'We paid $2000 for a weekend hotel stay and were told we weren't allowed to laugh'

"We were in shock," the angry Melbourne mum says. "We thought they were joking. Then they offered us a 'laughing and talking room'. It was so rude."

When Vanessa checked into the Grand Hyatt Melbourne for a luxury weekend away, she couldn’t have been more excited.

The Melbourne mum was treated to the indulgence by her friends, Kathy and Sue, as well as mum, Francesca, who all joined her for the $2,000 two-night stay as a surprise for her 41st birthday.

But within hours of dropping their bags in their two rooms, the four women unexpectedly felt very unwelcome in the five-star hotel.

“We were talking and having a little laugh, like regular women would do when you’re having a light drink,” Sue, 56, tells Kidspot of the strange occurrence around 9pm on July 21 in the hotel’s Grand Club Lounge.

“I noticed that the staff were speaking to someone on their laptop on the other side of the room, and one of them came over to us and said to ‘keep it down’. And we were thinking, ‘Keep down what?’."

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Kathy, Vanessa and Sue were told they couldn't laugh at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Melbourne. Picture: Supplied

"We actually thought he was joking"

Vanessa says her group went on as they were, talking at a ‘normal, respectable’ level as they would in a restaurant. But they were interrupted once more.

“Another staff member came over and asked us again to ‘keep it down’ and to ‘stop laughing’,” the mum-of-three remembers incredulously.

“We actually thought he was joking. We were in shock. We had no idea what was going on, then the guy on the laptop walked past us and said, ‘bloody women’. That’s when we left. It was rude, awkward and uncomfortable.”

The following evening, at around 6pm, the group ventured back into the Grand Club Lounge for the complimentary drinks and canapes that was included in their room package.

“Within 10 minutes, they came to us and said, ‘You’re being too loud’,” Vanessa says.

“We didn’t even have any alcohol - we were drinking tea. Our friend cracked it and said, ‘This is ridiculous’. Even the table next to us looked shocked and said, ‘What are you girls doing that’s so wrong?’”

The group immediately went back to Kathy and Sue’s room.

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The Grand Hyatt Hotel said they were asked to be quiet due to a noise complaint. Picture: Supplied

"They said there had been a noise complaint from next door"

But no sooner were they sipping the tea and coffee they’d ordered just before 10pm that a staff member knocked on the door - despite a ‘do not disturb’ sign being on.

“They said there had been a noise complaint about us from the room next door and that we needed to keep it down,” Vanessa recalls.

“When we complained, they actually offered to put us in a ‘laughing and talking room’ for a few hours. It was so bizarre. We didn’t have any music or the TV on, there was no alcohol being consumed. We were just relaxing in our own room. If they had an issue, they should have called the room, not knocked on our door since we had the sign out.”

The next morning at check out, not only was the group’s request for a room refund denied, they were in fact charged an additional $400 for Grand Club Lounge access for two extra guests.

“They said they checked security footage that we entered with two extra people, but we literally met these people in the lift and they just walked in at the same time,” Vanessa asserts.

“They were not in our group at all, yet we were charged for them. We asked how we could prove that they weren’t our guests but there were no options. The ordeal put a whole downer on the weekend. We couldn’t believe it.”

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"That was our first time at that hotel, and we'll never go back"

After her official complaints to the Grand Hyatt Melbourne were met with an offer of a $500 partial refund, Vanessa has since requested a full refund of $2400 through the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. She is not requesting any refund of the further $1000 the group spent on a high tea and other food and beverages for all four women.

“I’ve stayed at five star hotels around Melbourne four or five times a year and I’ve never been treated like this,” Vanessa says.

“We have been unfairly overcharged and what we paid for, we didn’t get. That was our first time at that hotel and we’ll never go back.”

The Grand Hyatt Melbourne has been contacted by Kidspot and a hotel spokesman said: “The comfort and satisfaction of all our guests is of the utmost importance to us. Therefore when other guests alerted us to noise complaints on two separate occasions, our team politely addressed this with [Vanessa] and her party. This increase in volume occurred both in the Grand Club Lounge and later in their room.”

“The Grand Club Lounge charges that were applied for the access of two additional people were based on our discussions with the party that night. We have been in touch directly with the guest and explained our position in these matters.”

Originally published as 'We paid $2000 for a weekend hotel stay and were told we weren't allowed to laugh'