{Spring Break Update} Dining at Massanutten

Two weeks ago, I blogged about the recent dining experience that I had on my spring break vacation. After blogging about this experience my mom posted my post to Massanutten's facebook page and they responded very quickly to my complaint. Though I was upset about the situation I never thought to go complain about it to the resort. I have become an advocate for myself, but when it comes to that kind of stuff, I just blow it off. However, my mom has the attitude: they should know! 

The resort asked that I call their head of food and beverage manager, Mark Litz. With everything that went on the past week, I delayed the conversation, but was very happy that I followed up and spoke to the manager. He was so apologetic and was quite honestly shocked by the response I got. However, he is taking actions so this does not happen to other guests. 

It turns out that I talked to the wrong person. After speaking with Mark, I learned the resort is making great efforts to serve the food allergy and gluten-free community. They  have a booklet at each restaurant explaining the safe options and are aware of cross contamination issues. When I talked to Mark, I also learned Massanutten is actually in the process of redesigning their menu to see how they can make more of their options GF, since this is a growing need of many of their guests. 

He told me that everyone who works at the restaurants is aware of how the chef can accommodate their guests with dietary restrictions and encourages the chef to go out and talk to anyone with dietary restrictions. I was thrilled to hear this, and told him about my wonderful experience dining at Disney.

As soon as Mark heard I had a problem, he brought my post up in a conversation at a business meeting, and informed me that he was going to talk to the front desk staff again to inform them about how they can accommodate their guests who have dietary restrictions.  He encouraged me next time I visit the resort to call him directly or the restaurant when making dining reservations. 

Unfortunately I talked to the wrong person, which prevented me from having what sounds like what "could of been a pretty wonderful dining experience." This was  a learning and growing experience for me. I now know next time when dining on vacation it is better to talk to the restaurant staff rather then the front desk staff, and if I run into problems, I shouldn't be afraid to take my concern to the person higher up! They may not only be better able to assist me, but I found it was helpful for manager to talk to me.