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Feb 20 2011

Fairmont – General Experience

Hi, this month I had booked my wedding in Fairmont Towers in Heliopolis, Cairo Egypt. I thought it is a nice new hotel and belongs to reputable chain so things can't go wrong. Obviously I am the one who was totally wrong. From the minute I walked in, things were handled so unprofessionally. On my first visit to check the ballroom and the menus I met a very unfriendly female called Nada. She kept me waiting for quite a long time and spent only 2 minutes with. She basically handed me the menus and left with no elaborate explanation. The subsequent week I called the hotel to schedule another meeting, They told me Nada has left and I met another guy called Tamer Seoudy. The guy was the total opposite of Nada, very friendly, professional and well informed. He did a great job helping me tailor make a menu and out a tentative plan for the day.We followed up on our meeting with e-mails and everything was kind of set. 2 weeks later I received a phone call from Meleigy Mostafa, Tamer's Boss, saying that Tamer has left Fairmont and that he was handling my wedding. I scheduled a third meeting. Despite the fact that Meleigy was very knowledgeable but i was a bit disappointed that we had to change the menue all over again, and I had to go through the exact same steps that I went through with Tamer.Meleigy promised to send a follow up mail and costing in 2 days it took him another 2 weeks!!! As a bride I didn't appreciate all the waste of time and effort but till this point I was OK. The final cost we got from the hotel was higher than the market average of similar hotels but we decided to pursue it as we really liked the venue and additionally in our deal we got 2 complimentary nights for a suite + bridal suite for wedding preparations on wedding day.I asked Meleigy if there are any events before our wedding or at the adjacent ballroom on the wedding day and he confirmed that there were no event in both ballrooms before our wedding and on our wedding. He said our wedding planner/organizer can start decorating the ballroom the day before which what was perfect for me.The big nightmare started one week before weeding. The hotel has requested that we take some of food supplies ( smoked salmon, nuts and shrimps from an outside supplier). I have taken all the quantities and specs and adhered to them on only to be notified by my supplier that the chef is refusing to receive the stuff!!! Why? the shrimps is a bit smaller than the requested and are not pealed which requires extra work from Chef!!!With few back and forth phone calls with my senior sister and Meleigy, he drove her mad with his comments but things got resolved.on the night of my wedding, my husband was checking in the hotel in a standard room. He notified them at the lobby that he wants the room to be next to the suite we will stay at the subsequent day since he was the groom. The guy at the reception told him we were not entitled to a suite !!! My husband called me and he was fuming because he paid a huge sum of cash to the hotel and in the deal we were told we are entitled to a bridal suite ( for pre-wedding preparations)+ a suite for 2 nights. This was documented by an email from Meleigy as well.I called Meleigy and i was so angry- again he confirmed the same piece of information and said that there must be some sort of misunderstanding and that he would call the reception to clarify. My husband stayed there for 2 hours to resolve the issue!! Again for a groom neither the treatment nor the misunderstanding was appreciated. The subsequent day- on my wedding day- i went to the hotel. I wanted to check in bridal suite ( where i was going to get my hair, make up done and get dressed). Again at the reception they said I am not entitled to it. Meleigy was off and was unreachable for the first hour!!! I was really mad. Finally he picked up and kept apologizing and clarified the issue with reception so it took me 2.5 hours to check in and I was running late in all my scheduled activities for the big day.On my way to the bridal suite i was SHOCKED to see an an event taking place in both ballrooms!!! Even my wedding ballroom was split in half and there was an event taking place in half of it.It was already 4pm and the wedding starts at 10pm. I called Meleigy for a second time and he apologized for the 100th time and confirmed they are about to finish. Not only did he breach our initial agreement and did not notify me about the changes before wedding day, but he additionally lied to me because the event did not finish before 6 pm which made our organizer take additional people to decorate the ballroom which consequently meant extra cost for us.Again the worst part is not here yet. We had our wedding day. My husband's greatest men helped move his stuff from the room he stayed in one night before to the suite we stayed in at the night of our wedding. The subsequent day we were getting dressed to have dinner at one of the hotel's restaurant and he couldn't find his shoes. We calle