Worst Hotel experience ever. Hotel Zende...

ma 28 februari 2011, 12:21u, 1877 views

Posted by: Barbara Weenink

Rating:

Worst Hotel experience ever. Hotel Zenden, highly unprofessional and a lack of service

I wanted to take my mother and my 4 year old son on a nice short vacation during the spring holidays. I found the website of Hotel Zenden in Maastricht and was enthusiastic and curious because the hotel was renovated by Wiel Arets and had won a design prize.

Me and my partner are also interior designers working in diverse market segments, including hotels, so I was especially curious about this particular hotel Zenden.

On the pictures it looked interesting. The pool looked very nice, with a couple of small children on the site of the pool. So we were looking forward to having a swim and and we bought a swim suit especially for this occasion.

But this all never happened.

We arrived with the car in front of the hotel, in a small alley. The "owner", Martijn, was not there, but another man who was not involved with the hotel, but just with the "sport" facility, sat behind the desk in a cold, unfriendly atmosphere. Emptyness can be very zen and comfortable (and I know what that is – I traveled a lot in Japan in beautiful ‘empty’ ryokans) but this was more like walking into a huge freezer. I checked in for me, my mother and son.

"Oh", said the man behind the desk. "We do not allow children, nor do we give out extra beds".

I was astonished, I said there was nothing on their site where that was clearly written.

On the contrary, on their site they gave a totally different impression. On the photo from the pool there are young children, which at least gives the suggestion that the place is also for kids. There were studios with kitchens and at the desk of the Hotel there was even a flyer; "Zenden Sports" with different young children on it.

"No", said the man, "that is from Zenden swimming school and Zenden sports school"

How vague is that? It is Hotel Zenden and on the site they are promoting the swimming pool and their sports facilities. But in fact they are separate, although all located within the Hotel.

The way the man hehind the desk handeled this situation was both clumsy and very unprofessional. I have not experienced this in my whole traveling career. He offered no excuse from his side, nor a solution from his side, nothing.

We came all the way from Amsterdam, three hours by car to have a nice night in Hotel Zenden. Then I said "If my son is not welcome here, then we will not stay here."

He said that he "could not guaranty that they would not charge (me) the reservation"

He said, "you've decided not to take the room"

Astonished, I replied, "No we are not welcome with a child, so what can I do?"

Then he had to phone "Martijn" (the owner?) but Martijn was not available. He said that he could not do more and he would phone me when he had spoken with Martijn.

I still did not know what they would do. Are they charging the room?

Then he walked away into another room – left me alone at the desk, so that I could not hear what he discussed with Martijn. He came back and said, "Officially, no children are allowed, as a result, families book two rooms – mother sleeps with one child and the father with the other child. We first had the policy not to allow children, but now we do accept them.

What? I was astonished again! Is this a hotel. Is this for real?! In the meantime I felt extremely unwelcome. It felt so terrible. For some strange reason, he insisted on showing me my reserved room . I reluctantly joined him, and he showed me something that really did not correspond to what was promised. It looked nothing like what was portrayed on the website.

Saddened, astonished and disappointed, I left with my mother and son and we travelled to Roermond to a ordinary hotel in the city were we treated as guests, as it supposed to be.

• 3 responses on

• Barbara Weenink
  zo 08 januari 2012, 01:04u

  Hello Martijn Zenden, I have never seen your reaction
  before but I am very much surprised about how you try to
  turn this into something that is was not. Absolutely not, I
  am traveling 8 month of the year and do see so many hotels.
  Our experience with your hotel was a disaster: very
  unprofessional, unfriendly and rude. The fact is that you
  were not there, and I had to deal with someone from the
  sport school. We were not welcome at all at Hotel Zenden
  because of the fact that I was with my 4 year old. That was
  the starting point......The way how your personnel handed it
  was over the top rude and embarrassing. First children were
  not welcome but after these secret phone calls in another
  room, suddenly this was not the standard rule
  anymore.....What is this for a hotel? Furhermore I phoned
  the VVV afterwards to tell them wahta happened at your
  hotel. Even on their website was written that children were
  welcome: you could reserve an childbed. As everyone can
  imagine we did not feel welcome after this rudeness and
  extreme unfriendly attitude, but then Hotel Zenden was
  threatening me with withdrawing the money from my account.
  You have to know that this is my first official complaint
  against a hotel. In this way you do not lead any hotel, it
  was my worst Hotel experience ever!!. (and as you know I am
  used to a lot.. also traveled in poor countries with poor
  hotels - and there is was even better - can you imagine).
  Hope that you are doing better with Zenden.

• Martijn Zenden
  di 01 maart 2011, 16:40u

  Dear Barbara, We are terrible sorry that your high
  expectations were not furfilled. To clarify the
  ‘vagueness’, to be able to offer a swimmingpool to our
  guests we are both a hotel and a swimclub located in one
  building. Swimming lessons are given 3 hours a day, hence
  you will see kids on the swimclub brochure and not on the
  hotel brochure. As you are a seasoned traveller you might
  know that if you book for 2 persons and want to check in
  with three persons a problem will occur. Since we are only a
  small hotel with double rooms, we do not have the capacity
  to place extra beds or offer triple rooms. This is the
  reason why families book 2 rooms. A simple telephone call or
  email for an extra bed request would have saved you a lot of
  inconvenience. We have offered you the solution to use
  the room as a triple room, but you insisted on an extra bed.
  At the end you choose to cancel the reservation. We did not
  charge you anything for this. I think this was quite
  considerate from us. In any case I still hope to welcome
  you as a guest under better circumstances. Best
  regards, Martijn Zenden

• Martijn Zenden
  di 01 maart 2011, 16:39u

  Dear Barbara, We are terrible sorry that your high
  expectations were not furfilled. To clarify the
  ‘vagueness’, to be able to offer a swimmingpool to our
  guests we are both a hotel and a swimclub located in one
  building. Swimming lessons are given 3 hours a day, hence
  you will see kids on the swimclub brochure and not on the
  hotel brochure. As you are a seasoned traveller you might
  know that if you book for 2 persons and want to check in
  with three persons a problem will occur. Since we are only a
  small hotel with double rooms, we do not have the capacity
  to place extra beds or offer triple rooms. This is the
  reason why families book 2 rooms. A simple telephone call or
  email for an extra bed request would have saved you a lot of
  inconvenience. We have offered you the solution to use
  the room as a triple room, but you insisted on an extra bed.
  At the end you choose to cancel the reservation. We did not
  charge you anything for this. I think this was quite
  considerate from us. In any case I still hope to welcome
  you as a guest under better circumstances. Best
  regards, Martijn Zenden