Pheasant Park Resort: Door County Disappointment *Updated*

Last week we had a wonderful week in Door County, which IF it was not SO WONDERFUL up to that point....would have been completely tanked at the end by the crap the resort we stayed at pulled. The place was nice, clean, reasonably priced, and had a fair location....
We were enjoying ourselves very much, so much that by Wednesday, we decided to extend our stay until Sunday (originally set for Saturday). I called the front desk, asked if the room was available, was told it was; I then asked to book it for Saturday night/Sunday. I was told the cost, the clerk then asked me if I wanted to keep it on the card we originally reserved with, I said "yes". The clerk then told me to come down and have our room cards reprogrammed for the extra day, which we did on our way out to dinner that night. I asked if we needed to sign anything, and she said that we could do it on checkout on Sunday. Now if this had been anywhere else I'm sure they would have asked me to do so right then/there, but as these things USUALLY tend to be informal in DC, I figured it was O.K.

...Well, Saturday afternoon came, we were at the Village Cafe' for lunch and we received a call from the manager asking what our stuff was still doing in the room. Imagine our surprise! I explained that we had extended our stay on Wed, but then..... Insult was added to injury when she told us that they had NO record that we extended our stay, and basically was calling me a liar and accusing us of room squatting. I was so angry that I hung up on her. After we finished lunch, I called her back and explained that our door cards had been reprogrammed to accommodate our stay. To this she started saying "OOOH, oh", I think this is when she realized I was telling the truth, and she finally apologized at this point. I then asked: "How is this my problem" . She responded by saying that since I didn't sign a receipt that I had no right to the room, even though I was assured by the clerk that set it up that it was unnecessary. She asked if I had read the nano-print on the back of the suite door, as this would have explained this. I had to laugh; as for other than fire exits and room rates (the largest print on the placard) I doubt anyone ever reads those. She at least then offered to put us up somewhere else, but that Sister Bay was fully booked up and that we might have to stay in another town (my guess is most likely Sturgeon Bay). When we got back to the resort, the very clerk that set our extra day up and reprogrammed out cards looked me in the face and lied that there was no record of either. I then asked when do cards stop working in the rooms, I was told 11 a.m. on checkout day. I then explained that all our cards still worked (It was 5:00 p.m. on Saturday), so clearly our cards were reprogrammed as I explained, she then looked at the card swipe program log and said there was no record of that (again, lying right to my face). So I may be partly to blame for not insisting on signing a receipt the day I extended our stay, but usually; when a clerk tells you something is all set up, you believe them....especially in DC, where we have never felt ripped off by any resort we've ever stayed at.

What I wanted was for them to honor the extension, I would have moved to another room in the resort, but we were NOT moving to another resort. Since we were not going to get that (short of getting the authorities involved), we packed our stuff and went home (I honestly did not calm down until we got to Milwaukee).

What I think really happened is that this is something they do regularly; if it's available, they'll "say" you can keep it, but if they can sell it to someone else with a multi-day stay (she claimed the new tenants were staying for a week), they give the current ones the boot. Even though the door cards still worked, and she offered to put us up somewhere else, she never, NEVER would admit that she believed I actually extended the stay. The last thing I told her was: "What would bother me if I were you, is that one of your employees is lying to you, you refuse to believe that, and now you're going to lose business because of it. What ELSE are they lying to you about?".

Don't get me wrong, I clearly know Door county is Tourism driven.... but in our experience it has always been a cut above other tourist locations in honesty and professionalism...
That is probably the biggest disappointment of all.... that now....it no longer IS a cut above(at least at Pheasant Park).

*sigh*

UPDATE 26, August '08:

Today we received a letter from Pheasant Park for a free nights stay for any size room as well as a 10% reduction in our bill for the days we did stay. Included was a small hand written note from the manager who FINALLY admitted it WAS a clerks error that caused the situation. The credit and letter are dated the 17th of August, but it's postmarked the day before yesterday....so I can't really tell WHEN it was actually processed (before or after this blog post). Ideally, I'd like to think that it was in the mail before the post.
At any rate: It would be unfair for me NOT to point out that they have attempted restitution.
Admitting they made the mistake is what I wanted to the most.
I do appreciate the credit (though it does little to dampen the four hours of vacation spirit-crushing anger we all had being given the bums rush), and I think the credit counts towards an actual restitution. While technically the nights stay is worth more, I can't say just now if we'll ever use it or not.

Thank you for at least trying to make this right Pheasant Park.