Scanway/Tyrkiet Eksperten 

This is the complaint mail i sent to Scanway after returning from Sharm el Sheik in January. The "4 star" hotel turned out to be a dump and the food caused a constant worry for stomach diseases.
We were at the end offered 300DKK refund for poor cleaning and waiting time when changing hotel. The later took the full 2nd day...

Warning. Make sure you prepare for extra cost when travelling with Scanways!

*****
I want to have full compensation for the extra unforeseen costs that were caused for us on this trip due to the false advertising of the hotel.
If I leave out the small extra charges for phone calls and getting extra cash from ATM machine, I want to claim the extra 2760 DKK we paid.

Reason:
• Hotel did not live up to the advertised quality of a 4 star hotel.
• We did not ask to be upgraded to a more expensive hotel, only to get a proper 4 star one. Only Sheraton option was given.
• Almost 1 full day holiday was lost when transferring to a new hotel.

Full story:
The hotel was advertised as a 4 star hotel. This is what you say on your internet site:
Amarante Garden Palms Hotel
I udkanten af den populære ferieby Naama Bay i Sharm El Sheikh ligger dette indbydende hotel. Amarante Garden Palms Hotel tilbyder indkvartering af god standard i lave, lyse bygninger, der ligger omkring et dejligt poolområde prydet af palmer. Den skønne sandstrand ligger i gåafstand herfra, og du har de bedste af Sharm El Sheikhs ferietilbud inden for rækkevidde. Hotellet anbefales til alle voksne og familier, der gerne vil bo komfortabelt i nærheden af både strand og by. Opholdet er med All Inclusive, så her behøver du ikke at bekymre dig over hotelregningen, for måltider og lokalt producerede drikkevarer er betalt hjemmefra.
Faciliteter: Lobby med reception, bar, småbutikker, Internet-hjørne samt trådløs Internetforbindelse og deponeringsbokse, der kan lejes ved ankomst. Solterrasse med to swimmingpools, jacuzzi, børnepool og poolbar. Restaurant. Billard, bordtennis, dart og fitnessrum. Sauna og massage. Lille legeplads for de mindste.
Værelser: 236 pænt indrettede værelser med fransk altan, tv, telefon, minibar (tom), aircondition samt bad og toilet.

My complaints: (not all sub-bullets are of great significance but I decided to add all. Maybe you can benefit from some detailed feedback)
• The hotel standard was not as of a 4 star hotel
o Room:
 Broken lock on door when we arrived. Took ~1 hour to fix (with totally 5 persons involved!?).
 Broken lamp in bathroom. Fixed first day. Next morning another lamp was broken and when I checked for poor contact I found that the whole lamp holder was lose. I feared it could fall down from ceiling.
 Broken electrical plug in room. Risk of electrocution.
 Dirty bed. Stains on sheets. Dust on back pane. Better 2nd day but still there.
 Dirty and broken furniture
 Broken waste basket in bathroom
 Stains on shower towels. They were likely washed but the stains were likely permanent.
 Broken curtains in windows
 Second hand, refilled shampoo bottles
 All in all, a very sad impression.
o Dining room:
 Dirty table tables
 Dirty and wet glasses. They looked to be only rinsed before re-used.
 Low quality food.
 Run out of drinks in the bar first night. We ordered red wine. We only stayed one night so I have no idea what happened other nights.
o Environment:
 No non-smoking area obtained. People were smoking everywhere, even where non-smoking signs were posted.
 Drinks from the bar were served in small, thin plastic cups, one time use kind. Very cheap impression.
 The beer served was very low quality. I had the benefit of comparing to our 2nd hotel.
 Staff serving did not express any hospitality. Even the check-in counter interrupted service to me and started on something else for few minutes. This happened both during check-in and check-out.
 Rugged bath towels at pool.
 The hotel beach is NOT at walking distance, as promised in description. Travel by bus with requirement to pre-book was needed.
o Other:
 Problem with the busses at the airport arrival got us delayed for almost 1 hour before reaching our hotel. Poor organization by your guide.
 Problem with the lock at our door caused waiting time for another 1 hour before I could go to the pool. Just in time to see the sun set behind the houses at the pool. No sun-bathing this day.
• Delay during change of hotel:
o First night we complained about hotel standard.
 Guide asked us to point out what was not good, but the list was too long, I said. I listed a few of the above bullets, mainly that “everything” seemed dirty and about the sad appearance of the hotel.
 We were offered to swap hotel and accepted. No mentioning about additional cost.
 We were told that we should get notification “before noon” about new hotel and that we needed to check out by noon, but we could not check out until we got confirmation about new hotel.
This meant that we had very limited options for spending the morning.
 At 11:15 we had not heard anything so I called the guide. She was working on getting us on the new hotel, Sheraton, and would get back to us via SMS (!!) with the additional cost for new hotel. This was the first time I heard about any cost. Sheraton sounded expensive to me and I asked for other 4 star hotels at same price. No option to Sheraton was available, the guide said.
 At 11:45 we still had not heard anything and called again. Same answer as before but we needed to have checked out by noon.
 At exactly 12:00 I received an SMS where it stated that we could move to Sheraton for an additional cost of 460 DKK per day for me and my wife.
I complained about the cost but got the message that “pay up or stay at Amaranten”. Under this “threat” and since my wife was very upset we checked out and went to Sheraton.
o Scanway failed to arrange the transport to new hotel.
 At Sheraton we found out that no booking was made and that we could not get the rooms. Again a call to the guide. She said that “a mail was sent” and it failed to arrive first time. What she did not tell us and what we found out later was that the mail was not sent to Sheraton but to Scanway’s booking center in Cairo. There the booking had to be processed before the booking at Sheraton could be made. We got the impression that it all would be fixed in short time
 After 1 hour (13:30) we got hungry and I asked Sheraton staff if we could eat lunch and clear the bill in case there was a problem with the booking. This was not possible.
 I sent SMS to guide asking them to call me since I already had called her several times. I got SMS back that “the mail is sent again now and that a guide will be at Sheraton in 15 mins.“
 13:45 Scanway guides arrived and we find out about the process in Cairo. We had to pay the extra cost in cash so we needed to withdraw more money from the ATM machine. I got the feeling that only after this the booking of our rooms started to process.
 We asked the guides about lunch but got the reply that we had to pay ourselves “since it was us that wanted to swap hotel”. This is just a very stupid remark and was not well received by hungry travellers.
 I asked for an escalation point and got the feedback from the guides that Heidi (who was present) was the highest point of escalation. I asked her to put that + the fact that she was not allowed to make phone calls in writing for me but she refused to do this.
 I called Scanways in dk and talked to one of the agents. I asked to talk to a manager and she would ask one to call me. No one called back yet!!
 At 15:00 the lunch time was finished. We did not get any lunch that day.
 At 16:00 we got our rooms and we could get out of the lobby after 3,5 hours waiting. We had gotten our gear in the room, gotten into our swimming suites and out to the pool just in time to see the sun set behind the houses at the pool.
 Another day lost with no sun-bathing.

I am looking forward to hear from you soon to put this behind me.

The stay at Sheraton Resort was excellent after first 2 days (arrival day + 2nd) lost.