Guest User
June 30, 2023
This hotel cancelled our reservation on 6/20/23, for a scheduled 5 night stay, 9 days before our expected arrival. Mind you, Sardinia is over 5,000 miles from our home, and this is the height of the summer tourist season in Sardinia and Europe as a whole. The hotel informed us that upgrades / construction of new facilities were not going to be completed on time for our arrival / govt approval to open the resort ("These types of works need building regulations approval and, sadly, we won’t obtain the authorizations for the opening on time..We are very sorry for the inconvenience and for the little notice."). This reservation had been booked for 2 months! Not once were we informed until the cancellation, that there was construction occuring on the property. Nowhere on the hotel's website is this indicated either. The hotel offered up other accomodations at another hotel, in a terribly inferior location, with an inferior room and significantly farther away from restaurants, beaches, etc. They said the other hotel would honor the same price (for an inferior product). Relais admitted it was hard to find any alternatives - "We are still working to offer you a suitable alternative, which is not easy because there is little availability on those days" - due to this being high season and due to the late nature of the cancellation notice. The hotel also had the nerve to "remind you that we have not taken anything from your credit card, so you can find an alternative arrangement and cancel the one we made without penalty." I would certainly hope you wouldn't charge me for a hotel stay that the hotel cancelled!!!! As a result of the hotel's cancellation, I scrambled for ~24 hrs to find a suitable alternative myself, and said alternative is costing me an add'l 1,300 Euros over 5 days. When mentioned to Relais, they didn't even respond about this add'l cost to me....Look stuff happens, but you at least need to inform guests when booking that there could be delays / risks due to construction. You don't wait until 9 days prior to a guest's arrival. You offer to compensate the guest in some way shape or form. Further, this is not like a cancellation in a big urban area in a major global city, where there are lots of potential relocation options. This is on an island, where in this case, the guest is coming from 5,000+ miles away. I could not be more disappointed with the Relais. I was really looking forward to staying at their resort. Be warned!