Tamarack Lodge of Traverse City — Hotel in East Bay Township

My wife and I (and young kids) have stayed at Tamarack whenever we've gone to TC the past 8 years; sometimes multiple times in a year. Having said that, we recently booked a 3-night stay for just after New Years' with one of their special "package rates" listed on their website. After completing the booking, and receiving my confirmation, I get a voicemail from the manager stating "there was a glitch in the programming when you booked your stay, and the price you agreed to was incorrect. We fixed the glitch [a la Office Space] so it dramatically changed the nightly price for the room, so that your stay now is going to be about 3x the cost of what you had anticipated and agreed to".

So, proceeding to contact said manager back, she just said that "her hands are tied, and there was nothing we could do..." and "the website DOES say 'pricing subject to change.'" Even though we have a confirmation, and an agreed upon cost for our stay, Tamarack (per the manager) claims that it was a pricing error, but they are not going to honor that price.

So -- beware. Although I have never had any problems with staff, housekeeping (on our first trip I left without my wedding band, made it to Kalkaska before realizing it, called them and they had it at the desk for me when I drove back!!!!), accommodations, etc.; they no longer seem to care about keeping your loyalty as a customer through shady website advertising on pricing that is "subject to change" whenever they feel like it.

If you are staying here, and don't receive a "you booked our place with a programming glitch on our end that we've since fixed," SAVE YOUR CONFIRMATION EMAIL...so when you check out, you pay the agreed upon price. I still have my confirmation....but they just "can't" honor...

Multiple lights were out and the phones didn't work in the room when we arrived. Luckily that was taken care of by the 3rd day of our stay had to put in two requests for the phones (apparently it was just pluged in to the wrong spot). Was given 30 minutes notice that water was being shut off for almost the ENTIRE day. No shower was not as big of a problem as no toilets for the day. My wife, being pregnant, obviously needed one. Was never offered ANY compensation. Was told the people who had any ownerships were told they were doing maintenance during that week and to not come in. apparently, they didn't care to give that information to anyone else renting a room. (What lady at the counter said) Had to complain that the water being shut off was a HUGE inconvenience for them to even consider offering ANY kind of refund or remedy to alleviate the obvious problem that it caused. Spent almost $3k for the stay and when I asked for a refund for only just the one weekday (which is a less expensive day) that the water was off. they asked "how do you expect us to make money if we give refunds for issues like that" asked desk to have manager call he never did. I had to call twice. Ended up only getting a small partial refund for PART of the day that they didnt have water after a lot of headache. Would not recommend unless you plan on getting poor customer service when they have any kind of issue that happens. Which is unfortunate because it is a very nice location. Will definitely not be returning. Book one of the MANY other places within a few miles of there. Unfortunately the customer service dealing with no water ruined the vacation more than the day...

Multiple lights were out and the phones didn't work in the room when we arrived. Luckily that was taken care of by the 3rd day of our stay had to put in two requests for the phones (apparently it was just pluged in to the wrong spot). Was given 30 minutes notice that water was being shut off for almost the ENTIRE day. No shower was not as big of a problem as no toilets for the day. My wife, being pregnant, obviously needed one. Was never offered ANY compensation. Was told the people who had any ownerships were told they were doing maintenance during that week and to not come in. apparently, they didn't care to give that information to anyone else renting a room. (What lady at the counter said) Had to complain that the water being shut off was a HUGE inconvenience for them to even consider offering ANY kind of refund or remedy to alleviate the obvious problem that it caused. Spent almost $3k for the stay and when I asked for a refund for only just the one weekday (which is a less expensive day) that the water was off. they asked "how do you expect us to make money if we give refunds for issues like that" asked desk to have manager call he never did. I had to call twice. Ended up only getting a small partial refund for PART of the day that they didnt have water after a lot of headache. Would not recommend unless you plan on getting poor customer service when they have any kind of issue that happens. Which is unfortunate because it is a very nice location. Will definitely not be returning. Book one of the MANY other places within a few miles of there. Unfortunately the customer service dealing with no water ruined the vacation more than the day...