Wingate Inn: Disrespectful To Customers

On Thursday night, June 28th, my husband and I decided to use an Exit Info coupon to check in to the Wingate Inn for two nights in Arlington, Texas. We checked in around 5:30 pm that evening and went to room number 406. The room looked great, although the bed did seem unreasonably close to the air conditioning unit on one side,(In fact, we found out later that the air would be blowing directly on my husband's legs when he laid down in bed that night) but we stowed our luggage and went on our way to go have dinner at a nearby restauran,t which we had gone to many times in the past.

After dinner, we ran some errands and returned to the hotel later on in the evening. We went down to the main floor to enjoy the hot tub, only to find the water (and the entire hot tub room area) smelling like the tub had been over chlorined. After a few minutes in there, we decided to towel dry off and return to our room. We found no towels in the hot tub area so my husband had to go in to the adjoining fitness center area, only to return with two very small towels which actually looked more like wash cloths than anything else. We used them the best we could to towel off and then we proceeded back up to our room.

Once inside, we changed in to dry clothes and watched some television programs. A few hours later, we decided to go to bed so we pulled the covers back and laid down. A few minutes after laying down in that bed, we both became sick. We both got headaches and began to feel nauseated. I went and took a shower, thinking that perhaps the over abundance of chlorine on my skin and hair might be the cause of the problems. After the shower, I felt a bit better, until I got back in to that bed again. Then the headache and sick feeling returned.

By this time, my poor husband was laying on the floor with a pillow in hopes of getting away from what ever was making him sick in that bed as well. We decided to check out and go home, even though it was only 3 a.m., because we didn't want to stay around what ever was making us sick in that room any longer.

We packed up and went down to the front desk to report the problem and to check out. No one was to be found at the front desk. We could however hear the guy that was suppose to be there. He was in the back room talking on the phone to a friend of his about a car. We yelled "hello?" and "is someone working the front desk?" several times but he never bothered to come forward. Finally my husband had to go to a phone there and dial zero to make the front desk phone ring. Then, and only then, did the guy wearing a "Richard" name tag appear!

We told him we were checking out because something in our room was making us sick. He never asked about it. In fact, all he did was ring up what we owed and had my husband sign a charge slip. He signed and we left, taking one of the Operation Manager's cards off the front desk as we went. We decided to go home, get some sleep, and settle the matter the following morning with the Operations Manager.

After we got home and laid down in our bed, we began to feel better again and, by morning, we were both fine. I dialed the Wingate Inn and asked for "P.J.", the person listed as the Operations Manager on the card.

When he got on the phone, I proceeded to tell him what happened. And here's where the problems really began. He tried to tell us that we most likely had food poisoning from dinner. We told him we did not. We each had a different item to eat and we did not have any of the symptoms of food poisoning. Our problems started when we got in to that bed in that room and they stopped as soon as we were out of there. We did not have any cramps or vomiting or any of the other symptoms one gets with food poisoning.

He also told us that the air conditioning was not blowing directly on to my husband's legs. Unless he was in bed with us that evening, he would not know if it was or wasn't doing so. Once the air is on, the curtains billow up and the bed is so close to the conditioner unit that on that side, that the air had no problem pouring out on to my husband's legs and on to his side of the bed.

He went on to argue some more with us. He told us he had a "full house" that night and that no one else had any problems. First of all, you can only use the Exit Info Coupons if the hotel is less than 85% full - it states that on the coupon - so he could not have had a "full house" as he states.

Second, we don't care who did or did not have problems or who did or did not report them - they were not in our room. We had problems in room number 406. Why else would we check in at 5:30 pm on Thursday night, planning to stay TWO nights, only to check out at 3 A.M. on Friday morning????

We were tired of arguing with this guy, and being told that we were lying about what happened, so we demanded the 800 number for Wingate Inn.

We called the 800 number Friday morning and spoke to a man by the name of "Jeremy." He took our report and told us that we would hear back within 2 days regarding our complaint.

It is now 10:05 a.m. on Monday, July 2nd, and we have not heard back from either the hotel or from anyone at the 800 number. We have tried getting a hold of someone at the 800 number again, only to encounter a recorded message.

I left my name and number and IF we ever hear from someone, we will update this report at that time.

But for now, we are out $67.57 and have nothing but bad memories from what was supposed to have been a fun time.

What's funny is that we stayed at this Wingate Inn in the past and had a good time but, from this day on, we will never stay there again and we are now advising friends, family and co-workers to avoid them in the future as well.

It amazes us how someone can treat customers so disrespectfully and get away with it.

We recommend to any one reading this who may be thinking of visiting Arlington, Texas, to check out one of the other fine hotels which we have in this area.