hotel. He/she should be sending your wife flowers for that foul up.

[Pat Barry]

Your travel agent SHOULD HAVE been able to place you in a good hotel. He/she should be sending your wife flowers for that foul up.

Are folks really still using travel agents? With everything on the internet? Why?

[Wade Lippman]

Are folks really still using travel agents? With everything on the internet? Why?

I used a travel agent once in the last 30 years, to book our 25th anniversary trip to Alaska. I am certain it was a better trip than I could have done myself. All the little details were done wonderfully.

But back to the restitution. My previous experience with a travel agent (31 years ago to Saint Thomas) was much worse than yours. It never even occurred to me to complain to the travel agent; I just never used him again. I suppose he would agree to send flowers, but is it worth the trouble?

[Scott Shepherd]

This is what's wrong with society today. If something is not up to someone's expectations they think they deserve or are entitled to "restitution". I say tough luck on the bad experience, but get over it and move on.

Seriously? How's that? The expectations are set by the people selling you the travel. What you sold me and what I got aren't the same thing, and you're supposed to just say "oh well?". I don't agree with that all. I think it's our responsibility as consumers to raise poor experiences as well as great experiences. It's what makes people fix poor customer service. Do you think that if no one ever complained about anything, then service would magically rise to the top tier? Service gets better because people show the shortcomings in their systems. The good companies listen and address them, the poor companies don't.

If you ordered chicken off a menu at a restaurant and you cut into it and it was raw inside, would you complain or just say "tough luck on the bad experience" and watch your wife eat her dinner while you sat with nothing (and paid for the chicken)? Of course you wouldn't. You'd complain to the waitstaff about it. That's the same thing he's doing. Except in this case, he complained to the staff and they refused to resolve it.

[Frederick Skelly]

Are folks really still using travel agents? With everything on the internet? Why?

We still have then around here. I havent used one in ages, but some folks do - mostly to gain the benefit of their knowledge of a particlar hotel, resort, etc. (Me? I do my own research. But thats just me.)

[Mike Henderson]

Go on TripAdvisor and leave a review. It'll help someone else. I use TripAdvisor often to find hotels and have found the reviews to be pretty accurate, in the aggregate.

Mike

[Brian Elfert]

When exactly is the lawn crew supposed to do their work? If they didn't trim the weeds then you would be complaining about the poor landscaping. In hot climates outdoor work is typically done early in the day because it is too hot later in the day to do the work.

Did the resort have a private beach? If it was a public beach would the resort even have the right to remove bums from the beach?

[Jim Matthews]

http://www.cntraveler.com/contributors/eric-jordan

Write to the Conde Nast Ombudsman.
They love ruined vacations.

It gives them a fresh target to write about.

Perhaps you send a draft of the letter you intend
to write to the Hotel manager, first.

Ask for cash, unless you want to return to see if they've made improvements...

[Mike Henderson]

When exactly is the lawn crew supposed to do their work? If they didn't trim the weeds then you would be complaining about the poor landscaping. In hot climates outdoor work is typically done early in the day because it is too hot later in the day to do the work.
If that's true, I would expect the resort to tell people that the lawn crew starts work at 7am - and tell them before they made the reservation. If they did that, then you wouldn't have a right to complain.

But when you go to a resort, you don't expect to have reveille (like they do in the military) at 7am every day. People like to sleep late when they're on vacation, and that's not unreasonable.

Mike

[Brian Elfert]

If that's true, I would expect the resort to tell people that the lawn crew starts work at 7am - and tell them before they made the reservation. If they did that, then you wouldn't have a right to complain.


Does any resort provide this sort of information? Would you expect a ski resort hotel not to plow the roads until noon to avoid waking guests?

[Brian Ashton]

Those that seem to get a satisfactory result are the ones that go on every social media site and complain about the service at the place they were staying, traveling on... So hit their Facebook, twitter, trip advisor… accounts and don't let up. They might pay you to shut up.

[Erik Loza]

I grew up in Mexico and my wife and I have made numerous trips to the Cancun area.

This might not be what you want to hear but as far as "restitution", I would forget about that. Chalk it up to life lessons learned. As someone else already pointed out, it's all a matter of perception. If you went to one of those all-inclusive on the Cancun strip and look like a the average White tourist, then of course every panhandler will try to hit you up for something. It's Mexico and Cancun exists because of tourists. And you have a lot more money than 99.9% of locals and they all know this. Were people rude to you or did they harrass you? Or did they just try to sell you something and move on? Reservations? I would just show up and slide the host some cash to get seated faster. That's the way it works in Mexico.

I think Trip Advisor is a great idea. My wife and I have stayed on the strip a couple of time and never had a bad experience but usually rent a car and drive down to Tulum. No weed whackers or peddlers on the beach, not that either of those is a deal breaker for either of us. On our various trips to the Mayan Riviera, I have had happen to us:

-Been pulled over for "speeding" by the notoriously corrupt local cops (and which I was able to talk my way out of paying the bribe both times..)
-Had the plates on our rental car pulled by the local cops because the hotel valet probably parked it illegally while we were asleep inside. And we had to pay the rental place a fine.
-Had our rental car's A/C die during thr middle of summer and naturally, no local rep in the town we were.

All that being said, we have had some of the best times together in the Cancun/Tulum. But, "Es Mexico" and as long as you are aware of that, you'll have a good time. Just my 2-cents and congrats to to you both. I propsed to my wife in Mexico and we just celebrated our 6th anniversary.


Erik Loza
Minimax USA

[Mike Henderson]

Does any resort provide this sort of information? Would you expect a ski resort hotel not to plow the roads until noon to avoid waking guests?
It's all a matter of expectations. For a ski resort, I would expect that the room would be insulated sufficiently that I could sleep, if the snow plow would disturb a reasonable person without that sound insulation. If it's well known that there's lots of noise at 7am at a ski resort and no reasonable person could be expected to sleep past 7am, then I would consider that the client had been warned. I don't know much about ski resorts.

Same with the Mexican resort. If they start making a lot of noise at 7am, and that noise is sufficient to disturb a reasonable person, I would expect to be warned before I took the room.

Mike

[Jonathan Freinkel]

Are folks really still using travel agents? With everything on the internet? Why?
I used one because it was cheaper to get a package than if I had bought the pieces individually. We priced it both ways and the savings was enough to warrant the travel agent.

[Jonathan Freinkel]

When exactly is the lawn crew supposed to do their work? If they didn't trim the weeds then you would be complaining about the poor landscaping. In hot climates outdoor work is typically done early in the day because it is too hot later in the day to do the work.

Did the resort have a private beach? If it was a public beach would the resort even have the right to remove bums from the beach?

They have crews working 14 hours a day on landscaping. It's currently winter and when I am spending over $500 a night (the actual number is substantially higher) I expect the resort to be hyper focused on customer comfort. No?

[Jonathan Freinkel]

Those that seem to get a satisfactory result are the ones that go on every social media site and complain about the service at the place they were staying, traveling on... So hit their Facebook, twitter, trip advisor… accounts and don't let up. They might pay you to shut up.
Ya. I think after the travel agent and I talk tomorrow it may go that way!

Thanks guys! My intention when I started this thread was to have an answer to "what would it take to make you happy?" Should they ask.

[Brian Elfert]

They have crews working 14 hours a day on landscaping. It's currently winter and when I am spending over $500 a night (the actual number is substantially higher) I expect the resort to be hyper focused on customer comfort. No?

14 hours a day seems quite excessive. They shouldn't need to work in the same section of the resort every single day as grass doesn't grow that fast.

I imagine this isn't the easiest thing for resorts of this caliber to deal with. Guests paying well over $500 a night would expect a very lush landscape with grass as nice as any high end golf course. The problem is it takes a lot of work to keep the landscape looking nice, but hotel guests don't want to see (or hear) the landscapers either. Golf courses deal with it by starting at 4 or 5 am, but that doesn't work at a resort with guests.

[Scott Hackler]

Last March, my wife and I, made our first trip outside of the USA (well except for Hawaii which is like a foreign country in a lot of ways except for it cost way more) and we went to Cozumel Mexico. A bunch of friends booked a "group" trip through a travel agent and we got airfare, transportation to the hotel and airport and an all inclusive resort for $1535 TOTAL for two people! We had a great time but found out a few things for the "next time". First, our resorts food and drinks and liquor were terrible. It kinda defeats the purpose of "all inclusive" when the food had the flavor of a piece of paper and the beer/drinks were 75% water. <- yep I just said that correctly. The resort was right on the beach and the people there were the nicest ever. The rooms were pretty dated (think an old Motel 6) but super clean...so whatever. We didn't go there to sleep. I answered the hotels "survey" and was honest. I never heard anything back.

The craziest thing in Cozumel was the taxi service. $8 US to go where ever you wanted, each way and as many people as it would hold. Awesome! No panhandlers to speak of, even downtown in San Miguel. There were a lot of them on the mainland. I figure they are just trying to make a living so I would brush off the jewelry sellers and buy from the locals that had handmade bracelets and ALL WAYS paid them more. One lady was selling the coolest braided bracelets and she only wanted something like a $.50 each. I gave her twice that and told her she could get more for her efforts.

Deep into the "jungle" (if you can call it that) on the way to the Mayan ruins, we stopped in a small town for a restroom break and I was hungry, so I wandered over to a little grocery store. Loads of people around and no one bothering me at all. Very friendly folks. You definitely need to be UP on the exchange rates or you will overpay.

So I guess it's what you make of it and set the expectations correctly through research beforehand (Tripadvisor, ect.). I would definitely go back to Cozumel, but I wouldn't stay in that resort (El Cozumeleno) again, but only because of the food and drinks aspect. I suspect I would have to pay more somewhere else, but I would have had no problem dropping another $500 on good food. (BTW the restaurants downtown were good, as were the strength of the liquor!)

There was a couple on the tour bus for Mayan ruins that was staying at a different resort (don't remember which one) and they said the food and drinks were great and the rooms were modern. I suspect they paid more than $1535!

[Andy J Smith]

Something I have a bit of experience with - my wife is a big Marriott fan. Only stays at Marriott hotels when possible. I never got it before, but I do now. They screw up like everyone else, but they are typically willing to take care of it. On our wedding night we were booked to stay in one. We'd called to confirm our reservation several days before and explained we wouldn't be in till late. We didn't arrive at the hotel til after the ceremony and dinner, turns out they'd sold our room out from under us since it was a big football game night. Duke vs somebody? They comp'd us a room in another local hotel, ordered champagne, free breakfast, etc. On top of that, gave us a bunch of points to use on our next stay. Ended up staying at a Marriott for our honeymoon, had a great experience. Service was awesome, it was quiet. etc. Exactly what we wanted. The other week we went on a vacation to Florida, stayed in a Marriott at a resort. There was a wedding downstairs on the first night, music was wall shaking loud till midnight. If we'd wanted that, there were cheaper places to stay. We complained. They took care of us.

Like to OP, it isn't about entitlement - you are paying a premium for an experience. If they don't deliver, you have the right within reason to let them know. I'd rather not have the frustration, but I've come to appreciate those who take responsibility for it.