Fairmont reviews and complaints

I'm staying with my wife for the first time at the Fairmont Empress Hotel in Victoria, B.C. (Canada). We have wanted to stay here for years and finally had the opportunity to do so.

It's now 11:15 pm and there is a "function" in the bar that is so loud that the floors and walls of the hotel are vibrating.

I've made several calls to the front desk, but have been rudely patronized with each call.

We are leaving to find another hotel. With any luck, we should be at a different hotel by midnight...

I've stayed at many Fairmont properties. This will be my last time!

Hi,
Last month I had booked my wedding in Fairmont Towers in Heliopolis, Cairo Egypt. I thought it is a nice new hotel and belongs to reputable chain so things can't go wrong. Obviously I am the one who was totally wrong. From the minute I walked in, things were handled so unprofessionally. On my first visit to check the ballroom and the menus I met a very unfriendly lady called Nada. She kept me waiting for quite a long time and spent only 2 minutes with. She basically handed me the menus and left with no elaborate explanation. The following week I called the hotel to schedule another meeting, They told me Nada has left and I met another guy called Tamer Seoudy. The guy was the total opposite of Nada, very friendly, professional and well informed. He did a great job helping me tailor make a menu and out a tentative plan for the day.We followed up on our meeting with e-mails and everything was kind of set. 2 weeks later I received a phone call from Meleigy Mostafa, Tamer's Boss, saying that Tamer has left Fairmont and that he was handling my wedding. I scheduled a third meeting. Despite the fact that Meleigy was very knowledgeable but i was a bit disappointed that we had to change the menue all over again, and I had to go through the exact same steps that I went through with Tamer.Meleigy promised to send a follow up mail and costing in 2 days it took him another 2 weeks! As a bride I didn't appreciate all the waste of time and effort but till this point I was OK. The final cost we got from the hotel was higher than the market average of similar hotels but we decided to pursue it as we really liked the venue and also in our deal we got 2 complimentary nights for a suite + bridal suite for wedding preparations on wedding day.I asked Meleigy if there are any events before our wedding or at the adjacent ballroom on the wedding day and he confirmed that there were no event in both ballrooms before our wedding and on our wedding. He said our wedding planner/organizer can start decorating the ballroom the day before which what was perfect for me.The big nightmare started one week before weeding. The hotel has requested that we bring some of food supplies ( smoked salmon, nuts and shrimps from an outside supplier). I have taken all the quantities and specs and adhered to them on only to be notified by my supplier that the chef is refusing to receive the stuff! Why? the shrimps is a bit smaller than the requested and are not pealed which requires extra work from Chef!With few back and forth phone calls with my elder sister and Meleigy, he drove her mad with his comments but things got resolved.on the night of my wedding, my husband was checking in the hotel in a standard room. He notified them at the lobby that he wants the room to be next to the suite we will stay at the following day since he was the groom. The guy at the reception told him we were not entitled to a suite ! My husband called me and he was fuming because he paid a huge sum of money to the hotel and in the deal we were told we are entitled to a bridal suite ( for pre-wedding preparations)+ a suite for 2 nights. This was documented by an email from Meleigy as well.I called Meleigy and i was so angry- again he confirmed the same piece of information and said that there must be some sort of misunderstanding and that he would call the reception to clarify. My husband stayed there for 2 hours to resolve the issue! Again for a groom neither the treatment nor the misunderstanding was appreciated. The following day- on my wedding day- i went to the hotel. I wanted to check in bridal suite ( where i was going to get my hair, make up done and get dressed). Again at the reception they said I am not entitled to it. Meleigy was off and was unreachable for the first hour! I was really mad. Finally he picked up and kept apologizing and clarified the issue with reception so it took me 2.5 hours to check in and I was running late in all my scheduled activities for the big day.On my way to the bridal suite i was SHOCKED to see an an event taking place in both ballrooms! Even my wedding ballroom was split in half and there was an event taking place in half of it.It was already 4pm and the wedding starts at 10pm. I called Meleigy again and he apologized for the 100th time and confirmed they are about to finish. Not only did he breach our initial agreement and did not notify me about the changes before wedding day, but he also lied to me because the event did not finish before 6 pm which made our organizer bring additional people to decorate the ballroom which consequently meant extra cost for us.Again the worst part is not here yet. We had our wedding day. My husband's best men helped move his stuff from the room he stayed in one night before to the suite we stayed in at the night of our wedding. The following day we were getting dressed to have dinner at one of the hotel's restaurant and he couldn't find his shoes. We called everyone you could possible think of from housekeeping, to Shift manager. They said they could not find the shoes. He threatened them of calling the police because he was sure it was taken from the hotel- after exactly 5 minutes, they said they found it and returned it back to our suite. Our flight was postponed for 2 more days so unfortunately we had to extend our stay for 2 paid nights despite the fact that we wanted to leave the hotel as soon as possible because of the terrible experience we had so far. again even in the extension request they so unprofessional, the reception guy told us we could get a better rate if Meleigy informed them. We called Meligy and he was so unhelpful and said this is the best rate we could get. We had no problem with the rate at the beginning but obviously there is a huge communication gap between the employees working there delivering different messages to the customers. On our 4 the night, I had taken a closed envelope with 500$ out from the safe and forgot to return it back and we went down for dinner. We came back to find someone had opened the envelope and took 100$. That was the end of it...The hotel kept investigating for 1 day and didn't reach anything, my husband file an official compliant at the office of tourists police at the hotel lobby. I was really disgusted and wanted to get out as soon as possible. It is a shame how such a big name is being tarnished by such an unprofessional staff and incompetent manageress. My sister had an even worse experience in neighboring hotel- Fairmont Heliopolis where she had a plumbing problem and upon escalation they made her a reduction the rate. This is besides the fact that everyone is practically begging for tips from the people at the entrance to supervisors- where obviously no one deserves to be tipped or complimented. Honestly my overall experience at this hotel was LOUSY. I would never go there again, or recommend it to anyone I know. In fact I will do everything I can to warn the people from falling into the same trap.
Based on this, i think this is what Fairmont should do:
1. A formal apology from Fairmont Cairo- Egypt Management
2. A follow up on the status of the Police station complain that my husband filed
3. Return of the stolen 100
4. Necessary action to be taken with negligent staff so this doesn't get repeated with anyone else

Regards,
Passant