We recently were travelling on business and where put up in The Wharf Hotel. The Rooms are lovely and first impressions were good, with close proximity to the airport. upon check in they told us we were only booked in for the first 2 days as they were fully booked for the rest of the days and they said they had informed the person who booked on our behalf but never heard anything back. I took this as a genuine mistake and the lady Pamela on reception told us she would find us an alternative, the same quality and price etc, so we were happy with that.
My partner had flown in for a few days to join me and I had been informed by pamela that I would have to pay an extra charge for having 2 people in my room instead of just me. I thought well in most hotels you pay for the double room, does it matter if someone comes stays the night with me. Never less we decided maybe it could be for government tax etc as in Maldives i know we had to pay like 11 dollars per person for government tax of the hotel. So i asked how much the extra fee would be and was told it was 40 Euro. For me this was ok and acceptable. So I left it at that
The next day after checking out and clearing our room bill we were waiting for the transport to take us to the new hotel Pamela kindly found us, we were called back to be told we still owe them extra money as they forgot to add it onto the bill, so we went to hand over 40 Euro's and all of a sudden it changes to no it is 40 euros extra each night! Then she decides that the new hotel we are moving to has the same policy and insisting we must pay her upfront 40 Euro extra per night for the rest of our stay an extra 5 nights!!
Luckily we decide no this doesn't sound right let us check out the other hotel first of all and we will pay it to them. She tells us the rate of the hotel for a double room with one person and with 2 people in figures , so we know the exact rate the company paid and assures us we are getting the same rate at the new hotel. After a small heated discussion we refuse to pay upfront for extra person to her and will give it to other hotel.
We arrive at the new hotel only to find out it's not a hotel at all is more of a hostel/ guest house, which confirmed by the staff there is not even half the price of what we paid for the Wharf hotel and one room with either 1 or 2 people in it is no extra charge.
The company had already paid the Wharf hotel in full for our week stay there, so she is in charge of paying out to the new hotels. We start to think she is scamming us since we dont have to pay out of an extra 40 euro per night here that she insisted we paid upfront to her and our rooms are not even half the price of the Wharf. One does wonder where the extra money went and how much of it was going in Pamela's pocket.
We arrive back to the Wharf hotel to tell her we are not satisfied to stay in this guest house when our week at the Wharf has been paid and we are not getting the same quality and also to confront her that we know the rates of the guest house were a lot less and that they dont charge extra 40 euro per night for 2 people sharing a room, so why was she trying to get us to pay it to her upfront and her reaction was nothing short of disgusting. She got all defensive and finally harshly told us to go sit down away from her and she walked of. Funnily enough after this Pamela was not to be seen again in the reception while we waited a few hrs while the other staff helpfully found us another place to stay.
Still being skeptical I thought we had just had a very bad run of luck, until randomly on the last day we were there and we ran into another 3 people, also travelling there on business, booked into the wharf hotel, that had the same story to tell us that they had been kicked out early as said were overbooked and taken to a less than satisfactory guest house that cost a fraction of the price, organised by The Wharf.
Either the Wharf have a very bad booking system or one would think that they have some sort of system set up with a local handler and are booking these rooms and taking full payment from companies and then passing the guests onto smaller cheaper guest houses and pocketing the extra cash..
Shame though as I can honestly say although the hotel is a bit old and not that well kept the rooms were nice and the service although very slow the workers bar Pamela were very friendly.
But after my experience I would definitely not be going back. I can only be thankful that we didn't pay the 40 euro a night upfront for the rest of the week.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC.
