KRSW

Would you blame the OP for booking a hotel in California or Tokyo because they're in earthquake zones? Tampa, FL hasn't been hit by a hurricane in almost 100 years (1921), with the last major hurricane prior to that being 1848. Both California and Japan have been hit with multiple disasters since 1921.

Despite what the media hype machine says, devastating hurricanes hitting individual places is quite rare. Florida (the entire state) went 12 years between major hurricane strikes (Wilma 2005 to Irma 2017). Prior to that was a nine-year stretch (Opal 1995 to Charley 2004). 17 years went between Eloise 1975 to Andrew 1992. That's for the entire state.

When storms hit, they usually only affect a small area, while the rest of the state is normal. Other than Grand Bahama Island and Abaco, the Bahamas are open and desperate for tourist business. With Dorian, Ms. KRSW and I saw the media hype, the mass hysteria, and immediately thought, "Let's go to Disney!" It was a great move -- the parks were completely empty. We were able to walk onto any ride we wanted without waiting. If you wanted to ride multiple times, no problem -- stay seated.

Another myth is that storms are getting stronger. 10 of the 15 strongest hurricanes to hit Florida were prior to 1950. Likewise, strong hurricanes are decreasing in frequency, not increasing. Florida really got whacked regularly from 1894-1950. Not so much since.

bhrubin

Oh dear. This is what we call the fallacy of false equivalency.

Knowing that there will be hurricanes every year in this season of June 1- Nov 1, and knowing that this area is smack in the danger zone for hurricanes to hit, is what we call a substantially higher risk and one that every single traveler knows is coming. There are multiple hurricanes every year in that season. There are multiple hurricanes that hit the US coastline every other year on average during that hurricane season.

Sorry, but the risk for hurricanes and the risk for earthquakes aren’t the same at all. It isn’t even remotely close. There isn’t an earthquake season. Earthquakes of any size that matters or can be felt don’t strike a region every year.

Nice try. But this is another red herring.

KRSW

I don't see why you'd say it's such a red herring. Going back the last 40 or so years, Los Angeles gets a major earthquake about every 6 or so years. I'm almost never out in California, but happened to be there in my hotel room, for the La Habra quake in 2014. Tampa, Florida has had ONE hurricane in 100 years. Basing your travel plans on an event which happens 1:100 years vs. 1:6 years seems foolish to me, especially given that there's advance notice of hurricanes.

bhrubin

I think your definition of major and that of FEMA might be distinctly different...considering I’ve lived in SoCal since 1993 and there has been but a single major earthquake (the 1994 Northridge earthquake) in that time. Your “major earthquake every 6 years or so” is nonsense, I’m afraid.

I’m sorry that you don’t like it, but there is no regular interval nor season for earthquakes, and they don’t hit frequently as you claim. The same isn’t true for the obvious regular interval and strike zones for hurricanes. Everyone knows better.

pinniped

In a completely hypothetical situation, I would suggest that a guest voluntarily leaving a hotel early ahead of a potential storm would *not* be cause for reimbursement. That's a decision the guest has made, and the hotel is within their rights to keep the payment for the room that has been booked.

The point at which the hotel would owe the guest a refund would be if they closed and evacuated the guests.

However, the wrinkle here is that the hotel initially promised the guest a refund (a courtesy, to be sure), and then reneged on it. Had I been the guest, I would have been angry too. Not because hotels owe guests anything as a rule when they leave early, but because in this case the hotel did agree to that.

Hotels continue to be open and operate in places where bad weather might exist. I don't avoid places that might have earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, or blizzards. There is risk in all travel...my first two statements above are where I think fairness would usually lie in terms of how a hotel should respond if the risk becomes an issue. In this case, some at Marriott wanted to hold firm to that line, some were willing to be more generous, and that became a conflict that - lucky for the OP - was resolved.