funk in deep freeze

Worst. Hotel. Experience. EVAR. (or “Metro Hotel and Crazy Pants”)

13 Jul 2010 6 Comments

by meganfinley in angry megan, idiots, travel Tags: petaluma, sonoma

This past weekend Coco and I traveled to Sonoma for a wedding, but I decided to splurge a little and treat me and my assistant to a little mini vacation — a relaxing stay at a “cute” hotel. Unfortunately my choosing the Metro Hotel and Cafe in Petaluma was the WORST mistake I could have possibly made. From the website it looked like a funky kitschy hostel-type place. Shame on me for mistaking “BAT-SHIT CRAZY” with “kitschy.”

Upon checking in to the hotel I was told by the guy behind the desk that they had just “changed their computer system” so I would now have to give him cash for the room that I had already paid for online two days prior. I laughed because I thought he was joking. Then he insisted again that I give him cash (totaling almost $300 for two nights!!!) and when I asked, “Wait, are you joking?,” he responded, “No, I’m Russian.” Clearly thinking then that it was all joke I proceeded to ask him where my room was and he proceeded to ask me for cash again. When I told him, confused and getting very frustrated at this point, that I can’t get the money even if my credit card was refunded, I just don’t carry around wads of cash, and I guess that I should just leave? He then gave up and showed us to the room saying something about how he would just take care of it somehow.

Immediately upon getting to the room I looked up my bank statements and no, the money had not been refunded — it wasn’t even pending! And yes, it seems that this guy had totally tried to scam me. NOT the way to welcome a guests to your hotel. Coco and I were immediately stressed and concerned about the type of people who run this place. Needless to say whenever we left our room we took all of our expensive belongings with us. Shady shady goings on.

Ah but the crazy continues!…

The next evening we got back late at night after shooting a wedding in Sonoma and our key wouldn’t work! We had picked up In and Out to enjoy as a late night snack in our room and it was rapidly getting cold in the freezing night air as we struggled with the crappy door lock. No matter what it wouldn’t work. Fortunately we had left our windows open so I popped the screen and climbed in.

Exhausted after a nine hour work day, Coco and I got ready for bedtime. And just as I was about to decadently enjoy my burger in bed, there was a knock at the door… at 11:30 at night. Coco, who was wearing a little more than I at the time, answered the door and SURPRISE! It was the creepy front desk guy! He demanded to see me. So I got out of bed, put on some pants and went to the door. He then asked me to come with him back to the office. What!? No way am I going to a deserted office with some creepy man in the middle of the night in my pajamas! Crazy, right? He then proceeded to tell me that his boss (except that he kept referring to his boss as his “owner”) wants to fire him because of a bad review I gave them on TripAdvisor. And if I would take the review down they would refund me my money. (btw, lesson learned about not posting negative reviews until you leave.) He waved a piece of paper in my face that had typewritten what I paid for the room and then underneath that said “REFUND: $283″ and this was supposed to be proof of the refund. As Coco said, “I could write that I have a million dollars in my bank on a piece of paper — that doesn’t make me a millionaire.” Then he says that he was just telling us what his boss told him to do. I asked, “Really? So everyone else staying here just handed you over their cash the moment you asked them to?” And he said yes! Well then, I said, “Then everyone here is an idiot and I don’t believe that.”

Man, I just wanted to enjoy my In and Out and go to bed after a loooooong work day and now this guy is dragging me into hotel drama and trying to argue with me late at night while I’m not even wearing a bra! It was BEYOND inappropriate. I had never experienced ANYTHING like this before in all my travels.

After we told this creep whatever we needed to to get him to leave us alone I was so upset I couldn’t even eat In and Out! (Yes, THAT upset). I also couldn’t get to sleep anymore as I tossed and turned worrying about checking out in the morning and having to face this guy again.

And I was right to worry! Because the next morning I once again checked my bank account to see that there was still no alleged refund and when I dropped my key off with the front desk guy all I said was “still no refund.” He offered to give me one from his own money and I said, “just keep it as a payment to not have to deal with this anymore” and then walked away. And then HE FOLLOWED US out to our car! I kept repeating, “please leave me alone” and “I just want to get out of here.” And he kept following me, begging to accept a refund from him and letting me know that his “owner” was going to fire him. The only other thing I said to him was, “if you were just doing what your boss told you to do, then there’s no way that you should be getting fired.” Right?

Finally we got all our belongings loaded into the car as he pestered us continually and I was shaking so bad at this point that I dropped my keys while I was trying to start the car. Let me tell you, driving away from that place forever felt AMAZING.

UPDATE!!!!

Wow, it gets weirder folks… I just got off the phone with the owner (the husband of a husband and wife team) of the hotel. It took him two days to track me down because the Russian crazy-pants went into the hotel’s computer and changed all my information! He altered my email, he changed my phone number and even my address. We know that because after attempts to both email and call me failed, the wife actually DROVE DOWN FROM PETALUMA to what she thought was my apartment to try and make things right. Finally, getting crafty, they accessed my original booking email that was filed with the site that does their online bookings.

Apparently two days before I had gotten there a guest mentioned that money had disappeared from his room. The Russian crazy-pants was the only one on duty when it happened and they questioned him, but he said that he didn’t know about it. They even defended him to the guest. And then two days later I show up and he decides to pull this stunt. So, yeah, it was as I thought — there was no “changed computer system,” the owners did NOT tell him to get cash from all the guests (shocker) and they had NO IDEA what he was thinking. And now they’ve fired Russian crazy-pants AND they’ve even gotten the police involved. Good on them!

I actually feel bad for the owners, they say that that the Russian crazy-pants was a foreign exchange student that came highly recommended from an exchange program they’ve been using with much success… until now. They apologized and felt SO bad for me, as obviously the whole thing was bizarre and NOT COOL. And for that I told him that I would take down my negative review on Tripadvisor since I put it up to warn people of the scam this guy was trying to run and if the Russian crazy-pants was gone and the owners had no part in the scam then the issue has been resolved.

This all serves me right for even attempting to have any kind of freaking “vacation” at this time in my life. The call ended with the owner promising to keep me updated and he said, “I hope we’ll see you again.” I told him that I didn’t think so, but I’m glad that he called me.

PS. Still no refund.

UPDATE AGAIN!

I finally got a refund! It showed up in my bank account this morning.