I chose this hotel since it was new and the family (wife, 5 & 2 yr old) were leaving the area due to a mandatory military move. I arrived in a U-Haul truck to parking lot under construction and dealt with it on my own. After traversing through the construction site (with the help of some very helpful blue collar types) I parked in the only location available. Once inside I asked if I could place an orange cone in front of the truck so that nobody would park in front of my truck, enter worst customer service ever. I was confronted by Cambria employee Jen (the white collar hotel front desk type) and was immediately informed I must move my truck due to the fact that the hotel has 111 parking spots representing 111 of their hotel rooms. I informed her that due to the type of vehicle trailer being pulled behind my U-Haul that I could not back up and how I had already interrupted construction operations just to get to my current position. She quickly pointed out that the construction is not on their lot and therefore not her problem (despite me, the customer explaining to her the situation and looking for help to resolve the issue). An option called the trailer/truck parking spot was quickly pointed out despite her ability to understand me the first time when I told her I cannot back up (the parking lot/road into the hotel is basically a one way street). Fed up with this back and forth BS I decided to look for another hotel nearby, and after 45 minutes of searching I presented this idea to the front desk. This must have been a first for the hotel crew since it took another 10 minutes to “ask the manager”. Hotel font desk rep Jen returned to the all knowing computer and exclaimed “that should be alright”. Awesome, I’m thinking, now we can both go our own way and I can be gone with this fiasco. “You’re OK there”, says Jen, “we’re not even full tonight, you can leave the truck there”… A speechless look fell over my face and since my wife tells me to think before I speak, I simply walked away holding in my frustrations. Customer service is a key component to a positive experience in almost every activity people find themselves in, and because of this I would not stay here again. One more thing, the $10 breakfast “buffet” doesn’t come close to any two-star hotels free continental breakfast.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC.
January 2, 2013
Dear Mr. Heltne,
Our most sincere apologies for your experience. We want you to have a great experience, so you will return. I have taken the liberty to refund your entire stay with us, and I would like to take a few moments to try to clarify our position and explain how we plan to improve. First, I apologize that you felt our parking lot was under construction, but actually the construction site your drove through was not part of this hotel's property. I'm truly glad the construction team was accommodating. You turned into the driveway before our property, and that I believe is what created the confusion. We actually have quite a bit of parking (that you unfortunately circumnavigated) that will accommodate a u-haul, as well as the street coming into our property is privately owned and has accommodated several semi trailers at once, in the past. I apologize for Jenn's attempt, but failure, to communicate the issue to you in a way that would have made you more comfortable. Unfortunately, we come across a situation from time to time where we create a negative guest experience in the effort to prevent a negative guest experience. Our orange cones are used to keep our shuttle space free of guest's vehicles, as the space the shuttle uses is inappropriate for normal parking. In addition, we try to keep the larger, multi-space vehicles in the rear of the building, thus allowing for more space in the front for guests. In this particular instance we had a city wide event going on (Lakota Nation Invitational Basketball tournament) and we expected to fill our hotel, so Jenn was merely trying to keep the front of the building available and prevent future negative impact. I have spoken with Jenn, and we will continue to look for more positive ways to interact with our guests, in order to avoid issues like you experienced. We did have several guests complain, and one of our other guests insisted that we have your vehicle moved, but as I'm sure you already know we never approached you in regards to this.
On another note, I would also like to point out our breakfast, as many guests make assumptions regarding it before they truly look at what is offered in our breakfast buffet. We are truly very far away from the free continental buffets boasted by many hotels. Nothing we offer is packaged, frozen, heated up and served as a "hot item". All of our items are prepared on site, and are freshly prepared. We make cooked to order omelets, and although we serve scrambled eggs, if you prefer them another way you are more than welcome to order them that way. We offer both sausage and bacon, 2 types of fresh cut fruit, multiple bread options, yogurt, oatmeal, cereals, several types of juice and milk, Wolfgang Puck ® coffee, hash browns, waffles, pancakes, french toast, and more. We understand how this may appear to be another "continental buffet," but the reality is that we are very far from that, and we offer a la cart items off our menu in addition to the buffet. Again, we apologize for your experience, and we realize that your perception is what counts (being the son of a retired Brigadier General and former military myself I personally understand the stress of military relocation), we would like to invite you back to give us another opportunity. I'm sure you will see that our service is more indicative of the many other positive reviews, and not indicative of your experience.
Warmest Regards,
Sam Cannon
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This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of TripAdvisor LLC.
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