Hotel ousts couple for bad Trip Advisor Report

[GRUMPY PIRATE]

you also have to wonder, that if TA allows hotels to remove "bad" reviews, just who is TA being supported by? do the hotel chains advertise, or give some sort of financial support to TA?

and to the poster that said the hotel he stayed at had only one bad review, and lots of "glowing" or good ones. What is to stop a hotel from sending in their own reviews using an alias?

in other words, just how valid are the reviews.

 

[Bethenny]

I'm absolutely floored that TA would remove a bad review at the request (demand) of the hotel. That is so wrong. I never travel anywhere without stopping at TA first. I find this very unsettling.

 

[wdwmom0f3]

My DH uses trip advisor all of the time, mainly about Gatlinburg, and for the most part we have found the reports and reviews to be true. Now I am wondering what we are not hearing about.

 

[bumbershoot]

Yep, exactly. What keeps me coming back to Trip Advisor is that like I said, I find the majority of the reviews to be pretty accurate, consistently! And I definately go by the traveller's photos too.

If you ever go to Anaheim, your trust is not appropriate for the hotels in the Disneyland area. Seems people only write negative reviews for the DLR area hotels, it's quite weird. Go to the disneyland forums instead.

Hotels keep indexes of complaints and who made them, mostly to defend themselves against scammers who make a habit of filing false complaints in order to get comped rooms.

Most of the time when people write a "my complaint was not resolved" review they have a tendency to itemize the steps that they took in the complaint, and the hotel can match that description with the complaint index. Add to that, many reviewers post dates of stay, their home city, etc., and the reviewer's identity can often be confirmed fairly easily.

Seems it would be easier to just FIX the problems...call me whacky, but that's what I think.

 

[LuvOrlando]

I tend to doubt that one bad review being removed will have much of an impact on how a hotel is perceived by other people/potential guests. I never just look at one bad review and think, "Oh no I'm not going there".... except if there are pictures. I rely on the collective opinion of multiple guests. Plus, if someone rates the place a one and complains about silly stuff in their review stuff like, "We got there at 11pm and they wouldn't give us our deposit back because we didn't like the view, I wanted seagulls" or " "We had a terrible time because my mother in law kept the door open and the place filled up with bugs", I pretty much ignore them. You would be surprised at the number of people who blame hotels for things that have absolutely nothing to do with the hotel but that sort of stuff should be obvious to any reader paying attention.

I don't care about people's vacations. I want to know if the staff was rude or if the place smelled bad. I want to know if a perfectly better place can be found just down the street or if the neighborhood scares guests. I ESPECIALLY love the photographs. I can't tell you the number of times people post absolutely disgusting photos of places, and thank goodness they do post the photos. Nothing says don't come here like a photo of a scary person sleeping next to an elevator, pictures of stains on the bathroom walls, pictures of stains on the mattresses, photos of torn carpeting, metal peeling away in an elevator or water stains and debris falling from a open ceiling or a view of a dumpster. I've personally come across all of the above when researching places to stay.

I especially want to know it if the hotel owner/manager is unstable enough to have me tossed out of my pre-paid room because he didn't like something someone had to say as a private citizen on a website not owned by him/her.

 

[MrsPete]

I wrote a 50-50 bad review on a hotel last summer (it was 100% truthful -- I gave 'em props for their excellent location, but zinged them for not having bedside lighting, for being very grudging with breakfast and a couple other things that should be considered standard). I ended with something along the lines of, "I can't believe 80% of the people on this board LIKE this hotel!"

They had the review pulled because of that line, saying that I was accusing them of writing their own reviews and that they were going to contact their lawyer to investigate their options. That was what really made me mad!

Everything I said was true! A hotel that doesn't provide a lamp beside the bed SHOULD get a bad review!

So I re-wrote, being exceedingly careful to be nothing but factual, and to be very clear about it -- and my second review was worse. There's nothing whatsoever to justify pulling it now. I think I'll go check and see that it's still there.

 

[MrsPete]

I tend to doubt that one bad review being removed will have much of an impact on how a hotel is perceived by other people/potential guests.

Yeah, if I read one negative review, I tend to discredit the poster . . . but if it's a pattern, I believe it.

 

[minniebeth]

If you ever go to Anaheim, your trust is not appropriate for the hotels in the Disneyland area.

Why would I be looking at Anaheim hotels? It's only Disney for us.
Just kidding! We've actually stayed at some nice hotels in Anaheim close to Disneyland (and the Disney properties of course).

 

[Becky2005]

Only 1 time in my life did I have an issue and it was before TripAdvisor. I was ticked though that they only refunded 1/2 our money as I was trying to do the right thing by waiting for the repairman. I figured that was what you were supposed to do if you had a problem, wait for them to rectify it. Because we waited an hour (their repairman was "on call" and had to come from his home) & the problem was the toilet wasn't working correctly -- THAT was an issue. We had called a couple times to see if it could be rectified in that hour (it wasn't even late at night, so I guess I was expecting someone to come check things out within 10-15 minutes or so). After an hour, we gave up and looked in the phone book for another hotel in the area, made our reservations and headed over there.

I just won't stay at that brand ever again if I have a choice in the matter. It was Super 8, so wasn't expecting anything fancy but a working toilet would have been nice. Especially with 2 little kids at the time. Unfortunately, I had to stay at Super 8 this summer since my parents had stayed at it & said it was a decent one...and they were paying so that is what we went. This one wasn't that bad (at least the toilet worked!) but I still had a hard time due my disdain for the chain from the other bad experience!

If I got kicked out for posting my story, that would have made it even worse.

 

[DSNY4ever]

We love trip advisor. I used it to plan our most recent trip to the UK (and I use it for all non-disney trips!). I have never stayed anywhere awful so I can't say I've posted a terrible review. We stayed in truly amazing places on our trip to the UK and they were all picked from trip advisor.

 

[C.Ann]

Actually, I wrote a review about our experience with bed bugs at a Savannah, GA hotel and the hotel tracked me down and FREAKED. I still have the emails. They were out of control. They actually got the review removed from Trip Advisor and got my account suspended. I guess they told the Trip Advisor people that I made it all up.

I did provide proof to the site that my son was bitten by bed bugs while staying in that hotel. And I showed them the emails that the hotel management sent me. They did reinstate my account but the review is still gone.

What is funny is that I wasn't horrible in the review. I stated what happened and how I felt that the hotel did not do a good job addressing the situation.

Yikes!!!!!!!

That's crazy! If this is true that hotels can have reports like that removed, then what is the point? Especially if you have proof.

I agree.. That's about as crazy as it gets!

 

[JoiseyMom]

DH posted a bad review over Labor Day weekend, while we were still at the hotel! You have to really tick him off for that. The toilet became clogged (and it shouldn't have) and we called the front desk...it was abut 7 AM. Well there was no one on duty to help. Ummm...you don't have a person with a plunger?? Just give me the plunger, I have lots of practice .

I went down to the front desk to talk to someone. They eventually sent someone up. Oh, I also asked for more towels and a new shower curtain, since the one hanging had MOLD . Guess what I never got? When we were ready to shower I went to the hall and got some towels from the housekeeper! Oh, if you like sleeping on concrete, that was the place! I have NEVER had such a firm mattress before! DH found another hotel, but we were only going to be there for one more night (our DS's wedding). Guess where we will never stay again!

All the other reviews were good though...so go figure.

 

[DawnCt1]

Actually, I wrote a review about our experience with bed bugs at a Savannah, GA hotel and the hotel tracked me down and FREAKED. I still have the emails. They were out of control. They actually got the review removed from Trip Advisor and got my account suspended. I guess they told the Trip Advisor people that I made it all up.

I did provide proof to the site that my son was bitten by bed bugs while staying in that hotel. And I showed them the emails that the hotel management sent me. They did reinstate my account but the review is still gone.

What is funny is that I wasn't horrible in the review. I stated what happened and how I felt that the hotel did not do a good job addressing the situation.

Good for you! What good is a review if it isn't honest!

 

[Jynohn]

I love TripAdvisor and use it now when planning all of my vacations, but I have no doubt in my mind that some hotels write their own reviews. I stayed at a dude ranch in NY last year that was an absolute DUMP. I mean filthy, run-down, bedbugs, septic odor throughout the hotel and dining room, fire and safety hazards everywhere, miserable staff, and sickly horses. There was absolutely no way on earth that this place could get positive reviews, from ANYONE. Yet when I logged onto TripAdvisor to leave my review, amongst all the hundreds of "terrible" reviews, there were several "excellent" reviews added in there. Of course, every person who had written an excellent review had only one contribution, yet they all used similar wording to the effect of, "best family vacation ever," "it doesn't claim to be a 5 star hotel" and "it's a dude ranch, it's supposed to be rustic." Funny how all these reviewers had the same writing style....

I would bet my next paycheck that that place has a full-time staff member who is paid to write positive reviews on Trip Advisor. With that said, I take a few negative reviews with a grain of salt, but when I see the same complaints over and over, I'll look elsewhere for a place to stay.

 

[cabanafrau]

I love TripAdvisor and use it now when planning all of my vacations, but I have no doubt in my mind that some hotels write their own reviews. I stayed at a dude ranch in NY last year that was an absolute DUMP. I mean filthy, run-down, bedbugs, septic odor throughout the hotel and dining room, fire and safety hazards everywhere, miserable staff, and sickly horses. There was absolutely no way on earth that this place could get positive reviews, from ANYONE. Yet when I logged onto TripAdvisor to leave my review, amongst all the hundreds of "terrible" reviews, there were several "excellent" reviews added in there. Of course, every person who had written an excellent review had only one contribution, yet they all used similar wording to the effect of, "best family vacation ever," "it doesn't claim to be a 5 star hotel" and "it's a dude ranch, it's supposed to be rustic." Funny how all these reviewers had the same writing style....

I would bet my next paycheck that that place has a full-time staff member who is paid to write positive reviews on Trip Advisor. With that said, I take a few negative reviews with a grain of salt, but when I see the same complaints over and over, I'll look elsewhere for a place to stay.

I've run into that feeling several times reading reviews, generally for mom and pop run places w/ only a handful of reviews. It's unfortunate because we've stayed at several small places that are absolute gems and we really can't tell if we're passing on some that are great, or just have reviews designed to draw you in.

I am a bit irritated by Trip Advisor removing reviews if the writers can back up their experiences.