The Palms Cliff House Inn

Palms Cliff House: Home of the least compassionate

It looked to be a wonderful facility based on the online reviews. Because was needed to cancel our honeymoon due to a medical emergency, we were unable to visit the hotel, and further elaborate.

When faced with impossibly tough circumstances, human decency usually triumphs. But, the Palms Cliff house took 100% our money and offered us no compassion when we faced our toughest times. It was the night before our wedding. A typically joyous time. We notified the Palms Cliff House 7 days in advance that we needed to cancel our honeymoon. My wife's grandfather was undergoing emergency surgery and had a 50/50 chance of survival. We provided official medical documentation to both hotels.com and Palms Cliff House. We acknowledged that their standard rate is non-refundable and asked if they could help us out. We had already paid $450 for our stay. Could they help us apply that credit towards our rescheduled honeymoon in a few weeks? Every other hotel, airline, and rental facility that we worked with on the Big Island was amazingly compassionate. As if the trauma of canceling your honeymoon on the evening of your wedding wasn't bad enough, Palms Cliff House would not budge an inch. They insisted, after multiple phone calls to both Hotels.com and Palms Cliff House management, they would not offer us ANY sympathy. First they blamed Hotels.com and said that we needed to call them and work with them. Hotels.com insists that the managers of the Palms Cliff House can change their refund or change policy on a case by case basis, and when we called Hotels.com, they would then call Palms Cliff House and be told "nope, no refunds for them". When I finally got ahold of the Palms Cliff House management I found no sympathy or customer service. Changing the dates for our stay? Allowing us to use the amount we had pre-paid towards a future date? A partial refund, even if only a 10% refund? Nothing. I'm sure it would have been an amazing place to stay. Unless you value compassion and understanding in your hotel stays.