I had a reservation and was supposed to stay for three days at the Pullman Riga Old Town hotel in Riga, Latvia and had a really terrible and awful time, a horrible stay that I ultimately had to cut short in due to severe bug infestation and the fact that I was severely bitten by bugs leaving horrible huge boils on all extremities, even in my face (!!!).
Being a frequent traveler to Riga, Latvia and an Accor ALL Gold member as well as a Accor S.A shareholder, I have stayed multiple times at all the other Accor hotels in town, but never before had I tried the Pullman supposedly 5-star hotel, but this time I decided to treat myself, as it happened to be a special business occasion to celebrate during my stay, and I therefore booked and pre-paid for three nights at the supposed 5-star Pullman Riga Old Town hotel.
I arrived shortly after 9 pm in the evening and the lobby was being completely abandoned and there was only one receptionist there in the reception and a bartender in the bar. The receptionist must have had his absolute first day on the job, as he virtually didn't know what to do and had to re-do the check in several times. I was supposed to be awarded an upgrade to the next available room category as per Accor ALL Gold member protocol, but the receptionist didn't know how to do it, or how the protocol is working. I was also not recognised as an Accor ALL Gold Member initially, despite me showing my Gold membership card immediately upon check-in, and I was not given a welcome drink voucher and had to ask for it repeatedly.
Despite the check in was in a weekend evening off-season with low occupancy, my previously request for a room on a high floor with a view to the street could not be accommodated, and the receptionist weirdly, without me asking, checked me in and issued key-cards to three different rooms and virtually told me quote that this and that room was a sh*t room, and over all the check-in experience was totally not up to protocol and quite inappropriate as well.
After that initial experience I wanted to immediately have dinner, as I had arrived after a very long journey and long day at work and hadn't eaten for the whole day, but despite this is supposed to be a 5-star hotel and according to International standard thereby have a round the clock restaurant or other dining solutions, I was simply informed that the restaurant was closed, which totally makes this the first Pullman 5-star hotel that doesn't offer any eating possibilities after 9 pm in the evening. After a lot of unnecessary and tiring argumentation, as I already at this stage felt that I wanted to leave and just have a refund, I was offered a suite upgrade and 25 % discount and ultimately decided to stay and had to order take-out pizza delivery from an external restaurant instead, which I find ridiculous and quite unacceptable treatment from a 5-star hotel.
The suite upgrade seemed initially really nice, but it was sadly a room that was very dated and that was very worn and torned with a lot of scratches and torns. The bathroom faucets were not completely clean and the shower was broken which made the water floating out literally over 1 meter all over the bathroom floor - see pictures - and there was also a small smell of fungi with spots of fungi on the shower wall as well. The bathroom was otherwise seemingly quite nice with a standing-free huge bath tub and a complete wall-mounted set of exclusive C.O Bigelow brand toiletries.
The room was also equipped with a BOSE brand wireless BlueTooth speaker, a Pellini brand coffee capsule machine and an old, semi-large floor-mounted Samsung brand flat screen Smart-TV, which was supposed to be equipped with connectivity and streaming/casting possibilities, but this function was disabled/non-functional - se pictures - and despite multiple contacts with the reception desk, this could not be activated, which was a huge disappointment.
Further more this hotel had the Accor ALL-App KeyCard-function, which I always make sure to use whenever it is available in the different Accor hotels I stay in, as I find it much more convenient than carrying around a physical key card, but despite the key card activated in my Accor ALL-app and connected to the door, it only kept on flashing blue on the door light and ultimately gave a pop-up error message "A technical error has occurred 10025 ErrorCode" - se pictures - and I had to go up and down the elevator to between the room and the reception four times and the receptionist de-activated and re-activated the App-key multiple times, but it ultimately never resolved and functioned, which is also ridiculous for a supposedly 5-star Pullman brand hotel. And I even had to actively ask for a physical key card to get in to my room again, wasn't even offered it, seems like a lot of the very young and unexperienced staff is very new and don't know the basic functions and proper customer service skills required and that is to be expected as a guest at a 5-star hotel.
The WiFi was not the standard Accor portal but some local solution with WPA password login, that regrettably wasn't consistent and stable in signal throughout the whole room, for example when laying in bed I had to to disconnect and use my expensive personal 5G mobile data roaming instead of the hotel WiFi because of the bad connection, also my company computer indicated that the simple WPA WiFi solution was very unsafe and it's quite astounding that a supposed 5-star hotel that cater for business travellers who like myself most likely have a business laptop and at some point probably will have to use their company computer during their stay and then, as this hotel deviates from the standard Accor WiFi Portal and Internet connectivity and security protocol, therefore compromise the guests and the guests company data at risk and jeopardise it and effectively caused me multiple data security breach strikes in my companys internal security protocol, which really is not good, and real bad for a 5-star hotel as well.
I was given a welcome gift which was two additional complimentary 33 cl Mangaļi brand mineral water and two mini-bottles of Rīgas Melnais balzams, Riga Black Balsam herbal spirits 45 % vol. which was a nice gesture.
The breakfast was served in a very small breakfast room that was completely filled when I got there at around 8 am so I was seated in a separate meeting room/chambree separée-kind of room, but it had broken chairs and the table was all dirty.
The breakfast was quite basic for a 5-star hotel and compared to other Pullman hotels actually not very good. There was very limited choices but the multiple scrambled eggs, fried eggs and the supposedly local Latvian cuisine cottage cheese-balls was a nice feature, but the breakfast buffet didn't even had carbonated water, like even the most basic Budget Ibis hotels have in big machines, and You had to ask for it and the staff reluctantly went and brought a small warm bottle of Mangaļi carbonated mineral water. The breakfast staff basically were very un-engaged and seemed unhappy and joyless and weren't very friendly or welcoming and just stood there and spoke in Russian and even played with their private mobile phones.
I had a gin & tonic drink the first night right before I went to bed, so I guess that is the reason that I was not affected by what was to come with the bug infestation and the severe bites all over my body that I suffered during the second night - as a Gin & Tonic contains Quinine which is a mosquito repellant, but in the morning the second night when I woke up I found myself severely bitten, completely covered in multiple bites by fleas/bed bugs/mosquitos, that were all over my body, on my feet, my legs, my hands, arms, torso, neck, even in my face, and they were huge boils that both hurt and itched very, very bad! I immediately got up and there were some kind of flea or mosquito actively biting me that I managed to kill which left a huge bloody stain on the bedding - se pictures - then I found additional ones in the bathroom roof and flying around in the bathroom as well as on the walls in the actual room and by the bed. I then found out the source from where the bug infestation most likely came from which was that the bathroom window was broken and didn't shut proper and that it was from there that the fleas/mosquitos/bugs came in from - see pictures.
I immediately gathered all my belongings and went straight down to the reception in shock mode and showed all the pictures of the bugs, the bites and the receptionists basically didn't seem to care and didn't even offer an apology or take the whole situation seriously or anything. I demanded to speak to the manager, and it turned out that there is also no Duty Manager present on duty in this supposed 5-star hotel at any times and that there is only a person that the receptionists are contacting via some kind of chat application in their computer. I wasn't given any opportunity or asked if I needed medical attention or given any apologies or excuses or anything. They just said that they were going to give me another room, but I insisted, so I was just asked to sit down and waited for about 30 minutes and was then given a full refund of the total amount that I had paid for the whole stay, which of course I took, and then left the premises promptly and then I just stood there out on the streets of Riga completely covered in bites and boils that hurt very bad and I was supposed to be at work already and had paid 400 EUR that I was going to receive a refund of, but since it would take 3-7 bank days for the transaction to clear, I was also basically out of money as well too.
I ended up missing a whole day from work because of this and suffered a severe allergic reaction because of the bites. Noteworthy is that the Baltic Sea Region nations of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia have significantly much more potent and much more infectious mosquitos, tics and fleas carrying a much more potent variant of bacterial encephalitis - TBE - which can have severe health consequences - there are even warning signs posted in parks and forest areas all around Riga and Latvia of the risks of contracting this, so I also had to seek medical attention because of this. I also had to make sure to have all my belongings sanitised and washed properly at a hearty cost because of the risk of the bug infestation being carried with me as it very well could be in my bag with my belongings.
Ultimately this was a nightmare stay in the Pullman Riga Old Town hotel which I am so very very sad and disappointed from. I can't believe how this could be advertised as a 5-star hotel, as it clearly is not. That the facilities were so incredibly run down, how so much things was broken and non-functional, the attitude apathy and complete indifference of multiple staff members who clearly didn't care a bit and had zero customer service skills is really so sad.
I paid a good amount of money for what was supposed to be a 5-star exclusive experience and among the best top hotels in Riga, but ended up in a total disaster with severe allergic reaction, completely covered in bug bites and boils, possible scarring, missing a day from work, needed to seek medical attention, having multiple extra expenses for that and the sanitation of my clothing and all my belongings and the ultimate risk of having contracted the dreaded very real - Google it - Baltic Sea Region highly infectious and very potent bacterial encephalitis TBE as well.
This is almost incomprehensible how bad this situation was taken cared of - or rather the lack of proper actions taken. I mean, not even asking the guest if medical attention is necessary or needed or offering any apology or anything, or an appropriate follow-up afterwards or anything, it's beyond bad.
I would advise everyone to stay far away from this hotel, it's a health hazard and certainly not up to proper Pullman and Accor standards and very questionable if this is barely a 4-star hotel. Very disappointing and ultimately ruined my whole stay in Riga and Latvia and I lost a lot of money because of this, I am not even angry, I am just so terrified, sad and worried and ultimately utterly disappointed.
