Long Beach Hotel Mauritius - *********** and Rude

I booked a trip to Long Beach Resort in Mauritius over booking.com. It said I needed to pay when I was at the hotel. I tried via both booking.com and the hotel directly to pay for it now instead so I know its done, and I wanted to book and pay for an early check-in. I asked the hotel for their banking details.

Booking.com told me to contact the hotel directly. The hotel told me to speak to my agent with respect to the early check-in, and that I must give them my credit card details (over the internet) to deduct the money instead of making a payment myself. I initially said no (that is not secure), until someone else emailed me and said its ok the hotel has my banking detailed from the booking on booking.com and they will deduct it as well as the early check in fee. I asked for the statement/receipt afterwards. Almost a week later they finally deducted the money, it was R1500 more than it was meant to be (the exchange rate on the day they took it off) – but I got no reply on that matter.

I was sent a badly scanned slip with an amount on it. There was no receipt, proof of payment etc. After several emails of me requesting a proper document I finally received a “pro-forma” invoice, with an approximate amount, incorrect check-in date and did not reflect a check in time of 14h00 even though I had now paid to check in at 08h00, it also had the incorrect number of nights we were staying for. Additionally, worst of all, it gave me their banking details for payment and did not reflect I had paid the full amount.

I finally had to tell them I want a piece of paper with my name, dates at the hotel, correct check in time and early check in confirmation, actual costs with confirmation that I have paid. Each time it took 4 days to get a response from the woman at the hotel.

The communication with the hotel was slow, they were uninformative from the beginning, and could not provide me with something every hotel gives a guest. By the end of this I was livid with the lack of service, the inability to provide simple things, and the way in which I was dealt with, which was, by the end, just rude. This is a 5 star resort (apparently). I sent a complaint to the Long Beach Golf & Spa Resort owner (Sun Resorts) on the 5th September and I have had no response.

This is my fifth trip to Mauritius and I have never had issues with a hotel before. If this is the service when you are merely trying to pay them early then I cannot imagine what it will be like at the hotel. I remain hopeful that we will nonetheless enjoy our trip and the service at the hotel will be better.

We will certainly not be booking with them again. The worst part of this was the fact that when a customer sends a complaint, you respond. It doesn’t actually matter whether they think its important or not. What happened to customer service? Especially when you are paying for a five star resort.

Nice to spend so much money on an overseas trip to a 5 star resort for this kind of treatment. *sarcasm*