Let Mercantile Claims assist you with The Crane Resort, Barbados Complaints, Claims & Compensation
Owners of The Crane Resort, Barbados timeshares often find themselves trapped in infinite contracts with briskly increasing maintenance fees which ultimately stems from a mis-sold timeshare contract. Over recent years there have been a number of ground-breaking rulings regarding mis-sold timeshares by many timeshare groups and resorts which have resulted in refunds and compensation. Many owners of The Crane Resort timeshare contracts are entitled to, or have already made claims.
There has been a huge increase in timeshare release enquiries and complaints from customers with The Crane Resort timeshares.
Many concerns centre on the following factors:
If you believe you had a The Crane Resort, Barbados timeshare contract mis-sold to you or you wish to be released from your timeshare contract, please contact one of our experts at Mercantile Claims or fill in the form below.
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My Final Stay at The Crane
My best friend and I arrived on Friday, April 20, 2018, at approximately 10:00 PM. The trip was the beginning celebration of our 50th birthdays. We checked in and was told about the towel policy and given two drink tickets. We immediately went to our room, as it was a long travelling day.
The next morning, I read a letter that was tucked behind the general welcome letter. This letter explained that due to the seaweed, we would have to be transported to another beach. I was told by several staff and guests that the alternative beach was not safe. There were scheduled times listed regarding when we could be transported to the other beach. Immediately, my heart felt heavy. I work Extremely hard; therefore, I was really in need of this vacation. This was to include walking to the beach at my leisure. Also, I wanted to share the experience of one of my favourite places to stay with my best friend.
I went to speak with the manager, who agreed to reimburse me all expenses (my account was paid in advance).
I then went on a frantic search for other accommodations. The relaxation I hoped for was at a zero. Later, I learned that the manager was saying that I received the letter, but that I forgot to read it! I received the letter when I checked in late Friday night. The anxiety-inducing experience of trying to find another place was ultimately the reason I decided to stay. Including all that I’ve stated above, below are reasons that the Crane has lost my business going forward:
This is sad for me, as I truly was looking forward to spending time at the hotel again. This was definitely my last stay at the Crane.
Almost perfect.... lacking attention to customer service
I’ll start with the positives of The Crane as it’s truly not a bad resort option for the island. The rooms are well maintained, most offer excellent views and very well serviced. This resort is a bit remote from the “normal” activities/attractions on the island but it makes up for it by offering all you could need in an expansive resort setting…. pools, restaurants, shopping, snacks and more.
With that being said they’re also a few other resorts in central locations that also offer similar around the same price point.
With such positives, I still couldn’t give the Crane a higher rating due to 2 factors (one of which they have no control over). In the recent weeks, there’s been a huge influx of Sargassum seaweed which has literally blanketed the eastern beaches (and some southern beaches) of the island.
This has rendered their beach useless for swimming or relaxing. An attempt to rectify this has been made by shuttling guests to other beaches on the coast. Again this is out of their control but just something to be wary of when booking.
Lastly, they have an ongoing issue with customer service and the management of such when it comes to guests.
We were initially looking to book this hotel last summer and due to ease of communication, we sent an email to their reservation address listed on the website.
Needless to say, summer went by and no one had the courtesy to reply with the rates.
As another summer approached we once again emailed The Crane and due to issues last time, this email was specifically addressed to the Sales & Marketing Manager….maybe this would warrant a response.
As true to standards at this resort, no one responded. It took a phone call to the hotel to finally get the information re the reservation.
It’s very unfortunate that many businesses (not specific to Barbados) fail miserably with customer service and simple issues but then try to correct it after it’s been made public especially on sites like TripAdvisor.
Better care needs to be taken with regard to such simple issues and hopefully, Mr Doyle would look into having his HR Department properly train staff in this regard
Unfortunate
The room was lovely and air-conditioned and the dining (especially brunch) was quite good.
The pools were great too, however, more seating would be good.
However, all those positives do not make up for the beach. You book this hotel and pay what you do for the world-renowned beach but that is certainly not what we got.
The beach is completely unusable due to the monstrous seaweed. The entire beach is covered in it (and not just a dusting, but buried in it). The water is non-swimmable as the deep seaweed goes out from shore for about 1/2 km.
Not only that but sunbathing became out of the question due to the awful odour from the rotting seaweed. And yes sure the hotel provided a shuttle to another beach but it was only 1 time in and out and was jammed packed.
We ended up hiring a driver to take us to and from Accra beach for the week (which was highly frustrating as we paid so much to be here).
Until this seaweed situation is 100% resolved, my husband and I won’t be returning to the crane.
My recent stay at The Crane
Before I describe our experience at The Crane, let me just say that the staff is wonderful and kind and this only has to do with management and owners of the resort.
I booked 2 rooms at The Crane, one a 2 bedroom suite with pool and the second a regular room. I asked if we could all be in one building so we would be close together. I also requested a pick up from the airport through the hotel. When we arrived in Barbados and cleared customs, we proceed to go outside to meet our driver.
There was no driver with our name waiting for us. I saw a person from The Crane with a sign for a different party and came up to him and asked if he knew if there was another driver for us. He called The Crane and told us there was no one else there so he put the four of us in a van with the other couple.
The other couple was very upset as they also requested a private car to take them to the resort. When we get to the resort, we are all placed into building 5, Room 516 and 524B. The first thing we noticed when we got to our suite is that it was very hot in the room so we turned on the air conditioning to cool off.
We decided to unpack and get ready for dinner at L’azure. The air conditioning never turned on. It was completely broken. The Crane was aware of this issue and still checked us in knowing the air conditioning was not working.
The next morning, we were woken up at 7:30 am by gardeners working outside the pool area right by one of our bedrooms putting in a sprinkler system and clearing the path. At 10 am, construction started outside our suite with two bulldozer clearing rocks which continued all day.
I brought up these issues with the manager and said that we were never told that the air conditioning is broken, there are gardeners and construction right outside our room. He tried to find us a different room but there was no other availability. Finally, after 3 days, they came and installed 2 portable a/c units in each bedroom.
The room never got below 84 degrees. It was hard to use the pool as you constantly had gardeners and construction workers walking by. The pool also was not heated.
The other issues are the inconsistency with housekeeping and pool/beach towels.
The housekeeping staff did not change linens even after they got dirty and there was never enough towels left behind. Once, we had to share a bath towel because they did not have any more towels and another time we had to use a kitchen towel as a washcloth because they did not have any more left.
They also ran out of beach towels and pool towels with no explanation.
A continental breakfast once took 2 hours to deliver after 3 calls to room service.
If you have an early morning flight, there will be no one there to pick up your bags as no bellman are working so you are left on your own with your luggage.
This entire experience cost me over $7,000 for two rooms alone.
The management did not offer any credit towards the rooms. I will NEVER return to The Crane.
I would rather spend more money elsewhere the next time I visit Barbados.
Awful
I know this flies in the face of other reviews on here but none of the party of 5 enjoyed the Crane at all.
One of the main reasons that people would choose to stay at the crane would be for tranquillity and peace. We experienced neither.
The maintenance staff started their day at around 8 in the morning and were working on the path outside our apartment. Then at night, you were kept awake from the ‘singing’ at the bar.
We were moved (Janine on the desk was lovely) but then only heard the generator from outside block 9.
Would advise upgrading the, quite frankly, daft shutters and doors in the rooms which kept out little light and no noise and would open by themselves during the night. On complaining about the noise, we were accused of bullying and harassing the duty manager.
Most of the staff were very curt and unapproachable (exceptions were Janine, Cedric and Henderson).
The resort is a long way (in Bajan terms) from anywhere else on the island. Whenever we did try and eat at one of the resort’s restaurants they were out of food or wine.
It seemed that every day the resort would phone or knock on your door to try and sell something additional (the place is big on timeshares) instead of making our stay as good as it could be.
Poor management, poor maintenance
I own a timeshare in the Crane which this year I made available to family friends in much need of a vacation.
On arrival the following problems were encountered: pre-ordered food was not available, lift to the penthouse not working and when “mended”, they got stuck in the lift, a toilet was not flushing and then overflowed into the bathroom, none of the 3 DVD players was working, the ice machine was broken, barbecue not working, roof jacuzzi controls fell off, no robes in the apartment.
This was highly embarrassing to me and I contacted the general manager, Michael Phillips who undertook to investigate. Despite repeated emails and phone calls, he never once responded to me.
Maintenance and management (or the lack thereof) appear to be a major problem at this resort. My advice to anyone contemplating trying this resort is to first establish the unit number allocated to them and them to insist on a detailed maintenance report before leaving home.
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
Background:
My girlfriend and I had a Jr. Garden Suite for a week in April 2012. We booked through an online travel site and got the room at about 50% the regular rate by purchasing this as a “Secret Hotel”, where they don’t tell you the name until you book it. The travel site said it was a “4 star hotel in St. Philip” before we booked and since there are very few hotels in St. Philip, it was pretty easy to guess ahead of time where we’d end up.
Apologies in advance for the epically long review. I suppose I am compelled to write so much because we read through many the reviews and tried to temper our expectations going in. We’ve found that to work in the past, but this was one time that it fell below even what I was expecting.
I am putting the positive and hopefully, helpful items up front.
Misconceptions:
First, I’m going to try to clear up some misconceptions from previous reviews I read here and on other travel sites.
Air Conditioning: I saw a couple mentions of people being charged something like $4 BD / hour to run the A/C unit. When I inquired about this at the front desk, they informed me that this was for timeshare units, not hotel guests. We were on the back side of a building and did not get much of a breeze, plus the squeaky outside unit, so we ran our A/C 24×7 all week without any issues. It did a fine job of keeping the room cool and we didn’t get charged extra.
Towels: I saw another review somewhere where someone was complaining about only being able to get one towel per person. I inquired about this as well and was told that you can have more than one towel per person, but they will hold a $25 US charge on the room for each towel you have out. BTW, we found lots of towels strewn about the chairs and tables that had clearly been left behind by patrons. Again, I asked at the front desk if they actually charged people if they did not turn in either their towel or towel card (what you get initially) and they assured me that they did.
Timeshare sales: I never once had anyone from the hotel approach me about getting me to buy a timeshare or other ownership. The sales office is right across from registration and guest services, so it is there but again, nobody from the staff ever mentioned anything about it. Great by me.
Our Honeymoon was ruined at the Crane Hotel-Barbados
My husband and I was so looking forward to our honeymoon at the Crane until we were pressured and lied to about buying timeshare rooms at the Crane.
We were advised that we had 30 days to cancel and after returning home we realized we were had for $3000USD.
We wrote to the owner and never got a response from him.
The Crane hotel is more about selling timeshare rooms than giving good service to its customers.
The restaurants serve very lousy food. If you arrive there at night as we did, you have to walk a long way to the reception desk .
We will never go back and will not recommend it.
Stay away from the timeshare crooks st the Crane if you have already booked a trip there
Awful vacation awaits
What a disappointment. Our travel agent and information we received on the Crane definitely misrepresents the experience.
Our expensive ocean view was a joke. We were overlooking a vast construction site with a sliver of the ocean on the horizon. see attached photos. The noise level was unbelievable. Just awful.
The romantic plunge pool/jacuzzi was cold and did not have a heater, and with mould and dirt in the pool, you must be kidding. see attached photo.
The food at the restaurant was limited in range and variety, uninspired, expensive and rudely served.
These people have a lot to learn about service. Once we discovered that the Hotel is dominated by timeshare people it all made sense. This is not a hotel that cares if it mistreats its guests and insults and ignores complaints or guest requests…it is not their fundamental business to have repeat business but, rather rent out the unoccupied timeshares to suckers.
Sadly, our second honeymoon was a huge disappointment and we left early.
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