You walk into the hotel. No greeting. Kids sit down while I check us in. Sorry, we can’t check you in early even though you requested it as we’re really busy. Leave your bags here and come back. Ok, so can you confirm that our taxi has been booked for tomorrow? No, because we can’t allocate it to your room numbers as we haven’t allocated them. But we can tell you that your rooms are opposite each other (so does that mean they’ve been allocated? Hashtag confused!!)
Ok, our room should be ready at 14h00, we come back closer to 16h00. João (receptionist) sits on his his high chair and asks questions from up above regarding our booking. I realized I had to pay him respect and go to him - he asks for ID, one per person, I give him those. When it comes to charging for our rooms, he asks for one more Euro. I explain that it’s not what I’ve been quoted. He asks for the children’s ages - ummm....you should have those as it’s on the ID’s I’ve just given you (face palm).
The most difficult conversation with the staff here was to confirm a taxi for early morning to take us to the airport.
1) they didn’t have confirmation (but they did, as I’d emailed them a month ago, and they had confirmed it!)
2) there’s a difference between a private taxi and a normal taxi (and I should know which one I’ve booked - because it’s my responsibility as a guest, not the hotel’s - who’s providing the service here????)
3) I’ve booked the taxi (for which I have confirmation), but the hotel has no knowledge of this
4) their reservations lady, that acknowledged my booking is on vacation (my fault?????) so they haven’t received my transfer request
5) The lady Goreti had the audacity to say to me that how could they book a taxi for me if I hadn’t turned up?? Imagine if my flight was delayed or cancelled. Imagine if I didn’t turn up to the hotel, then what would happen to the taxi booking??
6) I got our room keys - Ms Correia made a huge show of saying she’d upgraded one of the rooms - not possible! She’d already given away the fact that the rooms were opposite each other. And second hint I’d paid more for one room than the other. So Ms Correia, you didn’t do me a favour and upgrade us to a suite - I got what I paid for. Correction, I paid a lot more than what this place is worth.
7) Spoke to Helder - I’m not sure what his position is at the hotel, but no compensation or apologizes were offered at this point.
Anyway, I’m still here at the hotel. I can’t imagine it getting any worse. But please, don’t use the fact that you had 47,000 guests in Lisbon last week to excuse yourselves from providing 4-star service - apparently that’s what it says on the wall.
And no, I won’t be coming here again. Lesson learnt.