Ritz-Carlton Alerts Guests to Legionnaires’ Disease Risk—Doesn’t Offer Refunds Or Relocation

A guest at The Ritz-Carlton, Bachelor Gulch posted a notice they say they received from the hotel, saying that the property apparently had presumptive Legionnaire’s Disease and that they were testing the building water systems. They closed the hot tubs.

And they suggested guests get more information about risks. In this notice, they did not offer any guidance to guests about use of showers, drinking water from sinks, or any flexibility for those who may want to be relocated.

Legionnaires’ notice at hotel – first time for this! Would you leave?
by
u/dsf_oc in
marriott

Legionnaires’ disease is a severe pneumonia that often leads to hospitalization. The bacteria can also cause Pontiac fever which is a flu-like illness without pneumonia.

• People usually get it breathing in misted water containing Legionella from showers, hot tubs, fountains, and plumbing.
  
• It can also transmit from swalling water ‘down the wrong pipe’ into the lungs.<
• Those 50 years and older, current and former smokers, immunosuppressed, and those with cancer, diabetes, kidney or liver disease are at especially high risk.
  
• It has a ~10% overall case fatality rate

I’m flagging this notice because it’s appalling to me that any hotel would hand out this notice, written this way.

Credit: Ritz-Carlton

At very first instance of guest communication, they should be proactively offering (1) penalty-free cancellation with full refund for unused nights; (2) relocation assistance where they book and cover accommodation at another property for guests who leave; and (3) Marriott Bonvoy points, a rate adjustment or amenity credit for anyone who stays.

Not only are property amenities limited, but showering on property seems ill-advised! And showers are a basic part of the value proposition of a hotel room! Nonetheless, hotels – even that purport to take care of guests – view their guests as due nothing in similar circumstances.

Two years ago I wrote about problems with Legionnaires’ Disease in the water system at Marriott’s Renaissance Newark airport. The hotel remained open – telling guests not to shower – and refusing refunds to guests who didn’t want to stay there.

They continued taking bookings, enforcing their cancellation policy. And Marriott customer service told complaining guests that they needed to be understanding of what the hotel was going through facing a “difficult challenge” and that these are “extenuating circumstances.”

Early in the pandemic, one employee lived all alone at the W Barcelona in order to open all the water taps every five days to guard against Legionnaires’. He lived himself on the 24th floor, cooked his meals alone in the huge hotel kitchen, and washed his socks in the hotel’s industrial washer.