Rating:
" This is a copy of my letter sent to selloff vacations and Hola sun, concerning our stay at Brisas del Mar, Trinidad Cuba.
They offered no compensation for this horror of a vacation ... BUYER BEWARE




Dear Margo;

As to our previous conversation via e-mail, here is a point form summary of the events that transpired during our recent visit to Brisas Trinidad. Over the course of the last 18 months, IÂ’ve travelled to the Caribbean region 5 times, 4 of which were booked through Sell Off Vacations. (Once to Cancun Mexico, twice to Veradero, Cuba, once to Santa Lucia, Cuba and most recently, Trinidad, Cuba.)

Prior to this most recent vacation, all others met my expectations. Below, please find point form details of what transpired in Trinidad.

-arrived in the early hours of Monday, May 23rd

-on evening of May 23rd, Jodi and myself, along with 7 other people were invited to nearby disco, The Cave, by an entertainment animator that worked for Brisas, Trinidad Resort. He offered us transportation and admission to the venue for $10 cuc per person.

-upon return to hotel, the group proceeded to the 24 hour snack bar by the pool and ordered food and drinks

-I returned to our room to get some tip money for the bar staff, Jodi remained with the rest of the group, including the animator

-upon returning from the room, it was brought to my attention that Jodi had been thrown in the pool by the animator, I did not think much of it as everyone was just having fun

-Jodi returned to our room to change into dry clothing

-10 – 15 mins passed and Jodi had not returned, I grew concerned and went to check on her

-upon arriving at our room, I met Jodi as she was leaving our room, noticeably upset and crying

-when I asked what was wrong Jodi informed me that when she had arrived at our room she had been struggling with the key pass to unlock the door and was approached by 2 female cleaning staff for the hotel who offered their assistance

-once the door had been opened, the 2 female employees pushed Jodi out of the way and 1 proceeded into the washroom and the other towards JodiÂ’s suitcase

-Jodi attempted to remove the one from the washroom first and once she thought she had her out of the room, attempted to remove the other who was riffling through her suitcase.

-while attempting to pull the 2nd from the room, the first re-entered and both ended up back in the room and continued to take whatever they wanted

-finally, once they had all they wanted, they pushed their way back past Jodi and ran out of the room

-After being told of what happened, Jodi and I proceeded, immediately to the front desk and demanded to speak to the night time hotel manager

-while explaining what had transpired to the hotel manager, 2 female staff members walked through the hotel lobby, the night shift manager asked if these were the girls ….. and at first, Jodi seemed reluctant to identify them as the perpetrators but eventually said “yes, those were the 2”

-when questioned by the night shift manager as to what had happened, the 2 female staff members immediately pleaded that Jodi had given the items to them

-we demanded, angrily, Â… with hotel manager and hotel staff present in the lobby, (which is in plain and clear view of security cameras) that the items be returned

-after many demands for the return of JodiÂ’s personal items, 1 of the female perpetrators left the lobby and promptly returned with a portion of the missing items

-I threatened, repeatedly, that if the remaining items were not returned at once, the police would be notified.

-finally after repeated threats, one of the 2 female perpetrators left Â…. and once again returned with what we believed to be the remaining missing items. (Later in the week it was discovered that their were other items taken, that were not returned)

-at this point, I had had enough and it was the wee hours of the morning, I demanded that the night shift manager call the police

-the manager tried to dissuade me from involving the police but I was insistent that they be called

-at this point she went to her office and upon returning from the office informed me that the police had been notified

-so we took a seat in the lobby and waited for the police to arrive

-an hour passed and the police had still not arrived so I demanded to speak with the police

-the night manager then picked up the phone and seemingly called the police, once she had talked to the person on the other end, in Spanish, she then claimed it was the police and passed the phone to me

-the person on the other end of the phone, said that the police didnÂ’t have time for such matters and would not be coming

-after speaking to the party on the other end of the line for several minutes, it became evident to me that I was, in fact, not even speaking to a police officer, at which point I said, “Who is this? Stop playing games, this is not the police” at which time, they cursed some sort of obscenity at me and hung up

-at this point I was furious and demanded, once again that the police must be called and that the night manager would be reported for falsifying a police officer

-some time passed and uninvolved travel representative/travel guide pulled me aside and took me to the public pay phone/internet access area

-he then proceeded to call the police and he spoke to them, not myself, in Spanish and upon hanging up he informed me that the police were on their way and I thanked him and returned to the lobby with Jodi to wait for their arrival

-within 20 mins, the police arrived at the front desk

-they spoke briefly with the hotel manager before informing us that we must come with them to the police station in Trinidad

-upon arrival at the police station, we were shown to a seating area in the lobby and were told to wait, the wait turned into many hours until a woman arrived and we were informed she was an interpreter, at 11 am (by this point, and for several hours prior, the 2 perpetrators had arrived and been staring at us in, what appeared to be, an attempt to intimidate)

-we were, then, taken to a back room with the interpreter and a police officer to file a formal statement

-upon completion of the formal statement, the police officer informed us that they would b taking us to the hotel to retrieve our passport numbers

-the police drove us to the hotel and we were met in the lobby by 3 members of hotel senior management and proceeded to our room with the police officer and the senior management followed

-once in the room, the police and the management staff asked for clarification of the incident and the police took our passport information

-the hotel managers informed us that they’d be reviewing the hotel video footage from that evening, to which we responded “PLEASE DO!”, knowing full well that doing so, would provide them with more than enough evidence of what transpired

-at this point, Jodi and I decided that having been up for 27 hours, it was time to try and sleep

-we awoke later in the evening and went to the snack bar, briefly, for a bite to eat

-the following morning, I proceeded to the lobby to speak to the daytime hotel manager and she acted as though she knew nothing of the incident

-I then proceeded over to the Hola Sun representativeÂ’s desk who informed me that hotel management had claimed to have eye witnessÂ’s who claimed that nothing had happened (a complete abomination of justice, all they had to do was review hotel lobby security videos to see the perpetrators returning stolen items, only, under severe duress)

-essentially, nothing was done at hotel level, to rectify the situation, in fact we continually had to cross paths with one of the female perpetrators and did not even receive an apology

-taking into consideration that these events took place at the very beginning of our vacation, it created quite a bit of awkwardness while dealing with hotel staff making the duration of our stay very uncomfortable

-for the remainder of our trip, Jodi would not go anywhere, unaccompanied, within the resort, after dark

-we did not have our room cleaned for the remainder of our vacation, instead, kept a “do not disturb” sign on the door as we were uncomfortable allowing any staff members into our room after what had happened

In closing, our vacation was extremely stressful and, in our eyes, ruined. Given the option, we would have flown home immediately and left the horror of the vacation behind. At this point, neither of us has any plans to return to Cuba in the future.



Thank you for your prompt attention in this matter,

"
Reviewer: reviewer2790
Date: Jun. 14, 2011