Losing Faith in Crown Paradise, Help would be great

I have been on these boards for a while now, I read good, bad and write good about CP. Im losing faith due to no return phone calls, emails and being lied to. We paid for our 2nd trip to PV a while ago, were told we could upgrade for a certain cost, per Hector, anyone know him? I tried Paula, forget it, she must be very busy. My girlfriend called direct to the hotel 2 times today. I am fine with the normal rooms, they are beautiful, but with 5 of us it would be nice. It would be nice to not have some one tell you something and tease you then not respond or give you the run around. Am I venting, I think there are plenty of people on here that know all about CP, expecially Mr and Mrs Crown Paradise, any ideas?
Ive emailed, called and now Im resorting to smoke signals.
Im afraid we are going to lose the rooms we have, Im confused,
Any help>?

My husband and I will be staying there is October. We had heard so many good things about the Crown but for some reason I am now seeing several negative comments. I am a little concered also. I am hoping the we did not make the wrong choice. Perhaps someone has some comments to put us at ease.

Most hotels cannot confirm an upgrade unless you pay for it and reserve it in advance as others may reserve the ocean front/larger rooms from now until you get there.

I have had clients who wanted upgrades, and I have always told them, unless you specifically reseserve and pay for a better room, we have to leave those rooms open for other guests who may or may not reserve them. Also, many groups rent blocks of rooms.
A hotel may upgrade you upon arrival IF they have the room available for the entire time you are there, (either free urpgrade or a charge per night, depending on the hotel and who is in charge) otherwise if you really want a certain type of room, you have to reserve it in advance and not expect to be upgraded upon arrival as it may be gone.
Hotels strive for 100% occupancy.

Char,
Who did you book through to begin with? Them or a travel agent? (this is the KEY question)

If it is an agent, they should be taking care of this for you.

If it is with the hotel, there may be some confusion.....especially with emails going back and forth and a couple of parties invloved, and possibly with English being a second language, they may not know exactly what is desired. (I know this from being the only native English speaker for a travel agency down here and I sometimes have a hard time trying to figure out what the client wants!)

I read your first post again and not sure exactly what you want.
First off, do you know if this hotel accepts five adults in one room? Do they have two or three bedroom bedroom suites?
This could be where some of the confusion is- I do not know the hotel well enough to know if they have this available.
Also, I am not sure if five people is a combination of adults and children.
(All hotels with exception to a couple consider children aged 12 and up as adults)

There is a difference in how rooms are charged if they are All Inclusive and European Plan.
All Inclusive is a per person charge per night.
European Plan is a per night charge per room.
Both have a maximum occupancy, usually two adults and two children per room...unless they have a two bedroom or three bedroom.

What I think the problem is, is this:
One may be quoting you price of the room per night (or the per person charge per night if going all inlclusive) and the other is quoting the price of an upgrade per night above the price of the room you booked. They could also be confused as to how many rooms you need (see above) for the maximum occupancy.

If you booked direct with them, and booked a standard room, and then decided to change and upgrade, you just need to say what room(s) you booked, and that you want to know what room(s) are available to upgrade to and what is the upgrade charge per night/per person.

If you booked through an agent, then they should be able to cancel your orignal reservation and re-book the room(s) you want and give you a new price.



Good luck!

This may help:

Here are the room types for the Crown Paradise-
Could it be they are quoting you for two different room types?
What type of room are you trying to upgrade to?

103 Deluxe ocean view rooms with private balcony.
59 Deluxe ocean front rooms with private balcony.
5 Honeymoon suites with jacuzzi on balcony
10 Junior Suites with jacuzzi
6 One bedroom suites with kitchenette
12 two Bedroom suites with kitchenette
6 Studios with kitchenette

Thanks bzy1!
Heres whats going on, We booked through pleasant holidays. We are a party of 5 two rooms. I emailed to make sure we have our reservation cause Im a freak that needs to make sure all is planned and correct. I asked if they had ajoining rooms. I got an email back from Hector saying we are booked, and he offered an upgrade to a 2 bdroom suite. I emailed back saying OK! great. how much, he did not get back to me for a while, I emailed a few times and then included Paula, trying to get an answer. Hector emailed back then, saying it would be 100 per night. I wanted to clarify as I was not sure if that was per night and per person cause it is AI. He emailed back saying we had to put a credit card down if we wanted it. I emailed back and said yes. I tried to call, had my girlfriend call who is going too, she called twice, she got Paula as Hector was out sick. Paula said she would email information that she didnt know. I got an email see the email below:
Dear Cahrlene:

I am really sorry beucause I couldn`t answer yesterday. I have all the information: the extra cahrge for the up grade will be $40 usd per day. These rooms are in the 6th floor, and now there are olready asigned.

Please let me know if there is something alse that we can do for you.

Best regards,

Paula Castro
Public Relations Manager

But then Hector emailed me and said this:
On the previous e-mails, I inform you about the up grade cost $100.00 USD per night to the 2 bedrooms suite, wich is not $40.00 USD per night, if you still be interested to up grade the cost is $100.00 USD, if you are not interested please just let me know, to release the 2 bed room suite.

Best Regards


Héctor Guerrero
Reservaciones/Reservations
Golden Crown Paradise Resort
Puerto Vallarta

I am confused. If you know that I am doing something wrong, I want to make sure Im handleing this right. very strange. We want the suite regardless, but I want the fair price. Of course.
Thanks for your help

Thank you for that advise BZY1, i will take that into consideration. I am just happy to be going. We are very excited.

BZY1 is most correct when it comes to requesting upgrades. I always have my agent take care of that and always we have never been disappointed EXCEPT, when our usual agent was on holiday and we had to use someone else in the agency. This new gal really dropped the ball. Still even with a standard room at the GCP we were very happy.

I have to disagree while there are very good travel agents out there the vast majority of them lose interest after you book and I hate to say this but if you have travelled to PVR before you are way ahead , knowledge wise of almost all travel agents . You are far better to try and sort this out on your own , that having been said it sounds like Mr and Mrs CP are correct too many fingers , what one person (Paula) may have done for you may be undone by Hector both Im sure with the best of intentions.Try and deal with only one person and quit worrying I have seen peoples vacations ruined by the constant will it be right when I get there . Go with the flow your in Mexico it will al work out in the end . The GCP is a beautiful resort any room is great dont worry .

Knowledge is power I agree, but having worked in a travel agency and now managing and doing reservations at a hotel in Vallarta, I have seen many probelms when multiple people get involved in changing a reservation. With a hotel that size, and a sales/ventas- reservation department that size, the only person who should be changing reservations is the person who booked it. (IE: a travel agent initiailly, or the person who did it for themselves.)

I have encountered many times where clients had their credit cards charged twice because they called the hotel themselves and changed the reservation after they made it through an agent and the hotel assumed it was a new reservation, or the client used one name (IE: John Smith) then upon changing the reseervation gave the name Mary Smith).
I have seen where clients paid for the reservation through an agent, then called on their own and reqesting an upgrade and got charged by the hotel the entire reservation because the client was not clear on what they wanted and did not have the reservation code for their booking, or neglected to say they had a reservation already in place.

When I have a client who booked through an agent and then calls or emails the hotel to change the reservation, I have to refer them back to the agent and the agent must change the reservation.
#1, All agents have different cancellation policies for the clients, which may or not may conflict with the hotels policies.
#2, The agent who sold it gets commissions, and they should get the commission on the upgrade, or the agents may have FREE room upgrades or RH on client request, but since the client called the hotel direct, they missed out on what they agent could have offered them for free. (Some agencies have these, but do not offer on early bookings- these are usually last minute (two week out) as then they can liquidate blocks of rooms or upgrades.
#3, Because all agencies work on contracts with the hotels, we prefer to deal direct with the agents not the client as we speak the \"same language\"- (IE: Not Spanish, but travel industry language)--- but for basic questions that do not invlove changing the reservation, we are always happy to answer as many questions as the client has, but that goes to a different department, not the reservations department.
#4. Most emails sent to a reservation department go through many hands and who knows who is working on it, or who has simply not seen it. A hotel reservations department does not want to be flooded by clients changing reservations as it confuses everyone. When this happens, the hotel then must contact the client, the agent and anyone else involved to make sure everyone is on the same page.
#5 I have seen clients charged incorrectly (or lost a night) because they did not count the number of \"nights\" they were staying when they changed the reservation, and said six instead or seven, or 10 instead of nine. The hotel assumes then that the client wanted this change. The agent would have questioned, \"You are staying another night?\" or \"You are leaving early?\" where in reservations, we are used to people changing dates se we just do what the client asks.

I am sure this is too much info for some, but I want to make sure that people reading this get the correct information from someone who has worked in both sides of the business.