Hotwire cancels hotel rooms of Maritime youth basketball team
17 rooms were booked and paid for at the Crowne Plaza in New Jersey
Young basketball players and their parents who travelled from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to New Jersey to participate in a tournament this long weekend are scrambling to find hotel rooms after discovering the online booking site Hotwire cancelled their reservations.
The We Will Win Youth Association used Hotwire in August to book 17 hotel rooms at the Crowne Plaza.
The children are participating in the Under Armour Hoop Group Jam Fest, which has also attracted teams from several northeastern U.S. states.
Stranded in New Jersey
When they arrived Friday night, front desk staff at the hotel told them their rooms were cancelled.
"They just said the rooms were cancelled and that Hotwire should have called and let me know and placed us somewhere else," said Colter Simmonds, founder and director of the We Will Win Foundation.
Simmonds is part of the group that's stranded.
More than 40 players, ranging in age from 12 to 15, are travelling from the Halifax-area and Windsor, N.S., and Moncton, N.B. They fundraised $5,000 to go on the trip.
There was no problem with the bookings for 23 rooms at the Days Inn, but it was a different story at the Crowne Plaza.
Five hours in the lobby
When the group arrived at the hotel, they were planning to hit the swimming pool and relax before the tournament. Instead, the players spent five hours sitting on the floor of the Crowne Plaza lobby.
Simmonds says eventually the hotel found rooms for them at another hotel — but by then it was 1 a.m.
The team is still looking for a place to stay Saturday night.
"[The Crowne Plaza] were the ones who did what they could to try and accommodate us and try to help us out. They stayed on the phone for four hours with Hotwire," said Simmonds.
He blames Hotwire for the situation.
"Those are the people we paid our money to and if there was a reason for them changing the rooms or cancelling the rooms, none of that was communicated to us. I don't think it's anybody else's fault but theirs because they got our money," said Simmonds.
Simmonds says the whole ordeal has been tough on the team, but they managed to pull off their first win of the weekend tournament.
CBC News has requested comment multiple times from Hotwire, but has yet to receive a response.