- Report: #95464
Complaint Review: Ramada Plaza Resorts - Fort Lauderdale Florida
-
Author Not Confirmed
Why?
Ramada Plaza Resorts
2419 E Commercial Blvd Fort Lauderdale, 33308 Florida, U.S.A.
Phone:
800-550-9559
Web:
N/A
Categories:
Business Rating:
(0)
Tell us has your experience with this business or person been good?
Ramada Plaza Resorts Misleading Information About Their Vacation Package Ruined Our Vacation! Fort Lauderdale Florida
We received a call from Ramada Plaza Resorts in the fall of 2002 where they offered us a vacation package in return for our attendance at a time-share sales pitch. The cold-caller was very informative and well spoken. He promised a seven-day trip to Florida, which included a 2-day cruise to Nassau, Bahamas. I've talked to many people who have taken advantage of this type of offer and been very pleased with their vacation. However, our experience was quite the opposite. We were promised the following:
2 days & 2 nights at the Fort Lauderdale Ramada Inn ( off of Commercial & Highway 1) managed by Pompano Beach Resort, LLC
2 days & 1 night in Orlando
2 universal tickets from the time share meeting
1 more night in Ft Lauderdale
1 rental car from Alamo
free buffet meals for 2 adults while in motels
Approximately six months later, we received a call with an offer of an upgrade on our package. With the upgrade we were promised the following:
2 rooms at all of our motel stays
2 port-hole rooms on the ship
a premium rental car
. one meal voucher a day for our 17 year old son.
The sales man said the motels with the upgrade were much nicer motels and the Fort Lauderdale resort was on the beach. We bought the upgrade.
On May 25th we arrived at the airport 1 hour forty-five minutes early to check in at the Omaha airport for our U S Air's 7am flight. To our surprise, that flight had been rescheduled for 6:15 am. No one had notified us of this change. We were rushed through check-in and barely made it onto the plane.
Arriving in Chicago for our connecting flight we were informed the original flight we were scheduled had been changed to leave at 7am, thus we missed the flight. We were placed on a later flight that was scheduled to leave at approximately 10:00am for Fort Lauderdale. We had to cross the tunnel to get to our new connecting flight. We sat in the waiting area until almost boarding time when an announcement was made that our flight was moved to another terminal.
The new terminal was on the opposite side of the tunnel. We crossed the tunnel again and waited. We were finally allowed to board the plane. We had all been seated and had our overhead baggage secured when the announcement was made that mechanics were working on the plane we just boarded and it would be 15 to 45 minutes before we would be able to take off.
After approximately 20 minutes they announced the plane was grounded and we would need to get off the plane and wait for a new plane to use. We all removed our overhead bags and shuffled off the plane. After approximately another 30 minutes we were allowed to board a new plane. We finally left O'Hare and arrived in Ft. Lauderdale around 4:35 PM. Which was much later than our original arrival time.
We took the shuttle to Alamo, to which was probably the best experience we had with a business. The car was ready, the paperwork was quickly filled out and the car was waiting as promised with the keys in the door. Kudos to Alamo!
We followed the directions printed out for us from the Alamo to the Welcome Center in Ft. Lauderdale. The center was sparsely staffed with people that tried to be helpful, but was either unable or unwilling to solve some of our questions and problems. They gave us vouchers for the Ocean Beach Resort (Ramada), food vouchers for two people, and directions on how to get to the time-share meeting the next morning.
We questioned the lack of food vouchers for our son. The girl helping us stated there was nothing in the computer about this, therefore she could only give us enough for two adults. This was the first promise broken by Ramada Plaza Resorts.
Upon arriving at the Ocean Beach Resort, we were dismayed by the property and its status as a four star resort. On either side of our resort were beautiful, tall, well-kept resorts that were more representative of the description and brochure we received on our resort. Our resort looked very much out of place among these other resorts'.
Our Ocean Beach Resort was a run down, unkempt, unrepaired, bug infested motel. The doors needed to be forcibly slammed to get them to close. Ants dominated the nightstand between the beds, the television didn't work properly and the buffet we were promised was a joke. The food was edible, but there was only one selection for each food group and two choices for dessert. We had to pay for drinks beyond coffee and water. A 15% gratuity and taxes were automatically put on the bill for each meal regardless of the level of service. The beach was nice but every service, no matter how trivial was a rental charge at a premium price. We were questioning what the facility would have been had we not gotten the upgrade!
The following morning we left 1 1/2 hours early from our resort for the time-share meeting, leaving our two children at the resort and headed for our time-share meeting. Per the welcome centers directions we were supposed to be able to get there in approximately an hour.
We took the map we were given and began the journey. 1 hour later we were no nearer to the destination and had to stop for directions. The map was incorrect; thus we followed directions from a native of Ft. Lauderdale who was kind enough to help us out. Two hours into the journey we arrive at the time-share meeting. Upon arrival the lady who was presenting the time-share package asked us what we had been promised in return for going to this presentation. We stated Universal Studio tickets for two.
The woman stated she was giving out cruise vouchers and that the tickets for Universal Studios must be something given at our next welcome center in Orlando. We thought it strange due to the fact that we paid for the cruise, but possible due to the next welcome center was located in Orlando where the Universal Studios Park is located. We went through the whole time share sales pitch and our sales person was very friendly and informative. Once we explained we needed to leave due to we had been there for 2 hours, she had her manager come over to further try to sell us on the time-share. She was less friendly, but did allow us to leave within another 30 minute time period. We were given our vouchers for the cruise and made our return trip to our motel. Over half of our beach day was now lost.
The next day we elected to take the shuttle to the docks for the cruise. We arrived at our boatnot cruise ship. The maintenance on this was comparable to the resort we had just left. Our shower had no cold water; the kids' shower had no hot water. Bulkheads and I-beams were rusted through at the floor and overhead. They were more like T-beams than I-beams. The fire alarm pulls looked as if they had not been tested since the ship was built.
Manual fire dampers for the ventilation system were held open with sheet rock screws. If there were ever a fire, is there a guy that's going to run around with a screwdriver so the dampers can get shut??? If this ship ever did have an accident or a fire, many people would needlessly die.
Once again the only beverages that were of no cost were water and coffee. The pool was approximately 10' X 12' and packed with kids. I've seen hot tubs bigger than this pool! The dining, entertainment, snacks, and beverages were nothing compared to Carnival Cruise Lines, granted this ship was smaller. The video and brochure we were sent apparently had a different cruise liner. Interestingly we were also told we were to be on the SS Ocean Breeze, the boat we were in fact put on was the Regal Empress. Don't let the name fool you!
Upon our return from our two-night trip to Nassau Bahamas we were bussed back to the Ocean Beach Resort where our car was parked.
We drove to the welcome center in Orlando. Upon arriving we were welcomed with an hour fifteen-minute wait with a couple of dozen other upset families. We compared notes with some of them and found the Ramada Plaza Resort was lacking what was promised to many other families. A lady named Mary graciously assisted us and did all she could to uncover what happened to our Universal Studio tickets.
Per Mary, we had not bought the package that included those tickets. If we wanted to write a letter to complain we were more than welcome to do this. But we could get 4 reduced rate tickets for $160.00 if we attended a time-share meeting. Upon discussion we opted to purchase the reduced rate tickets rather than purchasing them at the gate. Mary assured us that the time-share was only 3 lights down the road and stated they guaranteed they would only take 90 minutes of our time.
We chose the 7:30 am time with the thought we would be back to get the kids by 9am for Universal Studios. We took our paperwork and headed to the motel check in area. We waited in a new line to come to the revelation that we only had reservations for the 31st, and the current date was the 29th. At this point we had used up all of our tolerance for the lack of follow through on the trip we purchased versus what we were receiving.
We went back to the welcome center bypassing the large line and demanded to speak with Mary. She returned to the counter, checked with the motel and sure enough there was no reservation made for us. Furthermore, there was no room at this hotel being Memorial Day weekend. Mary then called the Radison motel, which is located approximately 200 yards behind the Ramada motel. By this time we are very tired, grumpy, and hungry. We were told we could still use the buffet at the Ramada with our vouchers, but we would have to walk over for each meal. The accommodations at the Radison were 100% better than the Ocean Beach Resort motel, and frankly closer to the representation of what the Ramada resorts should have been.
The following day we attended the 7:30 am meeting with Vacation Village at Parkway. We were given a salesman named Brill who was very surprised to hear we had already attended a time-share meeting this trip. He called over his manager to see who owned the property we had seen in Ft. Lauderdale.
His manager stated they owned it. Brill then said this was a marketing issue, and not Vacation Village at Parkways doing. He then made it clear we still had to endure the whole meeting. We politely listened and approximately 9:40 am we stated we needed to leave due to our children being at the motel and the fact we were not interested. Our polite, nice salesman turned into a sarcastic, obnoxious person. He then had another person come over and attempt to sell us on the timeshare. We repeatedly declined and stated we needed to leave. Finally the woman signed off on the paper that allowed us to get our tickets we had already paid for. The time is now 10:45 am.
After having only half a day to enjoy Universal Studios, we were very disappointed with the lack of rides (5 total) we were able to use for $160.00 cost. Especially considering we had been told a year ago on a recorded phone conversation that we were getting two adult passes for free for the time-share meeting in Ft. Lauderdale.
Which brings us to the grand finale. The evening prior to our flight home we felt it necessary (previous experience) to call the airlines to verify the flight had not been changed to an earlier or later departure time. To my husbands astonishment our return flight with US Air (to which we had seat assignments already) had been cancelled the day we flew into Ft. Lauderdale. We then asked if she could see us on any other out going flights for Omaha on the same date.
She found us booked on a US Air flight leaving Ft. Lauderdale (1 hour earlier than our original flight schedule) to Pittsburgh then Chicago then to Omaha. Our previous flight had one layover. The new flight schedule began at 6 AM and we were not in Omaha until 6:45 PM. Our other schedule had us home in the afternoon. I find it worthy of mentioning our connecting flight in Chicago with United was overbooked. When we checked in to get our seat assignments we were told that two people would have to stay behind and catch the next flight.
Incidentally they had our two kids listed as the people to stay behind. I quickly let them know this was not an option, we had purchased our original flight almost a year ago and we would like some answers as to how someone could just change our entire flight itinerary without asking us or notifying us. They had no answers but did put a call out to see if any passengers would forfeit their seats for a later flight. Fortunately they did and we were all able to board. None of us sat near each other, but we were glad to finally be heading home.
In closing we think it's pertinent to disclose we are not generally difficult people. We do not have an excessive amount of money and have been very satisfied with a previous cruise we had taken through Carnival. We are still making payments on the above-mentioned vacation with Ramada Plaza Resorts that we had put on our credit card.
We are requesting a refund from the airlines, or full round trip vouchers. We are also requesting a full investigation into Ramada Plaza Resorts and hopefully will get some of our money back.
We have written this documentary in the hopes of saving someone else the agony of this vacation from hell. We do not want to see another family buy into this and end up very disappointed and broke.
Vernon
Canton, South Dakota
U.S.A.
Click here to read other Rip Off Reports on Ramada
2 days & 2 nights at the Fort Lauderdale Ramada Inn ( off of Commercial & Highway 1) managed by Pompano Beach Resort, LLC
2 days & 1 night in Orlando
2 universal tickets from the time share meeting
1 more night in Ft Lauderdale
1 rental car from Alamo
free buffet meals for 2 adults while in motels
Approximately six months later, we received a call with an offer of an upgrade on our package. With the upgrade we were promised the following:
2 rooms at all of our motel stays
2 port-hole rooms on the ship
a premium rental car
. one meal voucher a day for our 17 year old son.
The sales man said the motels with the upgrade were much nicer motels and the Fort Lauderdale resort was on the beach. We bought the upgrade.
On May 25th we arrived at the airport 1 hour forty-five minutes early to check in at the Omaha airport for our U S Air's 7am flight. To our surprise, that flight had been rescheduled for 6:15 am. No one had notified us of this change. We were rushed through check-in and barely made it onto the plane.
Arriving in Chicago for our connecting flight we were informed the original flight we were scheduled had been changed to leave at 7am, thus we missed the flight. We were placed on a later flight that was scheduled to leave at approximately 10:00am for Fort Lauderdale. We had to cross the tunnel to get to our new connecting flight. We sat in the waiting area until almost boarding time when an announcement was made that our flight was moved to another terminal.
The new terminal was on the opposite side of the tunnel. We crossed the tunnel again and waited. We were finally allowed to board the plane. We had all been seated and had our overhead baggage secured when the announcement was made that mechanics were working on the plane we just boarded and it would be 15 to 45 minutes before we would be able to take off.
After approximately 20 minutes they announced the plane was grounded and we would need to get off the plane and wait for a new plane to use. We all removed our overhead bags and shuffled off the plane. After approximately another 30 minutes we were allowed to board a new plane. We finally left O'Hare and arrived in Ft. Lauderdale around 4:35 PM. Which was much later than our original arrival time.
We took the shuttle to Alamo, to which was probably the best experience we had with a business. The car was ready, the paperwork was quickly filled out and the car was waiting as promised with the keys in the door. Kudos to Alamo!
We followed the directions printed out for us from the Alamo to the Welcome Center in Ft. Lauderdale. The center was sparsely staffed with people that tried to be helpful, but was either unable or unwilling to solve some of our questions and problems. They gave us vouchers for the Ocean Beach Resort (Ramada), food vouchers for two people, and directions on how to get to the time-share meeting the next morning.
We questioned the lack of food vouchers for our son. The girl helping us stated there was nothing in the computer about this, therefore she could only give us enough for two adults. This was the first promise broken by Ramada Plaza Resorts.
Upon arriving at the Ocean Beach Resort, we were dismayed by the property and its status as a four star resort. On either side of our resort were beautiful, tall, well-kept resorts that were more representative of the description and brochure we received on our resort. Our resort looked very much out of place among these other resorts'.
Our Ocean Beach Resort was a run down, unkempt, unrepaired, bug infested motel. The doors needed to be forcibly slammed to get them to close. Ants dominated the nightstand between the beds, the television didn't work properly and the buffet we were promised was a joke. The food was edible, but there was only one selection for each food group and two choices for dessert. We had to pay for drinks beyond coffee and water. A 15% gratuity and taxes were automatically put on the bill for each meal regardless of the level of service. The beach was nice but every service, no matter how trivial was a rental charge at a premium price. We were questioning what the facility would have been had we not gotten the upgrade!
The following morning we left 1 1/2 hours early from our resort for the time-share meeting, leaving our two children at the resort and headed for our time-share meeting. Per the welcome centers directions we were supposed to be able to get there in approximately an hour.
We took the map we were given and began the journey. 1 hour later we were no nearer to the destination and had to stop for directions. The map was incorrect; thus we followed directions from a native of Ft. Lauderdale who was kind enough to help us out. Two hours into the journey we arrive at the time-share meeting. Upon arrival the lady who was presenting the time-share package asked us what we had been promised in return for going to this presentation. We stated Universal Studio tickets for two.
The woman stated she was giving out cruise vouchers and that the tickets for Universal Studios must be something given at our next welcome center in Orlando. We thought it strange due to the fact that we paid for the cruise, but possible due to the next welcome center was located in Orlando where the Universal Studios Park is located. We went through the whole time share sales pitch and our sales person was very friendly and informative. Once we explained we needed to leave due to we had been there for 2 hours, she had her manager come over to further try to sell us on the time-share. She was less friendly, but did allow us to leave within another 30 minute time period. We were given our vouchers for the cruise and made our return trip to our motel. Over half of our beach day was now lost.
The next day we elected to take the shuttle to the docks for the cruise. We arrived at our boatnot cruise ship. The maintenance on this was comparable to the resort we had just left. Our shower had no cold water; the kids' shower had no hot water. Bulkheads and I-beams were rusted through at the floor and overhead. They were more like T-beams than I-beams. The fire alarm pulls looked as if they had not been tested since the ship was built.
Manual fire dampers for the ventilation system were held open with sheet rock screws. If there were ever a fire, is there a guy that's going to run around with a screwdriver so the dampers can get shut??? If this ship ever did have an accident or a fire, many people would needlessly die.
Once again the only beverages that were of no cost were water and coffee. The pool was approximately 10' X 12' and packed with kids. I've seen hot tubs bigger than this pool! The dining, entertainment, snacks, and beverages were nothing compared to Carnival Cruise Lines, granted this ship was smaller. The video and brochure we were sent apparently had a different cruise liner. Interestingly we were also told we were to be on the SS Ocean Breeze, the boat we were in fact put on was the Regal Empress. Don't let the name fool you!
Upon our return from our two-night trip to Nassau Bahamas we were bussed back to the Ocean Beach Resort where our car was parked.
We drove to the welcome center in Orlando. Upon arriving we were welcomed with an hour fifteen-minute wait with a couple of dozen other upset families. We compared notes with some of them and found the Ramada Plaza Resort was lacking what was promised to many other families. A lady named Mary graciously assisted us and did all she could to uncover what happened to our Universal Studio tickets.
Per Mary, we had not bought the package that included those tickets. If we wanted to write a letter to complain we were more than welcome to do this. But we could get 4 reduced rate tickets for $160.00 if we attended a time-share meeting. Upon discussion we opted to purchase the reduced rate tickets rather than purchasing them at the gate. Mary assured us that the time-share was only 3 lights down the road and stated they guaranteed they would only take 90 minutes of our time.
We chose the 7:30 am time with the thought we would be back to get the kids by 9am for Universal Studios. We took our paperwork and headed to the motel check in area. We waited in a new line to come to the revelation that we only had reservations for the 31st, and the current date was the 29th. At this point we had used up all of our tolerance for the lack of follow through on the trip we purchased versus what we were receiving.
We went back to the welcome center bypassing the large line and demanded to speak with Mary. She returned to the counter, checked with the motel and sure enough there was no reservation made for us. Furthermore, there was no room at this hotel being Memorial Day weekend. Mary then called the Radison motel, which is located approximately 200 yards behind the Ramada motel. By this time we are very tired, grumpy, and hungry. We were told we could still use the buffet at the Ramada with our vouchers, but we would have to walk over for each meal. The accommodations at the Radison were 100% better than the Ocean Beach Resort motel, and frankly closer to the representation of what the Ramada resorts should have been.
The following day we attended the 7:30 am meeting with Vacation Village at Parkway. We were given a salesman named Brill who was very surprised to hear we had already attended a time-share meeting this trip. He called over his manager to see who owned the property we had seen in Ft. Lauderdale.
His manager stated they owned it. Brill then said this was a marketing issue, and not Vacation Village at Parkways doing. He then made it clear we still had to endure the whole meeting. We politely listened and approximately 9:40 am we stated we needed to leave due to our children being at the motel and the fact we were not interested. Our polite, nice salesman turned into a sarcastic, obnoxious person. He then had another person come over and attempt to sell us on the timeshare. We repeatedly declined and stated we needed to leave. Finally the woman signed off on the paper that allowed us to get our tickets we had already paid for. The time is now 10:45 am.
After having only half a day to enjoy Universal Studios, we were very disappointed with the lack of rides (5 total) we were able to use for $160.00 cost. Especially considering we had been told a year ago on a recorded phone conversation that we were getting two adult passes for free for the time-share meeting in Ft. Lauderdale.
Which brings us to the grand finale. The evening prior to our flight home we felt it necessary (previous experience) to call the airlines to verify the flight had not been changed to an earlier or later departure time. To my husbands astonishment our return flight with US Air (to which we had seat assignments already) had been cancelled the day we flew into Ft. Lauderdale. We then asked if she could see us on any other out going flights for Omaha on the same date.
She found us booked on a US Air flight leaving Ft. Lauderdale (1 hour earlier than our original flight schedule) to Pittsburgh then Chicago then to Omaha. Our previous flight had one layover. The new flight schedule began at 6 AM and we were not in Omaha until 6:45 PM. Our other schedule had us home in the afternoon. I find it worthy of mentioning our connecting flight in Chicago with United was overbooked. When we checked in to get our seat assignments we were told that two people would have to stay behind and catch the next flight.
Incidentally they had our two kids listed as the people to stay behind. I quickly let them know this was not an option, we had purchased our original flight almost a year ago and we would like some answers as to how someone could just change our entire flight itinerary without asking us or notifying us. They had no answers but did put a call out to see if any passengers would forfeit their seats for a later flight. Fortunately they did and we were all able to board. None of us sat near each other, but we were glad to finally be heading home.
In closing we think it's pertinent to disclose we are not generally difficult people. We do not have an excessive amount of money and have been very satisfied with a previous cruise we had taken through Carnival. We are still making payments on the above-mentioned vacation with Ramada Plaza Resorts that we had put on our credit card.
We are requesting a refund from the airlines, or full round trip vouchers. We are also requesting a full investigation into Ramada Plaza Resorts and hopefully will get some of our money back.
We have written this documentary in the hopes of saving someone else the agony of this vacation from hell. We do not want to see another family buy into this and end up very disappointed and broke.
Vernon
Canton, South Dakota
U.S.A.
Click here to read other Rip Off Reports on Ramada
