A vacation that JOIN UP tried to ruin!

Disgusting work of hotel guide Inna (Club Koggala Village 3*)

In January 2014, we booked a tour to Sri Lanka in one of the Belarusian companies. Unfortunately, JOIN UP turned out to be the operator of the tour. Within a month, everything was confirmed and paid. The trouble came from where they did not expect. Two days traveled to this amazing country. At the Colombo airport, we were met by an incomprehensible man without operator logos, speaking little Russian and collecting tourists on the bus with the exclamation “JOIN UP”. Under his supervision, we boarded the bus without company logos. When "representatives of JOIN UP" begged tourists for money for loading a suitcase (and the symbolic dollar did not suit them, banknotes over 10!!! dollars were accepted), he smiled sweetly. With the same smile, he asked to help the poor driver when getting off the bus at the hotel. And then the fun began!

A girl approached us, introduced herself as the hotel guide Inna, and in a very nice conversation, she said that there were no places in the hotel that we had booked for a month! We were offered to live TWO DAYS in an EQUIVALENT HOTEL. According to Inna, the hotel, food, and even the coast will not be inferior to the paid option. For the inconvenience of staying at another hotel, they give two free dinners (we only paid for breakfast). When the same unfortunate tourists began to ask about such compensation throughout the rest, Inna assured that it would be very difficult to do this, but she would still try. She also assured that they would pick us up in two days at 12.00, having previously phoned. We even exchanged phone numbers. Naive…

Equivalent was the hotel 23 km from ours. Naturally, the coast there was different. But this is not the biggest difference. According to Inna, a hotel complex with 3 swimming pools, a jacuzzi, a tennis court, a volleyball court, billiards, animation, a buffet could be replaced by a family-type hotel with 23 rooms, without a single pool and all of the above. When we saw an “equivalent replacement”, we decided to call Inna ourselves. To our dissatisfaction, she replied: “What do you not like?” We once again reminded that we agreed only for TWO DAYS of accommodation in such conditions.

At the appointed time, our group of immigrants began to wait for the coveted call, but we had to call ourselves. It turned out that they would not pick us up at 12.00 - they offered to move us at 13.00, so as not to sit on our suitcases while waiting for the promised transfer, we ourselves offered to pick us up at 14.00. Closer to the appointed time, we were found by the administrator of the second hotel, who was contacted by the manager of our hotel. The administrator asked to call Inna, as they would be able to pick us up only at 19.00 - a wonderful job of the hotel guide. There is the highest professionalism and the deepest interest in the fate of their tourists)))

We did not call, as all this is useless. At about 17.00, the administrator of the second hotel again found us and was delighted that they could pick us up right now. "Come to reception with your suitcases." And we left. AT 17:00. The promised car appeared only after 1.5 hours!

We arrived at our hotel at 19.00 on the third day. On the way, we contacted Inna ourselves. In our understanding, the job of a hotel guide is to defend the interests of tourists. In the understanding of Inna, apparently, she is in Sri Lanka in order to meet us on the first day and talk on the phone for the rest of the time (as Inna herself said). We asked her to be present at the check-in, because. we didn’t want to just pick up the key to our room - we needed a stamp on the voucher about the actual settlement. Not a trace of the former politeness remained. In a very incorrect form, Inna stated that she was at the other end of the country and would come to us "to help" only tomorrow. Inna also offered to write all her claims on paper. She did not seek to resolve the situation peacefully.

The tourists who had passed the same check-in, seeing the next exhausted migrants in the hall, gave advice - to achieve everything by shouting, because this is the only way the administration of this hotel is able to hear. In a very emotional form, we asked to invite the general manager to the reception. With a wide Sri Lankan smile, the administrator pretended to take up our question. Twenty minutes later, we asked where the general manager was and realized that we weren't shouting loud enough. After another shout, work at the reception went on: they began to call somewhere, the smile disappeared from the face and excitement appeared. The manager appeared and immediately realized that the traditional compliments from the hotel would not do here. Without any problems, he immediately added dinners to us throughout the rest, although Inna assured us that this was an almost impossible task. In order not to put the required stamp on the voucher, the manager also added a free massage to us. In addition, we were promised a room with an ocean view, but we could check into this room only after 22.00. As a result, we lost THREE DAYS! We recorded our entire conversation on video, as it turned out for good reason. After 22.00 we were given the key to a completely different room. We again invited their leader, who was reminded of what he promised. In response, they heard a lot of not very pleasant things addressed to us: we are liars, we were not promised anything like that, if we are not satisfied with the proposed number - GET UP AND GO OUT THE GATE. At 22.30 in a foreign country, you are kicked out of the hotel that you paid for. Apparently realizing that he said too much, the manager corrected himself: “If you don’t check into this room in five minutes, then we will check you into a room on the 1st floor.” This is provided that we lived for 3 days in another hotel, since there were no free rooms in ours. And then suddenly such a choice.

The next morning we met with Inna. She did not try to contact us. We suggested that she discuss our issue not in front of the newly arrived tourists, for whom there were also no empty seats. Inna refused, and our conversation took place in front of eyewitnesses. We began by apologizing for our emotionality in yesterday's conversation, naively believing that she would follow our example. The miracle did not happen, and instead of at least the appearance of interest in solving the problem, we heard regular reproaches. "It's your own fault that the manager suggested you leave the hotel." We asked for her coordinates, but we never received a badge or even verbal data.

In the evening our adventures continued, at dinner it became clear. We don't have any compliments from the hotel. They refused to call the manager, everyone at the reception made an incomprehensible look. The FOURTH DAY of rest ended with another trial. As a result, we defended our truth and even heard an apology from the hotel management. But from Inna throughout the rest we no longer heard a word - all this time she walked with a displeased face, pretended not to notice us. No tours offered, no information provided. A group of tourists was evicted from the hotel again without Inna. In fairness, other hotel guides of this operator saw off their tourists, we observed this on the way back to the airport. By the way, about her: we rode on a bus with logos and an official Russian-speaking representative of the operator. However, all the way to the airport, the driver solved his own business: he stopped under each palm tree to pick up things, ran to the store, as a result, the tourists began to shout that at such a pace we would soon miss the plane. But in comparison with the transfer from the airport to the hotel, this road was organized at the highest level.

CONCLUSION: take care of your nerves and money, do not mess with this sharashka office !!!

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