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Sunday, March 25, 2012

Ramada Metrotown Review - A Frigid Reaction

Read this First! Staying at Hotel Ramada Metrotown at Kingsway and Tyne?

We stumbled upon this hotel at Kingsway and Tyne, ( 3484 Kingsway , Vancouver ) after having a super fun night out on town, delighted to learn that a room was available for the night.

A reasonable rate for a Queen Sized bed Suite, Room 343, which included complimentary breakfast and free WiFi.

Upon our entrance of the suite, we noticed it was cold inside, almost as cold as the 5-degree February weather we had just escaped.  No problem, we thought - we turned on the room heating system and settled in.  It was a clean and attractively decorated room, with a bathroom that invited a nice warm shower.  A hotter-than usual shower setting is what we needed to offset the cold room. So, we indulged in this after watching t.v. for 30 minutes.  

It was to our dismay that we soon learned the room was still cold; what a contrast in temperature, from a hot shower to a bedroom that was still cold! 

The air from the heater was only slightly warm after one hour.  A phone call to the front desk gave rise to a smirky response from the tired-sounding front desk clerk, who replied that I should have started at a lower heat setting first and then gradually move it up to high after 30 minutes. { Oh yes, I SHOULD have known to do it this way}.  And so we persevered under his instructions.  The next 30 minutes of igloo living seemed like frozen hell, at 1:30am.

Finally, with a bit of frustration boiling over, I went to the front desk and tried hard to inquire "nicely" about a portable space heater.  Oh, what's that, they have all been taken?  Ok, I then asked for an extra set of blankets.  Sheepishly handed over.  Wow, what initiative! Customer service initiated by myself.  This tired front-desk clerk was not about to use any energy to come up with suggestions, like the ones I just conjured up.

Back to the room...

And so, our tired minds and bodies gave in to sleep, under heavy layers of blankets which barely fought off the cold around us.  We were able to sleep until the time to enjoy the complimentary breakfast which was waiting for us in the morning. In fact, we barely just got in. Actually the toast-eggs-bacon-and coffee was super!  That, I can say was the best part of the hotel stay!  

Talking to the new - and much different - front desk clerk this next morning, I mentioned our frigid reception.  He was most apologetic and conceded the fact that management had had some previous similar complaints about the night clerk as well.  In fact, just that same morning, the night clerk had been observed hanging up on a guest who had telephoned to give some constructive feedback!  The morning clerk also said that he would have also suggested moving us to anothe room, if it were him attending to us.

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We won't be visiting this hotel for a while.
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A month later, I dropped in in the afternoon and talked to a South-Asian-looking front desk gentleman, inquiring if they had received our written feedback.  
Wow, what an apathetic response.  I might as well have been talking to a robot.  I pulled out the hotel receipt to show the date and hotel room, and he didn't even pretend to take any notice of it.  He just said, yes, all feedback is read by management, and any training issues on a specific individual would be looked into.

Sorry, Ramada Hotel Metrotown, your chance to exonerate yourself was lost.