Monday, May 17, 2010

Another Night without Water at Somerset Court Hotel, Osborne.












Another night without water at Somerset Court Hotel, Osborne Foreshore Estate, Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria.

Staying in this hotel is becoming a joke. You have a General Manager who scoffs at your complaints, some of the staff who lie to you (don't get me wrong, you do have some staff who go out of their way to make your stay a memorable one) and aging plumbing which fails all the time. Add a horrible Internet connection to the list. Also, despite having a multitude of TV stations over cable (Dstv), there's only 9 channels available (if their working). I dont know why the hotel cant buy more decoders and have more channels, like what they have at Bungalows.

The general rule at Somerset is that the hotel is run for the staff by the staff, guests are secondary. And all this for N32,000 (USD213) per night.

We have been patient for long enough. It's been 2 hours since we lost water. The front desk said, "Don't worry sir, water will be back in 5 minutes." Typical Nigerian response for everything. I guess the expats are right, we're never staying at Somerset Court Hotel, Osborne any more. Enough is enough. 


I dont know if the Somerset Hotel at Temple road is any better - with only 2 TV channels but with faster Internet since there's not many tenants.


The only things that works properly is the swimming pool. Thank God for that.


We stopped eating in the hotel because the food is so salty. After 2 weeks staying in Somerset, I ended up at the Reddington Hotel with a blood pressure of 180/140!


To their credit, they did implement some worthwhile ideas, like having the tea, coffee and juice out for everyone to take during breakfast. And their breakfast delivery time has much improved - we dont have to wait 20 minutes for our breakfast, even after informing them of our choice the night before.

But overall, Dover could have done better than put us, for 10 months, at Somerset Court Hotel. Good riddance to Somerset in 2 weeks time. 

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

My dear,at Temple road situation is worse,Hotel Manager there is real whore and drunked,always dirsturbing customers to buy drinks for her.I stop lodging there.
I dont understand how management can allow this type of person manage a good hotel.
Arthur

Anonymous said...

Why you guys talking like it was all bad, Nigeria is sadly already a messed up country so if water is not running I'm sure they tried their best to fix it on time. Stayed there once and it was really nice would differently go back and besides Nigerian internet is so slow so what where you expecting for them to get broadband from the UK? its a really comfy, homely hotel, very nice, keep up the good work guys and keep on improving

pauline26 said...

Thanks for your feedback. We stayed at Somerset for 11 months and while the staff did their best to accommodate us, hotel management was more interested in cutting costs wherever they could.

At one point they started giving up towels with brown stains on it, citing that the towels were clean, they just got the stain from the drier!

We're not comparing with hotels overseas because I know Somerset is no match for even a 3-star hotel in Malaysia. We're comparing with other similar rated hotels in Lagos and seriously, the Dover management could have done better if they werent so interested in squeezing every dollar from us.

SOMERSET COURT said...

Hi Mr Gomez,

As a hotel we certainly appreciate your frank comments on our services and facilities. We are glad to inform you that as of this moment, concrete steps have been taken to address the points you raised. We are very much committed to continuous upgrade of facilities and services.

We do look forward to having you stay with us again.