The Diana Plaza Hotel: Brickbats or Bouquets?

An unusual email arrived in my inbox last Wednesday. The subject line was International Buffet $15 (One Night Only - Friday 30th January). There was no text, just a simple jpg attachment called image001.jpg. OK, so I’m on the Diana’s email list so I thought it safe to open the file - and am I glad I did!

It promoted a $15 per head buffet dinner to introduce their new Executive Chef, Benny. There was a simple call to action; ring to book and so, at 6pm, I rang. No luck as the phone system’s menu led me to an extension that didn’t answer. No matter, I called again at 8:30 on Thursday morning and booked for two.

I asked if I could book for a larger group, say 20 and was told that the manager would have to approve a booking of that size and no, he wasn’t there and no, they couldn’t tell me how many seats were still available. I was told they would call me back at 9:30 so I hustled a few colleagues at the office and got a group of ten together. At 11:30 my phone rang and I was told that they were booked out and couldn’t take more than the two of us…

Being one to put up some resistance when what I consider commercial idiocy presents itself, I asked for the manager and was connected to Jay, the new manager. Jay was delightful; apologising profusely for their error and asked me to make sure I touched base with him on the Friday night.

Just a bit of background here…