TEACHERS’ PAIN
Headache for former Sunshine Girls captain, husband in bid to get refund from hotel
TWO Jamaican teachers — one of whom has excelled for Jamaica at netball and the other, the son of a former national cricket icon — are fuming and frustrated at what they consider sour treatment from a local hotel.
The couple — Phillip Pinnock and his wife Nicole Aiken Pinnock — want the management of Royal Decameron hotel in Montego Bay, St James, to, without further delay, refund them for a
botched stay at the resort, which would have heralded in the 35th birthday of the former Jamaica Sunshine Girls captain, who celebrated though with a bad taste her special occasion on Friday, December 11.
In relating their story to the Jamaica Observer last week, Phillip, the last son of colourful former Jamaica cricketer Renford Pinnock (now deceased), said that the frustration endured by the hotel’s inability to refund them approximately $54,000 they paid up front on December 3 was resulting in unusual stress.
“After we made our booking to stay two nights and three days at Royal Decameron and [were] looking forward to spending my wife’s birthday in style, we got a call on the morning of 10th December from a representative of the hotel [name withheld] to say that the hotel can no longer accommodate the booking [for the period being sought].
“He said he did not know if or when we would get a refund, although he said the hotel wanted to work something out for us to stay another two nights in the future,” Phillip related to the Sunday Observer.
The couple said they protested a postponement of the stay and insisted that, due to the nature of the occasion, it was either they stayed on the 11th or be given a full refund.
In the meantime, the Pinnocks were forced to make an alternative booking at another resort to mark the occasion.
But, as the days went by, Phillip said that the challenge to get a clear word from the hotel in respect of their refund was growing more difficult.
“I spoke to my lawyer after the hotel officials refused to take my calls, and he eventually spoke with a manager who reached out to me last Monday (December 14) and said that the hotel was working on the matter, but could not say when we would get our money back,” Phillip went on. “But since then we have not been able to contact them.”
He said that he visited the hotel’s Facebook page to lodge his displeasure at the way the resort was handling the issue, made some “respectful” comments, only to be blocked.
“I was also blocked from commenting further when I expressed my displeasure at the treatment,” Aiken Pinnock joined in.
“The person managing the Facebook page was dismissive towards me, and shut me up,” the netball star bemoaned. “The person managing the page even suggested that I go and read the fine print.
“I was trying to stay low,” Aiken Pinnock went on, “but the hotel is not cooperating. We are teachers; we work hard for our money and we really wanted to spend my 35th birthday there because you turn 35 only once. I work too hard for people to treat my husband and I like this. We have sent out at least four e-mails to them; other persons have reached out to them on our behalf, and still the hotel will do nothing to give us our refund.”
“We are really frustrated,” high school physical education teacher and G C Foster College of Physical Education and Sport graduate Phillip chipped in. “We don’t know when we will get our money back. And if something should happen to us, that hard-earned teachers’ money would just be lost in the paperwork. The hotel has been brushing us off.”
The Pinnocks also alerted the Sunday Observer to several uncomplimentary comments by people who have done business with the hotel, one even saying that he had to wait seven months to get his refund following the cancellation of an originally planned stay.
Calls placed on Saturday, December 19 to the mobile phone of the hotel’s Commercial Director Delano Miller, to offer the resort an opportunity to present its side of the saga went unanswered. The Pinnocks said they had been in contact with Miller on the subject.
Other calls made to the publicly listed switchboard numbers of (876)973-4802-6 also rang out on the same day, some going to voicemail.
Up to one week later, as late as last afternoon, other efforts to get the hotel to comment failed, as Miller did not answer his phone, and calls to the resort rang out.
ALTHOUGH a ban remained in place on rivers and beaches, scores of people nonetheless went out to enjoy themselves in sections of St Thomas yesterday — Boxing Day — one of the days that normally attract high numbers of people at such venues.
The Jamaica Observer’s roving photographer, Karl Mclarty caught some of the scenes as he ventured through sections of eastern Jamaica.