"“We checked in at the Adagio Geneva Mont Blanc hotel and occupied rooms 203 and 204. A man at the reception was friendly and helpful throughout. No complaints there at all; he did his best to mitigate the problems. Breakfast was also fine.
However, when we got to the second floor, we basically entered a construction site and walked over an unpainted and dusty concrete floor, something one would find in a second-rate parking garage. We got into our room which was dark (even with all the mostly weak lights on); I was wondering if the hotel wanted to save on the electricity bill? It was also difficult to close the front door of the room (later we found out the door had actually been open for long time because we hadn’t slammed it enough… an unsafe thought). Once inside the room, we noticed a dirty cardboard box with all kinds of stuff inside; later, the receptionist said that the workers had left the box behind. Also, we found a wet, dirty towel in the wardrobe, also left behind by the construction workers. Nobody checks the rooms before giving it to a guest? Entering the bathroom, we saw that the door had suffered from water damage, making the bottom part of the door substantially swell up, leading to bubbling and blistering paint. Moreover, even though the room was already quite dark, only one of the two lights in the bathroom was working. We hoped that a technician could fix this; every time I needed to come down and talk with the receptionist and often he was busy (as frequently he was all alone running the ship) so I needed to wait quite a while. Not exactly what I was hoping for when we booked this room for a city trip to beautiful Geneva. Another issue was the sink in the bathroom, which didn’t drain properly. If we washed up or maybe washed a shirt, it took a long time for the sink to empty itself; it was clogged, maybe because of the construction? I again had to talk about this with the receptionist. Later during our stay the front desk sent a repairman who mostly fixed the flaws; he also attempted to repair the door but he admitted he hadn’t fully succeeded. Which wasn’t good.
When trying to make some coffee with the coffee machine in the room, I found that the coffee cup was way too large, it didn’t fit the machine. So I had to go down again downstairs to ask the receptionist for a smaller coffee cup, which he finally found. Inspecting the kitchen, we discovered a scouring sponge that had been used by others and was still wet and exuded a residue of used soap; this was quite repulsive, as we didn’t know what had been cleaned with it. I went down again and the receptionist provided us with a fresh one. Still. Later we also discovered there weren’t any tissues… down we went again. Besides, the elevator was quite small which posed capacity problems.
When writing this review on the room, we heard loud noises and found that laborers were working on the concrete floor outside the room and later we couldn’t even get to the elevator because they’re working right in front of the small elevator. But when we came, they tried to make way for us, but still, it’s not something we enjoyed especially as the men were sometimes unchastely clothed (e.g. showing part of their bottoms). All of this wasn’t mentioned when we booked a room here or when we checked in. When we got home later, they had started gluing carpet tiles on the concrete floor bed. They had not been able to place all tiles so a large part right in front of our room door still wasn’t covered with tiles, but the glue already had been placed on the floor so I basically stepped on the concrete a few times and then my shoe seriously stuck to the floor and I just had to pull it off hard and just try to remember that I had to try to jump over these uncovered sticky sections. Of course, later that day all the work had been finished (probably also because of our complaining) but for a while, it wasn’t. And there was no warning sign.
I said to a hotel receptionist: “I think the maintenance and housekeeping crews should inspect the rooms and hallways and make sure they are in proper order before the hotel lets customers in. Well”, replied the receptionist, “nobody is perfect, we all make mistakes, it’s normal for humans to make mistakes. Why are you so demanding? Now”, said the guest, “you’re basically telling me that if your hotel has only three stars, this means that this litany of flaws and problems is to be expected by me, a guest?” And then the receptionist just shrugged her shoulders and didn’t say a word. Discussing all the issues with another front desk worker a moment later, he suggested we pack up and leave the hotel, and then they would refund the remainder of the stay (but no extra refund for all the hardship suffered). In the middle of our short city trip, I couldn’t imagine us packing all our things again, trying to find another hotel at such short notice, and wandering around the city with our suitcases. We were here on vacation, why don’t these people understand this? I’m not here to work or have a terrible time. I’m supposed to be here to relax, escape from a busy life, and enjoy the sights of the city and the region. So we decided to just tough it out and stay away from the hotel as much as possible.” Afterwards, we asked the hotel to give us a refund, but they repeatedly refused, saying they had offered “solutions”."
