Indian Springs Calistoga — Hotel in Calistoga

We All Make Mistakes – It’s How You Handle Them That Counts

On October 7-9, 2016, we were invited to a weekend at the Indian Springs Resort to celebrate a dear friend’s milestone birthday. Generous in heart and action, our friend paid for all the attendees’ rooms for the weekend (and I’m guessing that were about 20 guest rooms for 35 guests for two nights), plus a cocktail reception and full dinner.

Due to heavy traffic from San Francisco, we were the last guests to arrive at the hotel property, but were assigned a cottage and went to the reception. Apparently, the front desk staff had checked other guests (who were also on the birthday invitee list) into the room we were supposed to have been assigned.

Mistakes happen – I understand that fact. However, the manner in which the Indian Springs staff handled the mistake was blunder upon blunder upon blunder. During the reception celebrating our friend’s 50th birthday, one of the resort staff members informed her of the overbooking error and that she would have to tell us to leave to go to another property the next morning. Really? It’s an important occasion, and we’re all celebrating her birthday … and the resort team thinks it’s her responsibility to tell the guests that they have to move hotels for the next night. They made the mistake; they should handle all aspects of correcting the situation.

Our friend decided, thoughtfully, not to tell us that evening, so that we could enjoy the festivities without worrying about hotel arrangements. She had to call us the next morning to tell us about the hotel’s mistake and that we had to pack up our belongings to move to another property. The staff and management may be in the hotel business, but, to me, they are clearly not in the hospitality business. First of all, given the fact that our friend was spending a significant amount of money on rooms, dinner and bar service both before and after the dinner with the resort, they should have moved the incoming Saturday guests to another property. Secondly, they should have informed us of the need to change, not made the birthday host communicate the bad news. Thirdly, they should have offered to send someone to our cottage to, at the very least, take our bags to our car.

When we turned in our keys to the front desk team at Indian Springs, the two young women had not been made aware of the problem, so they had to call the Catering Sales Manager to find out how to handle the issue. The two front desk team members were in a tough situation and gave us a “day pass key” so that we could use the pool on the Indian Springs property with the rest the 35 birthday guests. I asked to speak with the manager because I wanted to know why they didn’t handle the situation in a more diplomatic or hospitable manner. The sales manager offered all sorts of platitudes that were “apologetic-like,” but not very sincere. When I asked why the hotel staff did not inform us of the problem, but left it to the birthday celebrant, the sales manager said something to the effect that “It’s very complicated. We have a legal contract with [name of birthday celebrant], so we could not contact you directly.” As I said earlier in this review, hospitality is clearly not a strength at this property. Don’t spout mumbo-jumbo – take responsibility for the mistake, and make the situation the best you can. Offer to provide directions to the second hotel, at a minimum. Assure us that the birthday host will not be charged for the first night of our stay. Do something meaningful, rather than just trying to hide a problem that you created.

Based on this experience, I will never stay at the Indian Springs Resort in...

For the price you would think there would be an ounce of customer service here but nope. The grounds of course are beautiful and the rooms are nice but for almost $500 a night the no housekeeping is a joke. We arrived to town and it was a really hot day and there was no power in all of Calistoga which I completely understand PG&E turns off and the resort has no control but we were not advised prior to our arrival that that would be the case. A courtesy call would have been nice but ok whatever. When we checking in the guy at the front desk gave us our keys and we went to our room. We decided the room was not to our liking and we went back to the desk to see about upgrading. I kindly let them know the room was not to our liking and if there was anyway we could be moved to a different room. I had checked on their website if they had availability for that evening and they did and so I figured maybe because of the inconvenience of the power and therefore no ac on this 103 degree afternoon they would let us switch rooms to one on the hillside where there was more shade. He immediately shut me down and said there was no room without even checking. I told him I had checked and why is there availability on the website if they don’t actually have rooms available. He doubled down and insisted there was nothing he could do. I told him our room was not to our liking and I was happy to pay the difference if they were not willing to accommodate as a courtesy but he insisted there was nothing he could do. While other people were checking in and other staff members informing them of there being no power at the resort he all of a sudden angrily starts clacking on his keyboard and snatches the room keys from the desk and rescanning them. Annoyed he asks me if I have my parking pass and the resort map. I give them to him and he scribbles a new room number and directs up to another room. It was such a bizarre sequence of events. As someone in the service industry I never once was rude to this man or other staff and find it so strange the way they treat guests here. Almost like why are we bothering them. The craziest part was that the manager was standing right there the whole time, witnessed the interaction and never did anything to try and help either him or us. This place is nice and its not my first stay here but they clearly don’t need my business and I’m happy to not give it to them. There are other beautiful places in Calistoga to stay and will...

If I can give negative stars, I would. Please note I have stayed here several times in the past and always had a wonderful and relaxing time. Unfortunately, this past time was horrendous. I will NEVER stay there again. We truly felt our lives were at risk and management did the bare minimum to rectify the issue.

We rented 2 two bedroom cottages for a Mom’s weekend. We were looking forward to a girls weekend, planned months in advance. On our first night at 1am, a drunk/high guests started screaming and kicking down our cottage door, yelling expletives to let him in or he was going to kick in the door. We attempted to call the office and the other numbers that were given to us but there was no answer. We finally called the police because we were literally huddling in the room while this person(we didn’t know if this person came off of the street or was a guest) attempted to kick in the door. When the police arrived, it was a drunk/high guest who was staying two cottages down from us. They led the gentleman back to his cottage.

The next morning, we did not receive a phone call from management. We went to the office to talk to the manager but was told she would be in the office within the hour. Several hours past without a single phone call from the hotel or management. We decided to go to the office. The manager was there and she informed us she was told of the situation over an hour ago. Wow, just wow. With a situation that occurred at 130am, she didn’t feel the need to reach out to us immediately??? After informing her of the situation, she offered to comp us for one night. We asked her to remove the drunken guest from the property as we did not feel safe with him being on the property as we still had one night left. She informed us that she would talk to them. We were appalled. For a four star establishment in addition to the prices they charge, they are going to allow this type of behavior on their property and not remove the guest immediately?

Later, we were told that there was NO staff on site that night. This was why there was no one answering our calls. Is this even legal??? You charge your guests a large amount to stay on your property and you don’t staff your property after dark to protect the safety of your guests?? This is a family friendly resort. To have no staff on site after dark, I do not feel safe staying here nor...