With Imaginary Mold, Sheraton Cancels 30 Wedding Guest Reservations For International Figure Skaters
"My sister is getting married in Reading, PA on October the 27th and we booked approximately 30 hotel rooms at the Sheraton Hotel in Wyomissing, PA for out-of-town guests. The groom is from Washington state, so there are a significant number of people traveling across the country. The block of rooms was reserved well over a year in advance and all of the individual reservations were made with months to spare. There is a large figure skating competition in the area (Skate America) that same weekend, and hotel rooms are nearly impossible to come by at this point within a 45 minute drive. Late last week my mom called the Sheraton to check in on the reservations (as she had done multiple times prior given the aforementioned dearth of hotel rooms in the area for that weekend to ensure that nothing like this would occur) and was told they had canceled all of the hotel rooms in the block including the bridal suite."
When pressed on the issue the manager on duty (Manager 1) stated that there was a mold problem and the rooms needed to be cleaned, etc. which was to be done that weekend. The manager offered no apology and offered to book reservations at a hotel 45 minutes away, which, in my opinion is not exactly a fair trade-off.The Sheraton had no right to cancel these people's reservation with their moldy lies. It sounds like these two managers are on the same hierarchy. Instead of escalating to Sheraton corporate, which sounds as hands-off to the franchises as a car-maker to a dealership, maybe find out who the owner is of this particular Sheraton. More than just the importance of keeping promises, a real wedding is more important than a fake sport.The next day my dad went to the hotel and attempted to reserve a room for the weekend of the 27th. The manager on duty (Manager 2) said that they were all booked. My dad pressed on for awhile, and upon getting nowhere inquired about the mold problem. Manager 2 stated that there was no mold problem that she was aware of and that all the rooms were simply booked for Skate America. At this point my dad let on and told her who he was and explained the full story.
Manager 2 stated that the block shouldn't have been canceled and that Manager 1 had acted inappropriately. Both of my parents went to the hotel this morning and were told by Manager 1 that there was nothing he could do and he continually refused to even provide a room for the bride and groom, stating that the other customers were international guests and therefore had priority even though our block (and many of the actual rooms) had been reserved over a year in advance.
We have requested documentation of the mold problem and have yet to receive it or any indication that it is forthcoming. As of this writing none of the guests have been notified that their reservations no longer exist, in fact several of them have received emails saying that the Sheraton can't wait to welcome them as guests in a few weeks! We've attempted to escalate the issue via national customer service to no avail and have seemingly exhausted our options at the specific hotel itself. Any thoughts on where to go from here?
Pseudonymously,
Calvin Rigatoni>
UPDATE: Calvin writes:
My mom was able to get all the rooms she needed in another hotel nearby after a separate wedding party canceled their block. After much back and forth and discussions between the Sheraton and my parent's lawyer, the Sheraton agreed to pay for all of these rooms as well as transportation from the hotel to the reception, etc. They've still offered very very little in the way of apology or further explanation, but at least they've attempted to make right (or cover their respective a**es depending on how you look at it.)
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Comments:
Oh Snap!
That is some serious bullshit right there.
I would ask the question though, after all this would you really want to stay in a hotel that already cancelled your reservation once and treated you this way? I know it's going to be murder to try to find rooms but why would you give money to someone who shits in your cheerios?
if the article reads correctly, i'd say they are at least discriminating against you becuase your not a international "celebrity", and therefore, less important.
@ SAVEMEJEEBUS
I agree, make a stink, let others know how they treat your family. Other locals would want to know when the holidays roll around and they will be asking relatives to come to the area and know what hotel they should not stay in. Maybe the hotel will see an error in its way, however, I don't see other than giving free rooms how they could make it up to you, its not like you would want to stay there again by choice...
@DeeJayQueue:
They don't have much of a choice at this point, considering there aren't any rooms available close by.
May I suggest standing outside in your wedding dress with a sign stating your complaint. Something like "Sheraton is ruining my wedding" should suffice.
i worked at a hotel, and unfortunatly, i don't think you can do anything legally. as i understood the policy at my hotel, we could refuse anyone a room for any reason period. now that may be wrong, but i think a place like the sheraton probably wouldn't put themselves in a lawsuits way. i hope i'm wrong, but sounds to me like your at their mercy. read the how to kick a scammy car dealer.......tell the hotel how you will use your 1st amendment right to stand on the sidewalk and pass out flyers about what has been done to you. sure it won't fix your wedding, but it will make you feel a lot better.
@DeeJayQueue: I hear you, but last minute wedding changes are a beytoch to deal with as an already frazzled bride. I'm sure she was just thinking, "They owe me rooms, and dangit, they're gonna give me some rooms!"
Ration and brides don't necessarily go hand in hand the month before the wedding.
if this was in my city, i swear i'd picket with you! i'm all about that stuff! funny though, i refuse to picket on politcal issues, such as abortion, war etc. but i do vote.
i guess i feel like picketing on a business would have more of an impact than picketing washington.
i'd write to the figure skaters and tell them whats going on. maybe they could call the hotel on your behalf, if they were nice people that is.
This is why everyone should just go to a courthouse to get married and skip all the ceremonies. That's how my wedding will be. Also instead of wasting thousands of dollars on catering and bands and crap like that you can just have a picnic at home with a radio playing. People love hotdogs and burgers. That way you can save all that money and use it to pay off all your bills.
i'd write to the figure skaters and tell them whats going on. maybe they could call the hotel on your behalf, if they were nice people that is--
and if they are not, picket your cause on the day of their performance, surely there will be news coverage around wanting to know what you are doing.
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
@skrom: sounds nice... go tell your future wife that....
Hate to break it to you but the wedding has little to do with what the husband wants, and much to do with what the wife/wife's family wants in most cases. I feel lucky that my opinion on things is being included as much as it is, since both my fiance's friends told her not to but she ignored their opinion on things.
The key with weddings though is to not go overboard, and stay within your means. You can have a wonderful ceremony for little of what many go to.
Why would the figure skaters get involved in this? They weren't the ones who screwed everyone over, it was the hotel. I vote for notifying the local media and possibly taking out an ad in the local paper explaining what went on. Hotels depend a great deal on having a good local reputation, kick them where it hurts.
Is Oprah part of the figure skating shin-dig?
(she was rumored to have booted some wedding guests out of a hotel recently....)
@skrom: That's great, but I don't think we're actually talking about whether or not you approve of how these people live their lives.
@skrom:
Because the nation is teeming with women with low self-esteem who need to be a "princess for a day".
Ok...I certainly don't condone what the hotel is doing here- whoever had the reservation first should get it. End of story.
I will say that it's perhaps a tad misguided to call figure skating a "fake sport." That's just unnecessarily tacky. Also are international figure skaters the ones actually STAYING in the hotel at that time, or are the rooms being booked for people who are ATTENDING the event? Being that tickets are sold for events like Skate America a VERY LONG TIME in advance, one would think that hotel reservations for the skaters would have been made a long time ago. I got emails at LEAST 8 months ago inviting me to purchase tickets to that event...seems like they should talk to someone higher up who actually KNOWS something.
skrom: i just told my fiance that and she was like that guy might get a girl to go for that.......if she was on her 3rd wedding.
Man, I just got married a month ago, so i feel for the poor bride here. There's enough going on without people screwing you over- whether they have the right to or not. I think this is one of the rare consumerist cases where the complaint happens before someone gets really screwed over. So, I wonder if we, the faithful readers could just give a call over to the Reading Sheraton (www.sheraton-reading.com) and let them know what we think. Politely, of course. And in great numbers.
Contact these guys: [www.wfmz.com] - They have the local Berks County news program on Channel 69.
Also contact: [www.readingeagle.com] - They're the local newspaper and probably have the most pull in Berks as far as influence goes.
I would definitely give both those outlets a call and explain your situation to them. If it doesn't lead to you getting your rooms back, at least you'll get the Sheraton pulled through the mud.
It might be worth contacting the venue organizing the event: [www.sovereigncenter.com] - and explain your situation. Who knows, maybe they don't need all rooms the have reserved.
I'm from Reading (if you couldn't tell) and want to help Calvin out if I can.
Anyone got that hotel's phone number? We could launch our own Jihad and keep their phone lines tied up all day.
i had a room cancelled when our family took a vacation to Paris because a large soccer match was going on nearby and all the rooms were sold out to large blocks of futbol fans. sucks. they didn't even try to hide it. we were also relegated to a hotel way out of the way.
@Falconfire: mine told me that if we were to get married that it would be just like that. courthouse/weekend in vegas. all that money that gets saved goes to a bigger house.
calling the hotel itself will do probably very little since they are the ones who have been so rude in the first place. i say escalate! call corporate, email carpetbombs, seek out higher ups emails, phone numbers etc. call corporate and just punch in random extensions until you get someone to pay attention to whats happening. leave messages on every voicemail.
Lame man, so lame. I'm passing this on to my co-workers in our installations department. Sheraton I can guarantee I wont be staying with you, but I maybe able take some guys with me, guys who travel all year round.
>:)
(1) Figure skating isn't a sport, sorry. Athletic - yes, entertainment - yes, sport - sadly no.
(2) Still, I'm sure the customer is a fault here. Somehow. Maybe they should have triple secret reserved the rooms, or given bigger bribes.
It would serve them right if their "mold problem" was brought to the attention of the health department...
@Zennie20: Just called and told the drone who answered the phone that I read about them making up some story about mold to kick a wedding out of their hotel for an ice skating competition and how I and the thousands of people reading the story think they suck.
Prolly won't do a thing, but at least now they know the rest of the interwebs knows what a bunch of doosh bags they are.
No matter what, ensure that Manager 1's employment is terminated.
I disagree. Figure skating involves jumping and twirling, and those jumps are as difficult as the high jump in track. And the twirling...if you say gymnastics isn't a sport, ok.
Oh yeah, and kudos to your parents for handling the face-to-face stuff, that can be pretty stressful.
This is not the first time I have heard of long standing reservations being cancelled when the hotel realizes it can charge $400.00+ per night because every room in the area is taken for an event.
Please do not let this go. The local media may actually jump on it since it involves a large local event (the skating thing) and the wedding angle will interest female viewers / readers.
Make that prick explain his "mold" comment with some tv cameras in his face.
The suggestion for finding the owner of the hotel is a good one too. There is usually a plaque near the front desk listing the owner and sometimes includes a phone number.
That's fine. She can go waste $20,000 for something that lasts 4 hours while Ill have my $20,000 to use for something that Ill have for 50 years (a house)
So what would happen if they stood out front with a sign that said "Manager1 told me there's mold in the rooms". Start handing out flyers until the hotel makes a deal.
Call the local news and tell your story, file a complaint with the hotel owner and the corporate office, demand you and your guests stay for free at the next best hotel and never do business with this brand again.
I had no idea there were so many Reading/Berks Consumerist readers.
Hopefully the people at the Sheraton do read this article, and do realize this is hurting their reputation. This story is probably something WFMZ or the Reading Eagle would pick up; I've seen both of them do stuff like this before. Good luck!
-Tyler
I once had a problem with a Sheraton in the Disney/Orlando area. I had booked and stayed at one hotel on my credit card but another one had also charged me. I reported it to the credit card company, which was able to get me additional info as to the hotels and I got in-touch with them. Their administrative back-office was extremely helpful. Maybe your credit card company could help you find an office for this hotel.
This is Calvin Rigatoni...just wanted to give an update. Since I wrote Ben early this week teh Sheraton has decided to make right. My mom was able to find rooms at an adjacent hotel ONLY after another large party cancelled their reservations. The Sheraton, which had eventually agreed to pay for all the rooms at a hotel nearly an hour away (and not an equivalent establishment by any stretch of the imagination) finally agreed to pay for the rooms we were able to secure nearby and threw in transportation costs as well. They still offered very very very little in the way of an apology or a good explanation for the apparent "mold problem" but I have to give them some credit for trying.
@skrom: dude, no it won't. let her tell you that it will be. and if you are not a dude, ask your mom about it.
anyone else having trouble with this site?
Do you have anything in writing about the reservation? If so, I wonder if you can sue in small claims court to force the performance of the contract.
A judge might be inclined to accept a written reservation confirmation as a contract. And the fact that they've been big fat liars will irritate the judge.
It might be worth asking the clerk of the court.
Oh, and figure staking is most assuredly NOT a sport. "Sport" does not include activities where one is judged, subjectively, on elements that include your costume.
well I just had several comments disapear...
Call the local news station.