As a budget traveller, I always have low expectations about the hotel that I am staying with. But Oaks Pacific Blue is a nightmare. Ive been here with my partner before and everything was good for a budget holiday. Very relaxing and no complaint were made. After praising this hotel to my workmates and suggested them to have a team building activity in Port Stephens and to stay in Oaks Pacific Blue because it was a great experience for us, I have to say that I was embarassed of how the trip turned out.
I am writing this review in the resort on the last day before we are going to check out. Here is my review:
1. The service of front office staff.
Called Oaks at the end of November/early December 2011 to book at 3 bedroom plunge pool apartment. Was told that the room can be occupied by 7 people max. At that stage we are not sure if it's going to be 6 or 7 people so we decided to call them back closer to the booking date which is 27-29 January 2012. Early January 2012, called them again to confirm the booking and to tell them that we will have 7 people and ask them to get the extra bed ready when we arrive. The person who answer the phone, a male staff I think his name is Daniel, said he already put our request down and he will make sure that everything will be sorted before we arrive since we are going to check in around 8 pm on Friday night 27/01/12 after we finished work in Sydney city. Called them again on 20/01/12 reconfirming the bedding condition and to remind them to get the bed ready before we arrive. A female staff, Brooke, answered and said "no problem see you soon"! Called Azure restaurant to make a booking, a guy answered and we asked if its going to be too late for us to have dinner around 9ish since we wot be leaving Sydney until 5.15 pm, he said no but on Friday they are having a seafood Buffett that started at 8pm and he said its probably not gonna be great if we started to eat at 9 pm but he will put our booking in and we can order a la carte. And on 27/01/12 the day that we are going to check in, called them AGAIN at 1 PM to remind them to get the bed ready and female staff, not sure about the name, Jemima?? answered and I reminded them again about the bed. Arrive in P.S at 8.20 PM, checked in and greeted nicely by a young blonde girl on reception, went to the reataurant and the host told us that we cant do a la carte dinner, got a bit dissapointed but we decised to just cook some pizza and have a nice dinner on saturday nught instead. drove our cars to the apartment and we found that there was NO extra bed in it. Called reception and asked what's happening since we have to pay $37/night extra for it and the answer was "Unfortunetely the housekeeping staff is not around anymore." WTF???!!!!!! I don't give a [--] if they are not around, I've called 3 times to remind the staff about it, paid for it when we checked in and they did not do anything about it not inform us when we checked in that there will be no chance to get the bed for the first night or whatever. I went nuts on the phone and coldly asked Brooke, the manager, to sort things out in 30 mins. She said she will have to get the key first and take the bed and set it up herself, and I was thinking (I don't care that's your job) She came in without any apology, set up the bed herself, and we got the extra bed after all.
2. Cleaning service
Called reception on Saturday 28/01/12 morning asked them if the apartment was a self services or someone will come and clean it, the girl said it is a full service apartment
Someone will clean your apartment daily. We wrote a message particularly asking to get the towels changed and get more pillow and to get the private pool area cleaned as we could not get in there for its really dirty. Put down some tips together with the note and we left for our activities. Came back at 3 pm, the apartment looked like it hasn't been cleaned, the extra bed was messy, the towels changed and the bed were made lazily. We had pillows on the floor and they didn't even pick it up. The dining tables and kitchen counter were sticky, dirty dishes laying around and the worse is the pool area was as filthy as it was before, it was raining the day before and it was just disgusting and no one clean them. We cleaned the room ourselves since we did not want to complaint too much after what happened yesterday.
3. Facilities
Went to have a swim around 4 pm we stopped by at Azure restaurant to make a booking for our dinner at 6.30 PM with everyone in the group, some men wanted to go play tennis, went to reception got it booked at 5pm-6pm session and hire 4 rackets. Went to the court and found 2 kids were about to play, so we waited at the edge of the field. There was a car pulled over and a man were talking to the kids and we asked them if they're his and he said "yes" and we asked "what time did you book it for? We have a booking at 5pm" and his arrogant answer was "I am an employee and theyre my children so we can play anytime!" What the [--] is that suppose to mean? It doesn't make any sense for a hospitality industry worker to say that to a customer (we all worked in hospitality too), if he was being nice about it and asked if the kids can practice for 15-30 mins we would have said yes, but his arrogance puts us off. I asked if he is a manager and he said "yes I am the manager in this resort." well..well..well I asked his name and he said its Shin. Middle aged Asian looking man. At that stage everyone was already lost interest of this hotel. Will never recommend to any workmates, friends or family. Terrible manners from staff and terrible service are the worse thing could ever happened in a 4.5 star resort.
4. Restaurant
Arrived at Azure at 6.35 pm, went to the hostess and got our table pointed to us but she just handed the menu in and pointing at the table location and number outside by the pool. (no table service) sat down and order at 7.05 Pm, asked to be moved inside around 8pm since its was getting windy. And we realize it was almost an hour since we ordered. Asked the hostess, she responded in rude manner saying "oh yeah we know won't be long" and we were just giggled and talked between ourselves why people in Port Stephens are rude this weekend? Honestly, every place that we went sand dune, Bub's seafood place, dolphin cruise they have bad customer service. The food came out at 8.15 and the taste and presetation made up for it. We spent $250 all together in this restaurant, 70% happy with the food but 30% feels like we should get a better service in a hotel's restaurant with average price $26- $35 meal.
Overall stay we are not impressed at all, we could not wait to check out and hit the road back to Sydney. The holiday was ok, the company were great and we had so much fun together but not having any fun in the hotel and we did not even end up using our private pool in the apartment for its so dirty. I hope the management will do some more training for the convenience of the guests as this hotel is beautiful and deserve a better service to match its appearance.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
