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Tuesday, June 09, 2009HOW TO SEND PATRONS PACKING Several weeks ago, a bunch of us made arrangements to travel through to The Cove Resort in Ras al Khaimah. By the 28th of April, rooms had been reserved & confirmed for a group of 10 adults, 2 teenagers & a sprog. Because of work commitments, we all decided to travel at various times during the day of arrival - the 28th of May. Max The Man & His Missus TLT left Abu Dhabi early in the morning & took advantage of riding in 'cooler' temperatures. Hubs, myself & 2 friends could only get away at 1pm. It was brutal riding weather to say the least. The rest of the gang opted to travel by car, also during the afternoon. About 400m before turning into the resort from the main road, my bike developed its wobble - see previous post. This pissed on mine & Hubs collective batteries I can tell you! We chugged into the resort, only to be stopped & redirected into the parking lot by a whistle-blowing arm -waving character. Wondering what the hell was going on, we were then informed by a parking attendant that we couldn't take the bikes up to the main entrance & reception area. We had to park the bikes & then a golf cart would collect us & our luggage. We were not amused. When it came to checking in, some of our group were told that they would be allocated twin-bedded room. This was despite written confirmation that king-sized bed rooms were booked. I'm sorry but if I've booked a room at least a month in advance & have written confirmation of sed room, I don't want to pitch up & be told that my arrangements have been changed on the whim of a reception clerk. Despite a request to have our rooms close to each other, we were scattered all over the place. The actual layout of the resort is like a small village, with dinky little paved streets running between the rows of rooms, which are designed to resemble small villas. Very pleasing to the eye admittedly, but a bitch when you want to get from A to B, especially if your room is on one of the lower 'streets'. You either have to slog your way uphill in the scorching heat, or phone reception for a golf cart to fetch you. The wait can be so frustrating that you end up walking anyway. The majority of the group opted not to go down to the beach, for the simple reason it was too far away. On the first evening, someone from 'Guest Relations' phoned us to ask if we were happy with our room. The room was fine - we had no complaints - but we asked if someone could please come & adjust the TV colour & contrast settings, as the picture was predominently red & green. Both the remote & the actual TV settings had been disabled. I'm still waiting for someone to come & change it. (When I complained about this at the time of checking out, the dingbat on reception smiled that 'Lights Are On/No-one's Home' smile & simply said "Oh yes, the TV's are like that!" I then asked if the hotel had bought a cheap batch of damaged TV's, which were guaranteed to hurt viewers eyes & the 'Vacant' look just got bigger, but the grin faded somewhat.) Sadly, both 'main' restaurants were not of a 5-star standard. The evening buffet offered in 'Cinnamon' was horrible. One guy in our group tried chewing on a lamb-stewish dish, but the meat was so tough, he had to spit it out. The beef wellington, still oozing it's lifeblood (ewww) was tasteless & horribly undercooked. If folks wanted a slab of 'cut the hooves off & wipe it's arse' cow meat, they would have asked for it, as steaks were cooked to order - but in my humble opinion, a dish like Beef Wellington shouldn't look like it's a chunk of raw meat wrapped in pastry & lightly baked for 20 minutes. The following evening we booked a table for 10 in Basilica, the other restaurant. It was an utter fiasco, which ended in tears & frayed tempers. From then on, we either ate at the poolside 'Laguna' bar, or ordered out. I personally don't like Pizza Hut food, but I can assure you it was a damn sight better than what the hotel restaurants were dishing up. Other complaints are minor - such as turning down the beds at night, which happened 1 night out of 4 - but they all add up to leaving a really bad impression of what is supposed to be a 5-star resort. As HOG (Harley Owners Group) members, we're always given a 20% discount on food & beverage at Rotana Hotels/Resorts. We were not given it at The Cove & it was only after phone calls for verification were made after the groups insistance, was the discount promised. Pay first & argue later - that's a pretty bad way to treat patrons. One other thing that REALLY pissed us off though was that 3 of our bikes had been tampered with, whilst parked up away from the main hotel. People had obviously sat on them, tried to 'steer' them & even went so far as to change gear on one of them. The hotel car park is supposed to be secure, but it's blatantly obvious that a blind eye is turned when someone wants to have their picture taken or sit astride a bloody expensive bit of machinery, when the owner is nowhere in sight. Not on I'm afraid, definitely not on. Overall, I don't think any of us will rush back to this resort. I really did get annoyed with the "oh well we've only been open 3mths" excuse & "we're having teething problems". Three months is ample time to sort out the problems. I wrote my complaints down on the 'Tell Us About Your Stay' form, spoke to the duty manager & stated that I would be doing a review on my blog, which wouldn't be favourable. I noticed that several cars were parked in the reception carpark - so I'm curious to know why 5 very expensive Harleys weren't allowed the same privilege? Staff - particularly waiters/waitresses in both restaurants - seriously need a kick up the arse. The only things that are working for the hotel right now are very comfy beds (with feather pillows) & fantastic swimming pools. As a group, we ALL seriously needed some precious 'chill-out' time & we were all so looking forward to our long weekend. It's such a pity this resort never lived up to its expectations. . . . *update* . . Max The Man has added his opinion: When we got to the hotel on our bikes they told us that the front is reserved for VIPs. Later during the weekend said "VIPs" arrived in family sedans and SUVs like Nissan Maximas and Landcruisers. VIP my ass! It took the reception people 3 tries to get us to a room we liked. We checked in @ 9am but did not get to our rooms till around 11 after some mall wandering. We got twin beds - for some reason reception thought we looked like brother and sister (a tanned Emirati and blue eyed blonde? Maybe half sister??). Instantly we called and complained and they switched us to one of the highest rooms in the place, where we had a very good view of the rooftops. I felt like the hunchback of Notredame living in a tower, all that was missing was a big ass church bell. We called again to complain and then they told us that we've been upgraded to a deluxe room while we booked for a classic room. She was insinuating that we should be grateful and shut up... which we didn't. So we asked them to take us to a better room and we don't mind the wait. So we waited at the pool side and I forgot to bring the oh so precious towel cards*. No card no towel! For god's sake! do we look like squatters!? So we hung around the pool towel-less for what seemed hours. I felt like I resembled a dried prune. It wasn't till 4pm that we got the room that we wanted. Food was average at a higher price. I liked the food at Basilco but the service we got was horrendous. The best food we got that weekend was from Pizza Hut - I love junk food. Overall T and I loved the place and we do plan on staying there in the future but the service needs a major overhaul by then. Labels: Rotana Cove Resort Ras al Khaimah  
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