Buena Vista Inn A Day Keeps the New Smyrna Tourists Away

New Smyrna Beach is a great little town on the east coast of Florida with beautiful beaches and parks, boutique stores and restaurants and a charming downtown area.

But if the town is interested in dismissing visitors with money in their pockets, Tactic 1 would be to send 'em to Buena Vista Inn. I can't recall meeting anyone in the service industry as rude, crude and socially unacceptable as Owner.

My in-laws booked two rooms there during our weekend celebrating Niece's first birthday. After they spent one night, the moldy smell was a little too much. While cancellation policies are understandable to prevent lost income, it would have been the Kosher thing to let them out of the second night, given the reason. 

If it's just not possible to do that, fine. I repeat, that's fine. But the attitude and carrying on copped by the owner were almost comical. Almost.

She smugly lectured us about how many people were pounding down the doors to book a room for the weekend, and how she had to turn them down because all rooms were taken. "You're asking me to take money out of my own pocket so you can put money in your pocket. Do you know what this does to me?"  she went on.

Taking it a step further, as Owner was charging each credit card for the full amount, allowing one person to sign for all, she three times mentioned how much we had "changed her day."

"Well, this just never happens. In the last 11 years I've only had 3 people request a cancellation of their reservation. This has just changed my entire day."

Oh, I'm so sure.

Finally, after hearing it for the third time, I said, "In what way has this changed your day? You're still charging them the same as you would have if they didn't make this request...You're not losing a dime."

Owner: "Well, it must be so nice not to have any stress in your life."
Gropius: "Oh I have plenty of stress in my life. I just choose to deal with it in a different way."
Owner: "Well aren't you special?"

At this point, things went downhill. Names were exchanged. Owner said that she would only share where one member of our party could obtain a nebulizer for her son if "the other girls are controlled and are made not to say things about me all over town since I'm held in such high esteem."

Right.  It would seem that this situation has repeated itself many times. With that, I was pretty sure that blogging would be a well-deserved reward for the behavior.

After getting to my parents' house, we called the inn innocently to ask if rooms were available.  Oh yes, there were three. I checked out Trip Advisor, and we weren't the first to call out Owners for rudeness.

Bottom line: It's her right to be excessively rude and dishonest to customers. And it's my right to share the experience. You never know what's going on in someone's life. I don't know what her life is like behind the attitude. Nor does she know what her customers might have on their shoulders. It's hard to guess about anyone, so being a nice human being usually works out just fine.