A couple of weeks ago, I got a phone call from a hotel (Kilkee Bay Hotel) whom I had a booking for 49 people on the 30th July 2011, which is the August Bank Holiday Weekend.

The receptionist Gene had phoned to cancel the booking saying the owner of the hotel was not allowing our booking, as it was a bank holiday weekend that we could have the hotel for 2 nights at a much higher price or we cud pick the Friday night.

We had been recommended this hotel from somebody in Kilkee and were happy with the deal we received for 1 night b&b plus an evening meal.

When I received the phone call to cancel, it was only 5 weeks to the trip to Kilkee, bearing in mind this booking had been made with approximately 2 months. I was in a panic, I had to ring the other organisers and inform them of this situation, as you can imagine I was outraged at such a phone call because on booking the hotel I had offered to pay a deposit but it had been declined.

Upon talking with the organising committee, I rang the hotel back to speak to the manager, to receive further answers as to why a booking of such a number would be cancelled at short enough notice; at the time of booking they knew the bank holiday was that weekend.

The manager was unavailable but I could ring the Owner if I liked so I asked for his number the receptionist then gave me a number for Jim the “owner” subsequently we found out he is only renting the hotel. The number the receptionist gave me was a digit short so I rang again for the correct number, eventually I got connected with the owner whom I will say was rather patronizing, I was angry as you can imagine and he started twisting my words saying I had said there 60 and so on. He told me that he had new staff hired and he didn’t know who took the booking and that he had only seen it that week and it should never have been given to me at that price, twas too good. Hotel would only be average to look at on there website.

I knew at home I had my details of the booking wrote down and I was fairly sure it was Gene who took the booking and as it turns out it was. I had also an email sent by me to Jim (who claimed he never saw the details till the week he rang me 2 months later) from two days after the booking with the room details of who was in each room we had booked.
To make a long story short on the first call with Jim, he agreed that he would look into giving us suites or something for the original night we had booked but on a subsequent phone call the day after he ruled out any such help.

I would just like to highlight the matter because it infuriated me so much, his twisting of the whole situation made it so infuriating. He knew from the day we made that booking that it was made, it hadn’t just come to his attention that weekend. Also Gene the famous receptionist turned out to be his wife not the new receptionist that he had told me who probably took the booking. I just thought in these financially difficult times that business would be trying to mind customers rather than turn them off. I as a business woman myself have never seen such ill treatment and I want other consumers to be aware of the proprietors of the establishment if they are to choose this hotel, going by Trip Advisor it gets very mixed reviews anyway.