the worst hotel experience ever

paulsca79

I spent 2 days in the clarion hotel in Sligo now granted it was full due to the INTO conference but that's no excuse first room not ready till 16:30 check in problem that's another story....vomit stain on the carpet, refrigerator we requested for our sons food broken said it would be fixed but still waiting,cold showers , 7 mins waiting at an empty bar for a still water eventually had to give up looked for a salad for lunch but "chef was gone" whatever that means staff were compleat pigs !!! and finally the cherry on the cake went for a swim with my 3 year old son in the kids pool to find lumps of poo floating past me I nearly died !!!!! sorry for the rant but I'm very angery as I was looking forward to a break in the beautiful weather in a beautiful part of the country but the experience ruined it for my whole family

Zhane

Sounds horrible. Have you talked to the hotel?

tayto lover

paulsca79 wrote: »

I spent 2 days in the clarion hotel in Sligo now granted it was full due to the INTO conference but that's no excuse first room not ready till 16:30 check in problem that's another story....vomit stain on the carpet, refrigerator we requested for our sons food broken said it would be fixed but still waiting,cold showers , 7 mins waiting at an empty bar for a still water eventually had to give up looked for a salad for lunch but "chef was gone" whatever that means staff were compleat pigs !!! and finally the cherry on the cake went for a swim with my 3 year old son in the kids pool to find lumps of poo floating past me I nearly died !!!!! sorry for the rant but I'm very angery as I was looking forward to a break in the beautiful weather in a beautiful part of the country but the experience ruined it for my whole family

I bet you were not waiting 7 minutes to get your bill paid.
Irish hotels are the pits. Too expensive and poor cleanliness and they wonder why the tourists are staying away.

mw3guc

Complain to the hotel in writing. Put your experience up on Tripadvisor so that others can learn about your experience and avoid this hotel. Sounds awful :mad:

Del2005

paulsca79 wrote: »

I spent 2 days in the clarion hotel in Sligo now granted it was full due to the INTO conference but that's no excuse first room not ready till 16:30 check in problem that's another story....vomit stain on the carpet, refrigerator we requested for our sons food broken said it would be fixed but still waiting,cold showers , 7 mins waiting at an empty bar for a still water eventually had to give up looked for a salad for lunch but "chef was gone" whatever that means staff were compleat pigs !!! and finally the cherry on the cake went for a swim with my 3 year old son in the kids pool to find lumps of poo floating past me I nearly died !!!!! sorry for the rant but I'm very angery as I was looking forward to a break in the beautiful weather in a beautiful part of the country but the experience ruined it for my whole family

Did you complain on checkout? Unless they know they can't improve.

tony1kenobi

Still waiting for the fridge to be fixed so they've probably not checked out yet.

maxer68

tayto lover wrote: »

I bet you were not waiting 7 minutes to get your bill paid.
Irish hotels are the pits. Too expensive and poor cleanliness and they wonder why the tourists are staying away.

what a total bulls1t statement. But we are brilliant at pulling ourselves down and champions of begrudgery. Imo Irish hotels currently offer unbelievable value and this is backed up by international reports.

Onthe3rdDay

maxer68 wrote: »

what a total bulls1t statement. But we are brilliant at pulling ourselves down and champions of begrudgery. Imo Irish hotels currently offer unbelievable value and this is backed up by international reports.

Yes we are brilliant at pulling ourselves down and champions of begrudgery but when it comes to irish hotels most of the complaints in my experience tend to be valid.

I travel a lot as part of my work and with one or two exceptions I try to avoid hotels here whenever possible. Poor service can be forgiven, as can mistakes (we all make them!) However, Irish hotel rooms tend to be very dirty.

(The unbelievable value quote shouldn't be used by anyone, it's been devalued by the current spar ad where a manager doesn't realise he's got a half wit working for him. )

tayto lover

maxer68 wrote: »

what a total bulls1t statement. But we are brilliant at pulling ourselves down and champions of begrudgery. Imo Irish hotels currently offer unbelievable value and this is backed up by international reports.

Over many years i have stayed in hotels that were dirty, staff who were rude and ate food that was too expensive. Only lately, with the downturn, have prices got cheaper but standards have got lower as well. I can only speak for my experiences, if you have great experiences then lucky you.
Don't shoot the messenger.
I have never gone outside Ireland so i cannot compare.

ScouseMouse

tayto lover wrote: »

Over many years i have stayed in hotels that were dirty, staff who were rude and ate food that was too expensive. Only lately, with the downturn, have prices got cheaper but standards have got lower as well. I can only speak for my experiences, if you have great experiences then lucky you.
Don't shoot the messenger.
I have never gone outside Ireland so i cannot compare.

I agree with you. To many hotels built after tax breaks and encouragement from the government. Now its collapsed, the hotels cannot survive. Que price cuts and inevitably lower standards.

Hootanany

paulsca79 wrote: »

I spent 2 days in the clarion hotel in Sligo now granted it was full due to the INTO conference but that's no excuse first room not ready till 16:30 check in problem that's another story....vomit stain on the carpet, refrigerator we requested for our sons food broken said it would be fixed but still waiting,cold showers , 7 mins waiting at an empty bar for a still water eventually had to give up looked for a salad for lunch but "chef was gone" whatever that means staff were compleat pigs !!! and finally the cherry on the cake went for a swim with my 3 year old son in the kids pool to find lumps of poo floating past me I nearly died !!!!! sorry for the rant but I'm very angery as I was looking forward to a break in the beautiful weather in a beautiful part of the country but the experience ruined it for my whole family

Why cant you do in service days in your holidays also

dudara

Hootanany Please stick to the topic at hand

dudara

ejmaztec

Very mixed reviews on this hotel:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g186635-d553661-Reviews-or10-Clarion_Hotel_Sligo-Sligo_County_Sligo.html#REVIEWS

paulsca79

that's fit advice doing that right now

paulsca79

I'm writing my e mail now dude !!!! cheers

Mr. Presentable

Shocked to read the OP. I have stayed several times (more than five) at the Clarion in Sligo in the past couple of years. Always found everything to be spot on.

SteM

I'm shocked that the OP decided to come on a message board to rant about a hotel to random strangers that can do nothing about it while he/she was still staying in the hotel! I'd be down at the reception giving grief to the manager.

tayto lover - bit of a generalisation there. You've had bad experiences but you say 'Irish hotels are the pits' with a sweeping statement. I can tell you that not all are from experience. I can tell you from experience that some are and some are not - exactly the same experience that I have had in other places around the world. Worst hotel I have EVER stayed in was in New York for instance.

enda1

To be honest I'd be sceptical of such a new poster completely lambasting and naming a business. Just saying, but wouldn't take it as the gospel.

omahaid

Mr. Presentable wrote: »

Shocked to read the OP. I have stayed several times (more than five) at the Clarion in Sligo in the past couple of years. Always found everything to be spot on.

Ya, I second this, have stayed there about 10 times over the last 4 years, always thought it was a nice place (and cheap ). Amazed to hear this tbh (not doubting your story OP, just to make that clear)

tayto lover

SteM wrote: »

I'm shocked that the OP decided to come on a message board to rant about a hotel to random strangers that can do nothing about it while he/she was still staying in the hotel! I'd be down at the reception giving grief to the manager.

tayto lover - bit of a generalisation there. You've had bad experiences but you say 'Irish hotels are the pits' with a sweeping statement. I can tell you that not all are from experience. I can tell you from experience that some are and some are not - exactly the same experience that I have had in other places around the world. Worst hotel I have EVER stayed in was in New York for instance.

Yes i agree i was over the top to say "all are the pits".
I have stayed in good hotels here but of late i have found most of them to be pretty bad. I won't name any here though.

ejmaztec

In an island country, where people have to shell out on the cost of actually getting there, there shouldn't be one single kip hotel in the country, or no-one will ever come back. The standards should be higher than anywhere else, not lower.

The Trip Advisor reviews of the hotel would put me off immediately.

smelltheglove

I also agree, this is my favourite hotel in the country, I rave about it so much all of my family have been there to stay and all say the same so I am very surprised to hear this. Definitely speak with the manager about it, I would assume, based on my numerous experiences, management would be quite shocked and annoyed to hear of all of this.

ShooterSF

ejmaztec wrote: »

The Trip Advisor reviews of the hotel would put me off immediately.

The problem with any review site is that a person that has a bad experience is hugely more likely to post a review than those that had a good experience. Take a look at those that rated it terrible and who only had 1 or 2 contributions. I bet they stayed in a few great hotels but only when they were outraged did they bother to review somewhere. They are less interested in contributing to a review site and more concerned with harming a business that let them down. This skews the ratings.
Anywhere that has more excellent reviews than terrible and more good than poor I would generally chance (unless there was lot's of complaints about insects, I hate insects ).

wyndham

paulsca79 wrote: »

...........a swim with my 3 year old son in the kids pool to find lumps of poo floating past me ............

That was just Mr Hankey on his spring break.

ejmaztec

ShooterSF wrote: »

The problem with any review site is that a person that has a bad experience is hugely more likely to post a review than those that had a good experience. Take a look at those that rated it terrible and who only had 1 or 2 contributions. I bet they stayed in a few great hotels but only when they were outraged did they bother to review somewhere. They are less interested in contributing to a review site and more concerned with harming a business that let them down. This skews the ratings.
Anywhere that has more excellent reviews than terrible and more good than poor I would generally chance (unless there was lot's of complaints about insects, I hate insects ).

Of course none of the review sites are 100% accurate, and you have to read between the lines for a pattern. The ratings also get skewed when a much-aligned hotelier signs up to tell everyone that the hotel being reviewed is the greatest hotel on the planet.

Sometimes, if there is a problem with insects, no-one gets to hear about them where the guest has been consumed in the middle of the night.:eek:

ShooterSF

ejmaztec wrote: »

Of course none of the review sites are 100% accurate, and you have to read between the lines for a pattern. The ratings also get skewed when a much-aligned hotelier signs up to tell everyone that the hotel being reviewed is the greatest hotel on the planet.

Sometimes, if there is a problem with insects, no-one gets to hear about them where the guest has been consumed in the middle of the night.:eek:

I'm gonna have nightmares now. Oh I have seen all the tricks (I've worked in a hotel for years) and I have also seen people getting free meals in return for taking down negative reviews, usually put up during a row with the hotel. Tripadvisor is somewhat useful but if you took every review seriously you would never stay anywhere!

coylemj

To be honest I don't believe a word of the OP's post. If that hotel gets the INTO conference you can be sure that it was well checked out by them in advance and passed muster.

A negative review like this from a first time poster has a certain whiff about it.

Diddler1977

paulsca79 wrote: »

I spent 2 days in the clarion hotel in Sligo now granted it was full due to the INTO conference but that's no excuse first room not ready till 16:30 check in problem that's another story....vomit stain on the carpet, refrigerator we requested for our sons food broken said it would be fixed but still waiting,cold showers , 7 mins waiting at an empty bar for a still water eventually had to give up looked for a salad for lunch but "chef was gone" whatever that means staff were compleat pigs !!! and finally the cherry on the cake went for a swim with my 3 year old son in the kids pool to find lumps of poo floating past me I nearly died !!!!! sorry for the rant but I'm very angery as I was looking forward to a break in the beautiful weather in a beautiful part of the country but the experience ruined it for my whole family

Why did you stay a second night? You should have just checked out after the first night.

-Corkie-

I stayed there once and never again. It was a kip and plus that the rooms freaked me out..My car was broken into aswell and they didnt give a toss about it. I always go to the Radisson now its a lovely spot.

Chipboard

This post sounds like BS to me.

I've stayed here and found it to be a fine hotel. It was some time ago so the hotel may have changed but I'll put that aside for a moment

I don't believe for second that all this happened to the OP and his first reaction was to raise it on a public forum like this and he had to be told to write a complaint to the hotel which only then seemed like a good idea! Bu11sh1t.

You had a responsibility to inform the hotel of this first, and then if they didn't handle deal with your complaint effectively, fair enough that you would come on here and publicise it but to come on and rant about it first and only then decide to complain to the hotel is either stupid or sinister.

The staff of that hotel depend on it for employment. If they know about your experience and do nothing about it then they deserve what they get but to damage the hotels reputation without informing them first is irresponsible.

If you owned your own business you would not do this. Even looking at this from a legal perspective, you've made a big mistake.

I have no links to this hotel btw.

Will_H

Chipboard wrote: »

Even looking at this from a legal perspective, you've made a big mistake.

Hmmm - methinks this could be seen as scaremongering Chipboard! Are you saying posting a review on the likes of Tripadvisor or Menupages could have legal repercussions?!....I don't think so!

BobMc

bit ott in my book, if you've got a complaint you raise it there and then so they can remedy it as best they can, as for tripadvisor member and have been since 2005, regular users can pick out the fakes easy enough, check how long they've been members, how many reviews etc, I'll right a review for both bad and good

Chipboard

Will_H wrote: »

Hmmm - methinks this could be seen as scaremongering Chipboard! Are you saying posting a review on the likes of Tripadvisor or Menupages could have legal repercussions?!....I don't think so!

Its downright stupid to post on a public forum without having brought it to the attention of the service provider first.

Had the OP complained to the hotel the hotel would probably have to acknowledge the problems to some extent. If they didn't deal with it properly he could then rant all he wants. As it is (unless he took a video) he has no proof that any of it happened. If I were the owner of this hotel I would pursue him for damages. His comments can be verified; he would have to prove that the events he described actually happened. Most of it is relatively harmless. The piece about the pool isn't. The OP should maybe stop to consider that what he allegedly found in the pool could have been put their 30 seconds earlier. How could anyone prevent this. I don't even believe his post.

This OP's profile is newly created so my guess is we'll never hear from him again.

BTW, if attempted to post the same allegations on Tripadvisor, I believe it wouldn't be published. There is no way that a legitimate site like Tripadvisor would publish such slanderous bullsh1t without verification.

Sometimes when you have a bad experience and you complain, you get a response that really impresses you. Why couldn't he try this. To deny the hotel the opportunity to address his complaints before splashing it all over the internet is downright ignorant.