Upålitelig «luksus» på Subic Bay Yacht Club
Å beskylde noen for å stjele er en alvorlig påstand. Likevel vil jeg si at vi har 100 prosent belegg for å påstå dette når det gjelder Subic Bay Yacht Club.
Flere ting, samt diverse penger forsvant litt etter litt fra rommet. Store ting som kamera ble ikke tatt, men flere mindre ting pluss utenlandsk valuta som ikke hadde fått plass i safen, forsvant litt etter litt. En ting er aftershave, parfyme, svømmebriller etc, som ligger «åpent», men ekstra-lommebøkene med henholdvis euro og vietnamesiske dong, må de ha gravd i skuffen. Heretter blir det å låse ALT i koffert på hotell, slik jeg har hatt for vane å gjøre før…
Jeg pleier imidlertid å låse inn verdisaker i safe og koffert, men var litt slappere denne gangen ettersom vi var de eneste gjestene på et av stedets dyreste og såkalt mest elegante hoteller. Men; lekse lært: Man skal ikke la være å låse inn ting i kofferten fordi man tror at betjeningen på et såkalt luksussted er mer pålitelig enn andre steder.
Jeg har skrevet følgende på TripAdvisor, som kan leses når det publiseres etter godkjenning.
I really wish I had read the traveller´s advise on this page before booking a room for six nights at this place.
The lack of service, finding a half finished cup of coffee in the room on arrival, is nothing compared to the fact that several of our things and money «disappeared» from our room… Little by little..
I guess when the staff steals money, swimming equipment and after shave from the room, it is probably a sign of underpayment from their employer. But that is NO excuse.
I chose this place more or less just because it has a big square 40 m swimming pool, that allows swimmers to do their laps without having to swim in circles around palm trees etc..
The accommodation prices starts at ca 47.700 peso a night 100 USD ++) , which makes it 3-4 times what we would have had to pay if staying at most of the popular and friendly beach hotels . I actually did not know that it was so far away from the beach, but that is of corse due to my own lack of research in advance.
Another bad sign for the place not going to well, is that we were the only people staying here most of the time, except for some guests attending a big birthday party one night. At least you should expect that the room was ready when arriving, without dirty cups etc in the room.
Having visited almost 100 countries, and being a journalist with travel as one of my main disciplines, I have stayed in quite a few hotels/motels/ backpackers during the last 25 years. But this is the first time I experience that things get lost form the room, and also from the swimming pool area.
The first thing that happened was that my husband lost his swimsuit, which was of one of the popular brands used by active swimmers, in the shower in the pool area. He put it in his towel after showering, but realized when coming back to the sun bed that the suit was not in the towel, but must had fallen out on the way. He went straight back to the shower/ changing room, which was only 20 meters away. But the suit was not there. There was only us and the staff in the hole area, so we found it a bit strange…how can it just disappear during two small minutes, when there are no one else around??
Anyway, we didn´t bother more about this, even though we found it strange..
But then, the next day, my husband realized that his Lacoste after shave, that he had put on the bench in the bathroom, was missing…
It is not that this was the most important thing to him, but both of us found it strange that it was missing, because it had been on the same places all the time.. We searched the room, and it was nothing but missing..
Then my hudband discovered that one of our swim googles also was missing, and finally, both my «travel» valets empty.
To the latter I must admit that I should have put both of them in the safe of corse, but the safe was small, and already filled up by our main valets, passports, credit cards and documents. The amount missing was a about 70 Euro from one valet, and 2 000 000 Vietnamese dong (ca 100 USD) from the other. One small note was left i both, in order to make it look that it was something in it..
At this point we started to think seriously that all the things «missing» was not by accident. But still, accusing someone from stealing is a very serious matter, that I have never done before in a hotel.
So, by informing the reception staff about this, we only mentioned the after save and the swim suit. This was actually before we realized that money also was missing.
The way they reacted proved a very unprofessional attitude as well.
– May be you haven’t searched good enough?, was the reaction form the smiling staff..
No, may be not, we replied, and asked them to help us, something they agreed to do.. This was also a way for us to give them a chance to replace the things….
But nothing happened.
We decided not to make a scene of this, specially since we still had some days left, and ..were the only guests staying at the hotel!
But for the rest of the week we closed everything down in the suitcase, like we normally do when traveling.. Looking back, I realize that we very quite naive to think that this couldn´t happen in such an «elegant» place. But someone might think that we very super rich Norwegians, and that they therefore had the right to take from us what their employer didn´t not pay them in salary.
It is really sad to experience this happening, and also the lack of attitude among the staff when we informed about the things missing in a friendly way. Subic Bay Yacht Club is a place that have the facilities to be really good, even thoug it is clear that they are far beyond the standard they probably once held, and the image they want to give on their website.
During the short week, we got a few phone calls in the room, where the person on the other side of the line just hung on when we replied…Not to be paranoid, but in light of the incidents mentioned above, we wonder if there were any connections between this calls and the disappearing of things from the room. Maybe somebody wanted to check if we were in the room or not..
We also found it a bit funny that the first thing they told us was what we are not allowed to do in the hotel, like «not bringing any food or drinks in..» It is already written in the room information, so why stress this to the guest upon arrival? And the first thing we see in the room is a dirty cup, half filled with coffee…. They can keep their jacuzzis and grand salons, restaurants The latter which were either closed or almost empty…
What about learing a bit of basic service, and leaving their guests belongings alone…??