Monday morning incident at Cal

All he needs to do is call them all auntie and unko and fit right in

 

If you're traveling alone to Vegas and worried about this it's more reason to have a Hooker stay the night.

 

EVERY time at any property I've stayed at when I've come in my room with the maid in there they have ALWAYS asked me to verify my room key by inserting it into the lock.

 

The problem is, since VH has a master key, they have the authority to be in each room without regard.

 

I encountered that when I took a tour of Europe about 3 years ago. In Nice (the place where they had people killed by that truck) the maid came in without even announcing herself, even though I had the DND sign on. I wasn't wearing a stitch of clothing so I hid behind the wall and told her that I didn't need maid service. Didn't help that she didn't speak English but she got my message.

I've taken Vacations Hawaii many times. The bag pull was at 5:30 am because the guests had to meet in a certain area by 6 or 6:30 am to wait for the shuttle bus to the airport (usually meet and wait in the Ohana room on the 2nd floor). They usually expect the guests to be in the process of checking out at that time. When they go out to the shuttle their bags are all laid out and they have to claim their bags to put into the bus. They pull the bags earlier because the porters or people who pull the bags need to get them and set them outside near the bus.

I think they pay the Cal porters to pull the bags for VH. The porters have a "master" list of rooms with guests for that particular charter so they use that to open doors and pull bags. It is the screw up of the VH staff for not updating the list so this doesn't happen.

I stayed in the east tower of the Cal in April and they had swing bars on the door. I guess with the "renovations" to the west tower they removed the swing bars.

Watch out what you say. Just kidding but if you are from Hawaii and aware of the Hawaiian slang unko is a term (actually Japanese term) we use for sh*t or bullsh*t.



Joe, it is good that someone got back to you again and I hope they get back to you to apologize for the incident. Not sure if you are expecting something for your inconvenience but it would have been nice if the Cal would at least apologize and say that they would look into the incident so it wouldn't happen again. Whether or not they actually would do it isn't the issue, it is that they need to apologize for the screw up and actually show that they are remorseful that it happened. For some people that is all they are expecting.

It is unfortunate because it seems that these "renovations" going on at the Cal are to make the place more "flashy" but little to do with better customer service or listening to customers. Many people have complained when they got rid of the snack bar near the binions entrance but it seems that management doesn't care about what the customers want or need anymore. Too bad as I liked staying at the Cal but I may switch over to MSS because of these "renovations".


By the way, some people (but not many) who have stayed at the Cal recently don't really like the renovations. The older people are afraid of the new showers because they are afraid of slipping and falling through the shower doors. There is also a small step up into the shower and they have to watch out so they don't trip and fall getting in and out. One person also said that he hit his head because he didn't know the shower door was closed (maybe put on stickers on the doors so people will be warned where the door is?). Overall the renovations are nice but some things could be done to improve things.

 

It doesn't have to happen to me to "forever change my view of my comfort and safety in my room" now. This thread already has.

 

This is what I came here to say. I don't want to say I'm a "serial complainer"... but I'm one who complains when things go wrong (which, sadly, is quite often) - and when I do complain, it's elaborate, meticulous, and highly methodical, in that I'm not just looking to make noise... I'm looking to prompt action.

Think about it from the perspective of most anyone working in the hotel. Not just the GM, not just your host, not even the CEO of Boyd Gaming. Just anyone. To hear the story that your room was entered unauthorized, while you were sleeping, and bypassing the DND sign and the deadbolt is going to make anyone shake in their boots and say "I'm sorry", at the very least. Even I'm saying it, and I wasn't even there, nor do I work for Boyd Gaming.

The point is, any complaint will get a reaction. You could complain that the lights are too bright, or that the pillows are too fluffy, and you will get an "I'm sorry" from most anyone with a pulse. The horrible situation you encountered will also get a reaction, but that reaction is only going to be a fragment more than the reaction to a complaint about a frivolous thing.

Therefore, to just complain is not the best thing you can be doing here. Why? It presupposes that some pre-determined course of resolution will automatically get into motion, and you'll suddenly be offered something to remedy the situation in a satisfactory way. That's just not going to happen. Primarily because situations such as these happen so rarely that there is no "right answer" here (while by comparison, not having the room ready at check-in time happens much more frequently, and is comparatively easy to remedy with a free meal/late check-out/etc.). But also secondarily, because they don't know what will make you happy.

Most disputes can be solved reactively with relative ease. The food at the restaurant isn't satisfactory? We'll give it to you for free. The shuttle didn't show up? Take a taxi and send us the bill. We had to bump you from first class to economy? We'll refund you the difference and give you a free upgrade for your next flight. The compensation is lateral or slightly higher, simply because what you were deprived of in these cases has a finite value, and an easy way for it to be provided to you.

This situation, however, is very unique. They can't comp your stay because it's already comped. Offering free meals would seem kind of redundant, since I suspect they're already comped too. Offering free play also seems like it might not be the right idea, because there's the variable element of how much to give which is kind of a slippery slope (e.g. "Is $500 enough? $1,000? $2,000?").

Realistically, I think you made the right call by demanding that they give you a free Vacations Hawaii trip as compensation for your trip. It's a more significant gesture than any of the example alternatives that I listed, I suspect it will be a lot more enjoyable than free stays/meals in downtown Las Vegas, and once the Vacations Hawaii division realizes that they've had to give up this much value just for the careless and ignorant actions of their staff, it has that "vindication factor" of knowing that it will most likely force them to get their act together.

The only thing that I would change in your approach, Joe, is to put a deadline on it. As in, "we want a free trip to Hawaii, and you must give me confirmation of this in then next 48 hours". I say this for two reasons...

- One is that it forces immediate action. From a bureaucratic perspective, I suspect that this might go through a complex chain of your host, someone in guest relations, then someone mid-level at Vacations Hawaii, and possibly even someone high-level at Vacations Hawaii. It's very easy for your first point of contact to confidently say "I'll see what I can do"... and then as this passes through the ranks, someone might just take a cursory glance at the request and give a Merlin-style reaction of "so one of our guys opened a room door by accident and now this guy wants a free trip for two to Hawaii? Forget it!". Then you've got a whirlwind of emails going back and forth begging/pleading/explaining/etc., all of which is not your problem - and will only postpone a response from happening. If that fire of "you have 48 hours" is not lit under them, you've committed your request to the purgatory of "when I get around to it". Whenever I make my complaints, there is always a time contingency on them, because if they end up taking too long for whatever reason, I can just say "you took too long, and I handled it another way" (filed a chargeback, sued them, whatever else I may choose to do). I think that you need to force them to act in this timeframe, otherwise there is no urgency for them to do so.

- Two is that it gives you the opportunity to react by taking your business elsewhere. You know what you want from them (the trip to Hawaii). They know that it's what you want. They also know that your business is extremely valuable to them. But if there's a definite point of "or else", like I said in the first point, they're forced to act before then. If they fail to do so... then YOU have the opportunity to walk away, and magnify their failure in such a way that they'll really realize the gravity of their mistake (which wasn't just opening the door... it was failing to do something about it when they knew exactly what they had to do). Today is Thursday. If you give them 48 hours now, and you haven't heard by them by end of day Saturday, I say check out of your room early, and get set up elsewhere (Plaza, D, Nugget, etc.). If they care to get your business back, they are going to be CHASING you at this point, since you've now taken action on your threat (whether explicit or implicit) to leave. If they don't care to get your business back, then you would probably end up leaving anyway... only later. On that note, I say that you expedite this process by giving them that 48 hour window, since you shouldn't have to wait around for them to get their act together.

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Apologies for the long post. But I hope that you can see the importance of specifying a "must react" timeframe. No one will care about your interests as much as you do, and if you're going to wait around to do business on their schedule, I think you'll be waiting a while.

Sorry to hear this happened. Let us know about the outcome!

 

I'm with you Joe, I think all this hassle could have been circumvented with a "hey we messed up and we're sorry" from the front desk originally? Obviously the GM should have chose his words better on the original email. I will say his last reply shows to me he is trying to rectify the situation and that to me would be a great starting point. Don't let it ruin your vacation Joe.

 

I don't remember.

I haven't found anything on Youtube, so I'm going to say no. Not that I recall. Also, no cookies left on the bedside table. No note from the tooth fairy. And no lunch for school with an encouraging little note and a dollar for candy. OK now I'm mad!

 

I dunno what to tell ya. It just never bothered us. It should. Any other situation it would have. But, somehow, it just didn't. Maybe if my mom had been sweeter to me I wouldn't be such a slut with random hotel housekeepers? Anybody patting my shoulder and putting a blanket on me while I'm sleeping must be OK? I blame my mother.

 

Every tour we've been on (Italy, Ireland) It was our responsibility to put the bags in the hallway in the morning. I would keep my eye on it until the porters came. Most people didn't worry about it and I never heard of an issue. Sounds like a better way than entering rooms.

TomTWI

 

I'm with ya on much of what you've said, but you lost me here. To me, putting such a deadline as a "condition of satisfaction" adds an air of hostage negotiations into this that I don't think would be well received at all.

 

You're correct that it might not be well-received by Boyd/VH. But it also wasn't well-received when Joe and his wife were harassed early in the morning for no reason.

IMO, Joe should be nothing but demanding here. The staff's fuckup was colossal, both in the approaches to the door, and in not taking the complaints seriously when they were made. The natural question that arises from this is "what do you want us to do?"... and he's made it very clear what compensation will be enough. From here, one of two things will happen... they do it, or they don't. If they do it, great. If they don't, then that's grounds to leave Boyd altogether, which Joe said he was ready to do.

The issue with that second possible outcome is that the denial may take days or weeks to come to the surface. Again, not only was this not taken seriously to begin with, this stands to be passed through several pairs of hands, one of which might see the request and dismiss it as just another greedy customer trying to get something for free.

The point is, they're clearly not going to rush to act, based on how they've reacted to this so far. I believe that the only thing that will speed this up is giving them a deadline. They may scoff at it, or try to flip it up on Joe as an extortion attempt. But if they do and he leaves straight away for them not complying with the deadline, that not only makes the threat of leaving an evident one, it also raises numerous questions. Why did our best guest not complete his stay? Why did this host suddenly drop a ton in expected theo? Why is everybody buzzing around the office about "some guy who wants a free trip to Hawaii"?

So I agree with you that it may not be well-received. But if you ask me, Joe owes no courtesy of patience to this property. They know what they did, and they know what they need to do to fix it. If they want to wait around and ignore the deadline, they'll find out what happens.

 

When I moved rooms I notified the VH person on call (there is always supposed to be someone on call) because I wasn't sure if VH would get the message about my room change and I wanted to make sure that VH would pick up my bags during bag pull. But even then they didn't get the message to the porters and I had to go back up because my bags weren't at the shuttle. Guess that's why they want you to identify your bags for loading on the shuttle, so your bags don't get left behind if they miss a bag pull. Now I wonder if the porters opened the door to my former room for bag pull and inconvenienced the guests. But this was about 7 - 10 years ago so they still haven't gotten it right with the room moves.

I can see this being a problem because the Cal (or MSS or Fremont for that matter) may not identify VH guests and which charter they are on so the word cannot get to the VH staff and the porters. To solve this I would recommend the hotels include (in the comments) if the room/guest was a VH charter and which day's charter. If a guest changes rooms the front desk should see the comments and inform VH that the guest changed from room x to room y. Hopefully that will take care of the situation where the porter goes to the wrong room for bag pull.

I don't know if that is what happened in Joe's situation, it could have been an error by the porter during bag pull or the VH staff in listing the rooms but it sure sounds like what could have happened in my case years ago.

I would recommend Joe mention my recommendation (procedures and comments for VH charter guests) to the managers to eliminate any 5:30 am surprises. They really need to prevent this from happening again.

Joe, really? The west tower rooms don't have that swing bar that prevents people from entering the room? I know that it wasn't that protective, someone could probably have forced their way into the room (since it was only held by screws) but at least having the swing bar on would give warning to the person trying to enter that someone is already in the room.

 

No, the remodeled West Wing rooms no longer have that swing bar for additional locking. I know there are ways around that, but at least it makes some noise.

 

For some reason I'm thinking Joe is already home.

 

Yea, been home since Tuesday night. Leave for Suncoast 3 weeks from today.

 

Ah, I'd somehow interpreted your posting as you being there still. In any case, I'd still advise the 48-hour deadline. Won't be as effective now, but if Suncoast gets cancelled with "bye Boyd" as the reason, I suspect that will generate enough noise to have effect if they don't give you that trip within that period.

 

I like your comments, because as you know better than most here the VH is BIG damn program for Boyd. Acknowledging that in the complaint is a smart suggestion. I know Joe's not this way, but too many people think the world revolves around only them and I don't think that's a smart way to approach things.