Long Beach Resort — Hotel in Wainfleet

EMPLOYEE RESERVED NOT SUITABLE COTTAGES FOR OUR GROUP AND INPUTTED THE WRONG AMOUNT OF GUESTS INTO THEIR SYSTEM, WHICH CAUSED US TO SEND SOME FAMILY MEMBERS HOME.||||My family and extended family stayed at Long Beach Resort over the Canada’s Day long weekend. When we got to the resort we had the worst customer service experience with the owner. We booked our stay a year ago. A year ago we were inquiring about what cottages worked best for the amount of people we had. I also recalled asking if there was room for air mattresses so we can bring them to accommodate the type of families we had, as we had young children with us. ||||At the time we asked the employee over the phone what their recommendations for our group was and when they gave us their suggestions we went ahead and booked it. And we booked 2 cottages side by side that had connecting doors so it would feel like we were more together than separated. ||||Fast forward a year later, when we arrived to the resort we were told we were over capacity by 2 people, so we were over one person per cottage. We were very confused as to why and how this can happen, especially given that we booked a year ago and called multiple times inquiring about our reservations and their amenities. Then when the employee pulled up the reservations the rep who reserved our stay only inputted one adult for each cottage, which is their internal error… how could this possibly be our fault when we gave them the accurate number of adult and children attending. We were asking the employee if they would be able to accommodate what we booked for originally but the only options they gave us, as they were going back and forth with the owner separately from us, was ||1. The extra people have to leave the resort or ||2. Pay $3700 plus tax to upgrade. ||||We booked a year ago with the budget we had and we were absolutely not going to upgrade as this would have exceeded our budget. We asked if we can please keep what we originally booked, and to honour that there would be an extra guest in each cottage as we felt in that moment it was not our mistake as this is what was recommended to our group by the employee. But we kept coming back to the same options. Finally, we were able to speak to the owner who:||1. Didn’t believe that it was all of our first time there and was acting like we were not being truthful to him.||2. He commented that they have never only inputted one adult in each cottage for a stay before like this… BUT THEY DID AND AGAIN THAT IS AN INTERNAL PROBLEM.||3. He lacked sympathy for our situation, and could have cared less.||4. He walked out on our conversation and left it for his employee to deal with, which baffled all of us.||||All in all, we unfortunately sent 2 people home (1 from each cottage) because we were there for a bigger purpose, which was for an engagement proposal. And they would not refund our money and would only give back the tax or cleaning service fee, and let me tell you we paid alooot of money and just being refunded this amount was a joke. So we felt stuck and had to make the best out of our situation which really sucked. We were hoping this would have been an annual cottage trip that we would do with our family but WE WILL DEFINITELY NOT BE RETURNING here and because of the PETTY MANAGEMENT we wouldn’t recommend this place to anyone. Hopefully they can take courses/classes on customer service and management to better their business and customers experience.||||Summary:||1. We shouldn’t have heavily trusted the rep who was supposed to accommodate us. The rep didn’t suggest the appropriate type of cottage for our group and the rep inputted the wrong amount of guests into their system. And due to their error and wrong recommendation we had to send two family members home, which was a 2-3 hour drive and there was absolutely no way we were going to fork up $3700 plus tax to upgrade, which would have exceeded our budget.||2. Petty management and rude customer service from the owner was...

Beach is nice, water is shallow and mostly calm waves. Some parts have a lot of seaweed though. If you don't like flies or bugs then you won't like the rooms as there will be bugs around the suites. Nice place to relax but for the price you pay you will expect more. There are no phones in the room to contact staff if you need anything. You need to walk to the main trailer or wait to find staff if they are in the area. The experience that made this stay unpleasant were several things:

(1) we were booked for 2 nights, a few days in advanced we asked to move the dates out by a few days which they accommodated. Even though the rate should have been $200 cheaper - as they accommodated our date move, no adjustment to our rate - it was fine. This place wasn't even busy or fully booked. I asked staff about it and they said it was very busy during COVID but now it's not so busy.

(2) there was no tv remote for our room and so kids were not able to relax and watch tv until after 10pm when we were able to get a tv remote - by that time it was close to bed time so too late.

(3) beside our suite were 8 rowdy and noisy kids and despite the resort's no noise policy after 10pm, the kids continued to watch their TV very loudly and make noise from 10pm - 4am. You can hear everyone in the units beside you unfortunately. I tried to look for staff but no one was available and apparently staff leave after 12:30am. I sent an email at 1am complaining about the noise as my family could not sleep but no response. The next day I spoke to the management about having no tv remote and not being able to rest do to the noise and after asking for some acknowledgment and compensation for this (apart from 10% off on our next stay) I was told to talk to them at check out and they would do something more. Upon check out they tell me since they moved our date to a few days later, they lost money and so they consider we are even with all the inconvenience we experienced. They would not give 10% off next stay or do anything further. I was shocked at this poor response and terrible level of customer service and I left the resort thinking, I'll never come back or recommend this place. So just beware of the petty management and poor customer service. This place is quite expensive and you expect to get more. I also wrote an email to management directly about this and it's been a bit over a week and they did not respond. Very disappointing as I was ready to book again in August with my extended family but not after this poor experience. This place is NOT a resort. It's a bunch of old cottages on the beach.

Summary:

Beach: Very nice (that's about the only thing good about this place)

Access to staff: Most of the staff are young kids working there and they are all very nice. But it's not easy to get help when you need it. You either need to wait for them to come around or you need to walk to the trailer and look for staff, no phones in room to call staff if you need anything - its bad. This is not a resort.

Noise: No one enforces quiet policy after 10pm, you can hear your other guests in the suites next to yours, if they are noisy then it's too bad, you will not get any rest and management won't do anything and may offer 10% off your next stay but no guarantees your next stay will be issue free.

Rooms: 1 washroom for entire family of 4 or more people is not good. Many flies and bugs in the entire suite, spiders, centipedes, etc.. and window sills are gross. $200 cleaning fee it's not as clean as you would expect. There were bugs on the pillow. There is also a boiled water advisory so don't drink the tap water. No closest to hang anything up in the rooms. Again if you hate bugs then you will not like it here.

Management: Disappointed on how they handled a non-restful stay. Very petty and this is likely why they are not busy. Look at the reviews, the honest reviews on this place and pay attention...

THIS IS A WARNING, DO NOT BOOK WITH THEM!
FOR AN OVERPRICE RESORT, IT IS NOT WORTH IT!

Before proceeding with the reviews, I believe there is a high chance that the manager or the employees are behind those computers responding to every review to help defend the resort’s reputation. So, I would not be surprised if I did get a response from the team. If I recall correctly, the manager didn’t seem to care about us leaving a bad review on Google or through word of mouth.

Long story short: About a year ago, I came across this resort through a friend’s social media. Upon booking, I called the resort to inquire about the place and their suggestion based on the number of guests. I gave her the exact number of adults and kids. From that point on, she suggested doing a side-by-side suite. As for the rooms, I was concerned that the three families of 5 may not have enough beds to sleep in. So then I asked if bringing an air mattress was okay. After all was said and done, I booked the rooms based on her recommendation.

The day of(June 28, 2024): After a year of planning, I made sure everyone was in attendance for a surprise engagement. I planned everything, from the food to the room arrangements, transportation, and so on. We were all excited and looked forward to this event. My cousin’s family arrived and checked in earlier. The suite was aesthetically pleasing, but based on the video call, the rooms didn’t seem spacious enough for a family with kids. I called the resort to see if they would have another option in case, knowing there was a low possibility of other suites/cottages being fully booked for the Canada’s Day long weekend. I couldn’t deal with the matters over the phone while driving, so instead, I sent my cousin to the front desk trailer to speak to them directly and get back to me.

The information was:
We are over capacity per suite
Upgrading would cost us another $3700.

To my surprise, I was left speechless. Other family members were involved in the cottage and were aware of the situation, and I believed they were trying to get this situated on my behalf. Upon arrival, my family members did not look so happy. As I entered the front desk trailer, they pulled a chair for me to sit down and talked about the rates of upgrading to a cottage for $3700.

This suite cost my family $7000, and to pay another $3700 on top of an upgrade was complete insanity. I even asked the manager to pull up the reservation to let him know that I did indeed book the suite a year ago. A YEAR AGO, I gave the exact number of adults and kids over the phone. Then I received an email the day before at 2 PM asking me the number of guests and arrival time. There were also internal issues showing one guest per suite in their system when pulling up my reservation. So, whoever booked me needed to insert the correct number of guests into the system properly. At that moment, we called out on their mistakes. Surprisingly, they did not apologize or own up to their mistakes. One of the team members left in distress (I don’t blame her), and the other guy dealing with us seemed to have no choice but to deal with us with an apathetic attitude.

Again, from a customer standpoint. I do want to say that I understood that although the confirmation was sent out regarding the number of guests, I also trusted the person I was speaking to over the phone, and at that time, she made me feel like this was the best choice to make when booking through them.

With all the chaos, an older-looking man kept entering and exiting the trailer. He turned out to be the resort's owner. He knowingly saw my family and his staff going back and forth in this situation and chose to stand by. We then requested to speak to the owner and were baffled by the fact that he had been there all along. We recapped the situation, and he even asked his team to pull my file; he then…

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