This is the letter I sent to Jim Johnson, the President of Delta Hotels:

Sir:

I am enclosing this letter with a comment card regarding my stay at the Delta Halifax July 14-16, 2000. I am also e-mailing this to [email protected].

This stay was unsatisfactory in the extreme and left me, as a Privilege Gold member, deeply concerned about the quality of any future stays at this location.

Before I left home, I called the Privilege line to assure that my Privilege number was attached to my reservation. I found it was not, but was not concerned as this sometimes happens at this location when my reservation is made by our local office in Halifax. I asked that it be added and thanked the agent I spoke to.

When I checked in at about 9:15 pm, my key card was ready and in a Privilege folder, so all seemed well. I should have noticed that the room number (330), was on a floor I had never before associated with Signature class rooms, to which I an entitled by my status in your frequent guest program. Upon entry I noted the bottle of water and chocolate on the nightstand. I also noted that there was no bathrobe in the room. I called down to inquire if this was a Signature class room, as there was no bathrobe. I was told that it was not, and was offered a bathrobe. I politely indicated that I was entitled to the Signature room. I was then told that if I waited, they would try to locate one and call me back. Instead, I informed the person at the other end that I would come back downstairs, as I had plans for the evening that did not involve sitting in a room I shouldn't have been in and waiting for a phone call. The person at the other end agreed that this was reasonable.

When I went down to inquire about the appropriate room, it appeared that the people at the front
desk had no idea I was going to appear in front of them. I went through the process of explaining the hotel's error again, at which point I was given a new room (623). The friends I was meeting appeared in the lobby at that moment, so I quickly dashed upstairs and dropped off my bags.

When I returned from my outing, I went back to my room to unpack. After doing so, I went into the bathroom and noticed that the room had not been properly cleaned, judging from the glass with toothpaste on the vanity and the smears of toothpaste or soap around the sink and faucets. I showered, hoping that the bathtub had at least been cleaned, and used what appeared to be clean towels. I then went downstairs and asked if housekeeping was still on duty. When I was told they were, I presented the dirty glass to the front desk clerk and asked that my room be thoroughly cleaned before I returned from my night out, as I had no faith in the general cleanliness of the room, given the example of the bathroom.

When I got back, I discovered that the bathroom appeared to have been cleaned, and a note from housekeeping indicating that it was too late in the evening for the room to be vacuumed.

The next morning, I discovered that a note from the general manager had been slipped under my door, welcoming me to the hotel. There was no indication that he was aware of any problem, as this was a preprinted card.

That day, after I returned from my business in town, I discovered that Housekeeping had decided that toilet paper was an unnecessary luxury; one depleted tube was left hanging on the roller, and the other roll was half-depleted. When I went downstairs to dinner, I informed the front desk of this new omission and asked that it be corrected before I went back upstairs. It was, but this latest problem did nothing to ameliorate my feelings about my stay.

On checkout on Sunday, I was asked how my stay was. I was frank and listed the problems I had encountered. Apparently none of this had yet been documented, since despite my file being open on the computer, the front desk staff were surprised that anything at all had gone wrong. I was told that the problem with obtaining the correct room may be because the reservation was made by our local office; I pointed out that I have stayed there many times in the past, under similar circumstances, and that this had never happened. Even when I was a regular Privilege member, none of this has occurred at the Delta Halifax, and I certainly don't see how it should have when that day I had confirmed that the appropriate information was attached to my reservation.

While the problems I had were eventually rectified, they should never have occurred in the first place, and I should think that after the first two problems, the staff would have made an extra effort to ensure that there were no further problems. That this did not happen I can only assume is due to the fact that nobody wanted anybody else to know that anything had ever gone wrong, an assumption supported by the apparent ignorance of the general manager and of the staff on duty during my check-out. This leaves me unsatisfied with the stay in question, and concerned that a future stay at this property, or elsewhere in the Delta chain, might be fraught with similar problems. I would appreciate your informing me of what steps you will take to finish resolving the immediate problem, and prevent future problems from arising.