As a professional speaker I visit 30 something venues a year. The Hahndorf Resort at Hahndorf South Australia is the worst I have ever had the misfortune to visit.
Manuel the Manager promised the world – five star service, gourmet cookies, gourmet pizzas and delivered:
- breakfast cereals that were past their use by date
- butter portions that were a month past their use by date
- yoghurts that were past their use by date
- gourmet pizzas that were barely equal to Pizza Hut quality (for $35 per person)
- Arnotts Monte Carlo (gourmet) biscuits, and
- barely defrosted carrot cake
During morning and afternoon tea the clean up of the conference room was left to the facilitators.
His website states “We set our standards high and take pride in providing our guests with conference room equipment and quality food and wines to post conference activities.”
In his apology at the end of the conference Manuel blamed it all on his staff and suppliers.
Funny how he immediately found “in date” food when he realised the game was up.
A place to avoid!
Tell it like it is, Michael.
Too many people settle. If the venue promises the moon, they’d better deliver the moon. Glad you named names and gave specifics. I only hope Manual reads your post.
Go get, ‘em,
Paul
Very disappointing for a small town of Adelaide that does pride itself on its food and wine and many places deliver however Hanndorf resort did not! Hahndorf Resort or caravan park as it could also be called certaintly did not deliver on what was promised and the feedback it will receive from the people that where involved in the conference will affect future business.
I’ll have to agree with Michael 100%.
Not only was the food ordinary and out of date, but having stayed there I can honestly say that I got very close with nature… or shall I say nature got very close with me? When I arrived there, I took a look at the bathroom, and I can honestly say the bath tub was full of flying and crawling creatures – some of them would’ve been dead for quite a while!!
To my shock/surprise when the room got cleaned (questionable) the following morning all those creatures were left in the bath tub.
Manuel gave us “exclusive use” to his “exclusive games room” that was falling apart and most if not all of the equipment in there would’ve been at least 20 years old – in the best case scenario.
By all means I’m not a snob, but the facilities, food and service were below standard, ESPECIALLY when you get promissed the world and you can’t get anywhere near it.
In a nutshell, avoid it even it’s offered to you for free!!
Your room got made??? Mine definitely didn’t and I can tell you they do not change the sheets before new guest arrive because one of the ladies staying there found a dead bug in her bed…. NICE!
A lady in Hahndorf town said the locals call in the LAST RESORT. Has a nice ring to it don’t you think?
Spot on Michael – whilst it provided us with lots of entertainment and many laughs, there are several key business lessons we could all learn from this little misadventure!!! Never over-promise your level of customer service, quality of product or attention to detail if you are unable to deliver. As Michael’s blog has demonstrated, word of mouth can be a powerful persuader in business.