"Do you have a complaint form?”
“Sorry Sir! No complaint form!”
“Ok! In that case, I would like to speak to the manager”
“No Sir! You speak to me, I am the manager”
“Is it? Can I see your card?”
“No Sir! I don’t have a card.”
“What kind of a hotel it is”
“Well Sir, that’s the way it is!”
This is my communication with the front desk at Fisherman’s Cove on the night of 10th October’07. And this after the staff at the restaurant had already spoiled our mood anyways.
Me and a bunch of friends / colleagues went there to celebrate something and I must say the place has got the worst service for a Five Star restaurant. They first confused James Whisky with Gin and got Gin instead of the whisky. When we asked them to replace it, this is what we got as an answer “Oh sure Sir, that will not be a problem – but we’ll charge you for it”.
What rot! Its like a dentist telling a patient – “I have mistakenly removed your right molar instead of the left – but well, I am gonna charge you for it!” Probably they just thought that we were a bunch of fools or something!
Then since the bar was getting closed, we had asked them to take out and keep a Long Island and a Beer. After sometime when we asked for the drinks, they brought the Long Island and simply forgot to bring the beer. Now we just thought that this guy must have forgotten so asked very politely “please bring the beer also” … and the communication went like this:
“Please bring the beer also”
“Sir, with whom did you place the order?”
“I don’t remember the name yaar – but we placed it with the same person with whom we placed the long island order because we ordered them together”(there were many waiters who were taking orders – so were not sure)
“What Sir! You should at-least remember the name nah.”
Now this was too much!
“Ok! From next time we will ask the person his name and remember his face – just in case you forget the order”
“Whatever Sir, now the bar is closed and I cant get you another beer!”
And after a round of arguments – we thought we should just give up. Finally some manager understood that it was their mistake promised to get us another bottle – which came but not before completely spoiling our mood.
What’s the idea of having a restaurant by the beach with such a great ambience – when the service is going to be that pathetic! It’ not only lousy – it’ rude!
And then when we were walking back, we just wanted to hang around in the lobby for a few minutes. The front desk flatly refused – not polite, not courteous – just matter of the fact that it was not allowed – no reasons given – as if some monkeys had come over and they need to be shooed away!
And that’s when the conversation happened as mentioned in the beginning.
Just in case, anyone reading this starts wondering if we were a bunch of weirdos loitering around the hotel, it must be mentioned that we were all managerial employees of a very well-respected company. There were girls in the group. And we all drove back to Chennai safely without any hiccups.
And well, we felt bad and were hurt by the rudeness of the Fisherman’s Cove employees – you don’t get hurt when you are drunk, you don’t feel bad enough to come back and write about it. A drunk soul would go about cursing and abusing and not asking for complaint forms.
Probably the 14K we spent on food and drinks that night were just peanuts and these guys thought what’s the point of entertaining these paupers!
As an end-note, for me and my nine friends who were there, this was the worst five-star hotel they had ever been to! Certainly not something you would expect out of a Taj property!