We're travelblog 4 months a year and we had never before expierenced such a terrible guesthouse
Water came out of the AC in the night, dirty bathroom and used toiletts, only cold water in the shower, no phone in the room, not really a butlerservise, but you have to pay for it, floor was not cleaned the hole time, no clean dishes, the Tv had a really bad quality, everywhere were spiders and cobweb and the staff were also very unfriendly, exept one person
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
12 January 2012
We, at Goblin Hill, always receive with great interest any comment, good or bad... as long as they are fair, honest and accurate.
I met this gentleman when he checked-out, after spending two days on property. I had taken two days off but my assistant has been in property during that time to ensure the comfort of all the guests.
This gentleman came at the reception, made his check-out and then took a paper out of his wallet and started reading a list of "problems" he had.
I listened and then asked him if he reported any of these issues to any member of the staff. His answer was no.
In my experience, any guest checking-in in an hotel or guest house and finding, as this gentleman says, a dirty room, dirty toilet, dirty dishes.... would call or come at the reception to complain about it. And I would do the same. In this case, this guest stayed two days and two nights without complaining about anything.
I went to check the villa right after the guest left and I found a villa that was NOT dirty except for the room and bathroom that he used. The dishes were cleaned and no cobweb was to be seen except for one, in the small garden outside the kitchen... but we are in the Nature and one would expect that to happen.
The floor was cleaned, swept and moped.
He is talking about butler service and that he has to pay for it!?! This is totally false. When a guest books a villa, a housekeeper is present in the villa, from 8.00am to 8.00pm, at NO EXTRA COST. She can come earlier or stay later if the guest wishes to, and only when that happen, a small extra fee is asked.
We are using solar panels to warm-up the water used in the villas. Sometimes, when the weather is overcast like it was while this gentleman stayed with us, the water can not warm enough. We then use a electrical back-up system. A simple mention of this problem to the housekeeper would had fixed the issue in no time.
We are aware of the issues with the TV system. In this part of the island, there is only one cable provider and we are dependent of them for the TV signal. Our equipment works perfectly well but if we receive a bad signal from that operator, it will show so on the televisions in the villas. We are actively working on finding another solution (internet tv?).
The AC was indeed leaking. That happens sometimes (too much condensation in the pipes) and this is easy to fix. Again a simple word to any member of our staff would have been the wisest thing to do.
We do not have phones in the villas and this is usually not a problem for our guests, especially since we are not claiming anywhere that we are providing this service. But we do understand that some guests might feel more comfortable with one and that is why cell-phones are available for free at the reception, on request. The guest would then be connected to the reception, the bell-hops, the security and myself and there is no charge for the calls inside the property. A simple word to anybody from the guest and he would have received one of these phones.
According to this gentleman, our staff is very unfriendly. When I hear the comments from all our guests and read the reviews on this site, it appears that our staff is doing a great job in being polite, friendly and welcoming with our guests. They were certainly not as full of attitude, self-importance and rudeness as this gentleman was.
All in all, this guest seems to have experienced an horrible stay here. But, still he stayed the entire two days and nights he booked his villa... without complaining about anything! His housekeeper, as we are asking them to do, even asked him, during his stay, if everything was fine with him. His answer was yes.
Why, if this guest had any issue of any type, did he not said anything to the housekeeper, the reception or my assistant? He preferred to wait until the end of his stay to do so.
I am really sorry this gentleman did not enjoyed his stay among us as we are taking pride in pleasing each one of our guests. Incidents and problems do happen and, when aware of these, we fix them very quickly or we find a solution to please our guests.
As I said before, we welcome any comment, good or bad. In this case, some of the complaints the guest is making, are untrue and inaccurate. And regarding to the others, if nothing is reported to us, we assume that the guest is happy. Should this guest have mentioned anything to anybody, especially when asked, I am sure that we would have made his stay what he expected it to be.
Rafael de Campos
Resident Manager
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This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of TripAdvisor LLC