Selva di Val Gardena – downgraded to B&B

A snowHead

We booked a week in Selva for a family of seven at New Year: the Hotel Flora, half board. We've stayed there before, and enjoyed it, particularly the restaurant service, which is five courses, or six or seven for Christmas Day/New Years Eve*

Today, Crystal emailed us to say that the Flora is no longer doing half board, although you can't tell by looking at their website (yet). They've offered us £25 per person per night or change the booking to something else on their website and pay (or, hypothetically, get a refund on the difference). That option doesn't work: there's no availability in the SR apart from the Greif in Corvara, which probably has availability because of the TripAdvisor review I wrote this year ('nuff said).

We don't think that £25 goes anywhere near covering the additional costs of eating out. Hence my questions to the connected wisdom of (the Dolomites Chapter of) Snowheads

What's a sensible budget per head for an evening meal in a reasonable restaurant? Drinks in the Flora are quite reasonable, so we'll probably lose out a bit on the drinks bill.
Any recommendations for anywhere to eat, for seven?
Should we go as far as booking everything before we even arrive? That takes the enjoyment out of choosing restaurants, but, "table for seven"?
The same questions but for New Year
Does anyone have a view on what obligations Crystal have under ABTA/ATOL/EU regulations?

* Hogmanay: I live in Scotland

A snowHead

Mum and Dad are getting too old to play an active role in running the place. Lots of small family hotels are going the same way.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Don't know what your legal rights are, but you booked in good faith, so they ought to offer an equivalent hotel, AT THEIR expense. It's not your mistake, it's theirs. Maybe you don't want the hassle, though.

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@albob, yes, we were about £1150 pp. In fact that was for two twins and a triple but we did a side deal with the hotel for another room to make it 2+2+2+1 (4 sons, one daughter).

After all it is free

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@tsgsh, Crystal is part of TUI, the largest multinational tour, travel and leisure company on the planet. I’d expect and start off by demanding they do much better than this. At least time is on your side, so why not imply a formal complaint initially, if they don’t meet your reasonable requests?

If that doesn’t work I’d raise a formal complaint. Obviously you need to define between you what’s acceptable. Are you determined it must be Selva or is there flexibility on location, if they find an equivalent hotel with dinner elsewhere?

I don’t think €25 per dinner per person is anywhere near enough. Also it would not be easy to make reservations at different restaurants on the hoof during New Year week for a group of 7, I’d guess.

I once faced a similar situation for a Xmas week trip but was only told the day before, about 2 hours before driving to Gatwick for overnight stay over.

We were booked in a decent hotel in Les Menuires, which had been overbooked. We were offered a significantly smaller ski area in a bit worse hotel. I stayed calm but determined, though inside I was very angry, Witin 2 hours we’d agreed an upgrade to the Montana in Tignes (one of tbe best hotels then, in a comparable ski area). Also, as our original deal had included (cheap quality) wine with dinner, I got them to agree a €10 per person per dinner drinks allowance in our new hotel instead. Enough to buy 2 drinks each of reasonable quality.

Result…but had to play hard ball and hold nerve on Xmas eve.

Good luck.

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@PeakyB, thanks, I'd already replied to them saying that £25 is not remotely enough, but I've not specified what would be, just the problems we would face as you've described.

Selva is not essential, although we have friends staying in Corvara that we were planning to ski with some of the time. However, we don't have the most straightforward list of requirements either.

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£25 in Selva is almost a Pizza + one Drink p/p if eating outside. I think its peanuts.
HB usually has more that one Pizza + one beer

This far out, I bet their T&C allow to make changes & offer other alternatives.
You could maybe try to find eateries offering an equivalent service for an idea of price. Not sure if you have much neg. power to what is in the T&C's.

So you paid £1150
They are offering £150-£175 (depending on 6 or 7 evening meals), taking it down to around £1000 pp
Currently that hotel is showing £1013 pp for a week from 2nd Jan
So they are not really offering much in terms of compensation. Maybe throw them a curve ball & push for the £150-£175 to be discounted on another option.

You know it makes sense.

We stayed half board in the Pralong in January this year, and valued the 5 course dinner at at least 40EUR a head compared to eating out. Now, if you did go and eat out, you might not bother with all the same amount of courses, but it has to be approaching that value. La Bula is a great restaurant if you are looking for recommendations in town, below the Hotel Stella.

The Pralong was a great hotel.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

A snowHead

Crystal probably paid the hotel something way below the "retail cost on the night" of an equivalent meal. We found this out the hard way when Inghams changed our "catered chalet" booking in Alpbach for "evening meal in the hotel adjoining". We found out only when we arrived. They obviously paid the hotel just enough to push us onto a table in a poky corner and serve us the most ghastly slop - truly terrible. The hotel was full of families enjoying what looked like perfectly good food. The chalet holiday was not an expensive one, we were not expecting food of epic quality, but it couldn't possibly have failed to be a lot better. The "chalet boy", who ate with us each evening, was lovely, and I'm sure he'd have done a decent job. He was armed with a little book of his grandma's cake recipes and they were excellent!

Having to organise 7 people out for meals in such a busy week is disappointing, quite apart from the cost. If you are willing to start again with a completely new holiday, somewhere else, that would give you a strong bargaining position with Crystal.

Help!!

Selva di Val Gardena – downgraded to B&B

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