In Southlake, Texas, there is a really nice town square shopping center. In the phase II area they opened a Hilton. Granted it is a Hilton, but I figured “It is Southlake, and I am sure they are trying to be boutique.” Well, they were. It was very tastefully decorated, very much like theHotel in Vegas.

The room, a corner suite with whirlpool was $319 a night and probably worth it but for a few things I will get to in a second. The room was huge, a comfortable desk, two flat screen TV’s, a monster bathroom with both a large whirlpool and shower. The bed was comfortable, although we didn’t sleep in it. Overall, no complaints for the room, but it was perhaps a little overpriced. $260 would be a bit more inline with other hotels in this area as well as other major cities.

We checked in early, about 1p, there was no valet on duty at this time. We self parked, lugged our bags to the desk, and checked in. The staff was friendly and efficent. At this time we declined bell service. They had our reservation and check in was fast. But here is where the problems began. For those of you that do not know, I use a cane due to my hip injury several years ago. The front desk clerk saw my cane and without asking put us in an accessible suite. The only difference was the shower, it was one of those with the stool and hand shower head.

I can’t stand it when people make assumptions about me. I didn’t reserve an accessible room, nor was I asked if I required one. In fact, I do not require or want one. I do not like the showers, they are cold, and often there are a lot of handles everywhere that get in my way.

At this time, I chose not to complain, but to just deal with it. Jessica and I went about our evening and returned to the hotel after a decent meal at Truluck’s. We decided to try the whirlpool, only to find it did not work. Engineering came up and tried to fix it for about 30-45 minutes then we were called by the front desk and moved to another room. Ten minutes later we tried the new room’s whirlpool, only to find that it did not work either. Again another 30 minutes of engineering tinkering with it and it still didn’t work. I went to the front desk to complain and Dan told me that they didn’t have any more rooms to move us to. That was fine, and this point I was so annoyed that a “4 star” hotel couldn’t have a whirlpool working for $319 a night!

We decided to checkout and just go home, which really sucked. I really was looking forward to the whirlpool due to my hip and really wanted to spend the time with Jessica while my mother watched Illianna. Jessica had mentioned several times that night about how much she was looking forward to the bath that never got to happen.

Checkout was fast, thank God, but I was pissed off and quite terse with the front desk staff. I rarely stay in Hilton hotels and am again reminded why that is. I really prefer the Hyatt chain if I can not find an Omni or iPrefer hotel instead. I doubt my Hilton Honors card will get much use in the future. Oh well, back to planning and getting ready for either another great New Mexico trip staying at a B&B or the Hyatt, and then of course there is Hawaii we are planning which will be Four Seasons, where I am sure the whirlpool will work.

I don’t know if I can even count the number of times we’ve been to New Mexico in the past two years, but I think we’re averaging once every 4 months or so. There is a spirit to the land. It is beyond relaxing. It feels like home.
We had a convertible this time and found some wonderful chocolate in Santa Fe. Those of you who know me.. understand when I say “chocolate” is “good” then it’s good. Golf lessons were fun, but my belly got in the way, and I had to sit down. Here’s a photo from our last trip kid free, 7-15-07.

Reposted by popular demand, the review of Sandals Antigua from the first week of our honeymoon. BTW, the hotel in New York for the second week was quite good and a huge improvement over the “5 star resort”.

We stayed in a Grande Luxe Beachfront Concierge Room, room 123.

Sandals claims to be a five star resort, as you can see from one of the attached pages.. I will merely list the reasons why they are not.

1. Our room was supposed to include a sitting area, mahogany bed, and a daily newspaper. There were none of these. Our room was so small there is no way to get a sitting room in there. The bed took up the entire room, along with a desk, small chair for the desk, mini-fridge, and TV. The bed was not mahogany or raised up high as promised. Both the mahogany bed and sitting area are shown in the brochure picture and promised in writing.
2. We had to make reservations for some of the restaurants, which close at odd hours, and some days are just flat closed. Our reservations were lost more than once, as were other guests.
3. The construction of the resort was horrible; I constantly hit my head on unmarked low ceilings and archways.
4. The meals were a complete joke. The portions were tiny. The one night I was able to get a good meal; I ate four entrées and two desserts.
5. The food, what little there was, was horrible. It was some of the worst food I had ever had.
6. Hours of the restaurants left several hours each day that there was not any food to be found; despite being assured 24hr food service was readily available by the brochure.
7. Service of the wait staff was terrible. I could never ask for more food, since they never came back to our table. Never asked how the meal was, never refilled water, never took our plates. The entire time I felt as if we were a huge inconvenience to the wait staff.
8. The brochure promised air conditioning in every room. In our room, the A/C had to run at full 24/7 to keep the room cool, because the gap under the door was large enough to slide a plate under, and there was not any glass in the windows, just shutters that didn’t keep the hot air out, or the cool air in. Aside from the room, and a single restaurant, there was not any A/C to be found anywhere at the resort.
9. Electricity was anything but stable, constant black and brown outs.
10. Room service was terrible. The mini fridge never got restocked, when we would call for things to be brought to the room, it took hours most of the time, if it showed up at all.
11. The TV kept dying. At this point we had enough and just wanted to sit there and watch TV.
12. In our room, there were huge cracks in the walls, that when brought up to management, they knew about it and didn’t seem to care. But in the same breath would assure us that they kept the 5 star standard of service..
13. Screen door was broken and cut my hand.
14. Housekeeping couldn’t just clean the room, they had to mess with the fan, A/C and then sit on the bed and watch TV.
15. The bellboys treated our luggage worse than the airlines, by just rolling it down 2 flights of stairs.
16. Turndown service kept bothering us at 10pm, if at all.
17. Guest services never picked up the phone when we called. We had to walk to the front desk for answers.
18. The toaster in the kitchen only had a single burner working. So, it took 10 minutes to get some toast.
19. Management was totally unhelpful. They listened, but never event attempted to solve the issue.
20. Restaurants wouldn’t go by their own hours. We were turned away at 1:45p even though the sign said they were open until 2. We had to get a manager to get us a table, and then there was nothing to eat because they had already cleared the buffet.
21. Winston, the resident manager, promised to call us by April 23, but did not.

This resort was a total case of mis-representation, and caused us to really regret choosing there for our honeymoon.

We did speak with management 6 times while we were there, and they promised to help, yet did nothing. We spoke to Winston, Steve, the Concierge Manager, and another, yet nothing was ever solved, just a bottle of champagne sent to our room, even though we don’t really drink.

I saw a commercial the other day for Hotels.com and thought I would go see what the deal was. They are a local company, I have driven by the building several times and thought if they could save me some money on my trip to Vegas then so be it. I found the hotel I wanted, ‘THEhotel’ and they had rooms available for the right dates, even when last week the hotel’s website was saying they were sold out for a day during our time there. I went ahead and made the reservations on Hotels.com since I had thought it was some deal for them. But just to be sure, I went over to the actual website and checked, and WHOA, they had rooms open for the right week as well, for less money. So I called Hotels.com to cancel or ask for a price adjustment, and here is where the fun begins.

Hotels.com does NOT make the same claim most travel sites do, that they will have the lowest published price. Travelocity, Expedia, and Vegas.com all have this guarantee, but not Hotels.com. And, they expected me to pay a $25 fee, even though the reservation was less than 5 minutes old, and I was under the impression they would match the price. The price on the hotel’s website was quite a bit lower, so I just ate the 25 bucks, happy not to give Hotels.com any money considering the rude customer service I received when asking my questions, and the uncompetitive lack of lowest price guarantee.

In short, when booking for a hotel, always just use their website or a travel agent you trust. Don’t waste your time on the “discount” websites that are just more trouble than they are worth, and not actually a discount.

Just when you thought the Sandals fiasco is over. We were contacted via email from a woman who went to Sandals also for her honeymoon and had a horrible time. She’s contacted a lawyer but isn’t having much luck. We spoke to one ourselves and it was very discouraging. We tried to dispute the charge with the credit cards however, I really don’t think they even read the documentation that we gave them or paid any attention at all to what the problem was, and we didn’t get our money back. Any efforts we made to resolve the dispute with Sandals lead nowhere. Offering someone 2 nights free stay might legally get them off the hook, but my question is why in the world would we want to spend the thousands of dollars on airfare just to go down to a crappy place again! We are going to contact her ‘which we were supposed to do this weekend and forgot’ and see what she’s up to. It’s horrible that there are so many people that have had such a bad time on their honeymoon due to the incompetence of this “resort.”

Ok first, if you disagree with me, fine, dont flame me for having an opinion.

We, me and my new wife, arrived at Sandals Antigua on April 13th, 2003, and departed on April 20th, 2003. We stayed in a Grande Luxe Beachfront Concierge Room, room 123.

Sandals claims to be a five star resort, as you can see from one of the pages where I

Highlighted their marketing. I will merely list the reasons why they are not.

1. Our room was supposed to include a sitting area, mahogany bed, and a daily newspaper. There were none of these. Our room was so small there is no way to get a sitting room in there. The bed took up the entire room, along with a desk, small chair for the desk, mini-fridge, and TV. The bed was not mahogany or raised up high as promised. Both the mahogany bed and sitting area are shown in the brochure picture and promised in writing.

2. We must make reservations for some of the restaurants, which close and odd hours, and some days are just flat closed. Our reservations were lost more than once, as were other guests.

3. The construction of the resort was horrible; I constantly hit my head on unmarked low ceilings and archways.

4. The meals were a complete joke. The portions were tiny, the one night I was able to get a good meal; I ate four entrées and two desserts.

5. The food, what little there was, what horrible. It was some of the worst food I had ever had.

6. Hours of the restaurants left several hours each day that there was any food to be found; despite being assure 24hr food service was readily available by the brochure.

7. Service of the wait staff was terrible. I could never ask for more food, since they never came back to our table. Never asked how the meal was, never refilled water, never took our plates. The entire time I felt as if we were a huge inconvenience to the wait staff.

8. The brochure promised air conditioning in every room. In our room, the A/C had to run at full 24/7 to keep the room cool, because the gap under the door was large enough to slide a plate under, and there was not any glass in the windows, just shutters that didn’t keep the hot air out, or the cool air in. Aside from the room, and a single restaurant, there was not any A/C to be found.

9. Electricity was anything but stable, constant black and brown outs.

10. Room service was terrible. The mini fridge never got restocked, when we would call for things to be brought to the room, it took hours most of the time, if it showed up at all.

11. The TV kept dying. At this point we had enough and just wanted to sit there and watch TV.

12. In our room, there were huge cracks in the walls, that when brought up to management, they knew about it.

13. Screen door was broken and cut my hand.

14. Housekeeping couldn’t just clean the room, they had to mess with the fan, A/C and then sit on the bed and watch TV.

15. The bellboys treated our luggage worse than the airlines, by just rolling it down 2 flights of stairs.

16. Turndown service kept bothering us at 10pm.

17. Guest services never picked up the phone when we called. We had to walk to the front desk for answers.

18. The toaster in the Kitchen only had a single burner working. So, it took 10 minutes to get some toast.

19. Management was totally unhelpful. They listened, but never event attempted to solve the issue.

20. Restaurants wouldn’t go by their own hours. We were turned away at 1:45p even though the sign said they were open until 2. We had to get a manager to get us a table, and then there was nothing to eat because they had already cleared the buffet.

21. Winston, the resident manager, promised to call us by April 23, but did not.

This resort was a total case of mis-representation, and caused us to really regret choosing there for our honeymoon.

We did speak with management 6 times while we were there, and they promised to help, yet did nothing. We spoke to Winston, Steve, the Concierge Manager, and another, yet nothing was ever solved, just a bottle of champagne sent to our room, even though we don’t drink.

Other than Sandals, the trip was great.

Shopping in St. Johns was pointless, but I guess that is because we come from Dallas, which already has great shopping, but it was fun to drive around in the rental car and explore the island.

The people are extremely nice in Antigua. Helpful and friendly.

The water and scenery were just awesome. Loved ever second of the time spent away from the resort from hell.

Spent a little more money than I thought I would, about 700 dollars US, but we did just about everything possible.

Ok, and now I saved the best for last. Eli’s Eco Tour…wow. It was great. We loved crusing around the island in the boat, seeing all the great nature and just enjoying the awesome beauty of the island.

My wife did get a little sea sick when we stopped for snorkeling, but Eli was very helpful and sympathetic. I really appreciated that, as did my wife.

Over all, we love the island, and would go back. But we would stay far far away from Sandals, since they clearly are full of it, and are just out for money.

Just when I thought customer service was a thing of the past…. out of nowhere someone wows your socks off. After our recent visit to New Jersey, I’d lost faith in a thing called customer service. Our first night we had someone who we figured out was the host of the restaurant only after he was half way down the hall with the menus look back and glare at us. The hotel we stayed at charged a $70 late fee because we were two hours past check out time, even though we’d told them our first night that we would be late to check out, and the company that sent us has at least two people in that hotel every night. Then we had a recent episode with our bank who is supposed to be working for you, but they aren’t folks. All people seem to care about these days is making a buck.

Up to tonight, I’d lost faith. We are planning our wedding and have recently figured out that while it would be great fun to have a Cinderella wedding, no one tells you the price tag that comes with that, and the burden it brings. It dawned on us that a wedding is about two souls coming together and expressing love for each other and God… not the table arrangements, guest list, or food.

At this point we’ve already signed a few contracts and put down some money. Upon calling our great “band guy” and explaining our situation he was more than willing to help us come to a more than happy medium. Craig provided something called Customer Service. Something that in this fast paced world had just about become extinct. It’s so refreshing to find an individual that can see the bigger picture. Someone that can see beyond what would have been a buck today can turn into something much more than that later. It’s things like that that make a world of difference, and that’s why we were willing to pay what we were. I, we, really appreciate it and hope that more people can see the bigger picture.