I am extremely disappointed in how our existing reservations have been handled following the change from Heron House Court to The Independent Inn.
Our reservations were made last spring for a November trip involving seven couples meeting in Key West, with some traveling from as far away as the West Coast. Coordinating a trip like this takes a great deal of advance planning, which is exactly why we booked our rooms so far ahead.
On September 11, everyone in our group except two couples received notice that our reservations had been cancelled.
One member of our group contacted the hotel and was told that **“Heron House Court was not authorized to sell rooms for stays beyond July 1, 2026.”**
If that is the case, it makes the delay in notifying us even more difficult to understand.
The property changed ownership in June. If reservations for stays after July 1 were not authorized, why were guests holding those reservations not contacted immediately? Why did we have to wait until September — more than two months after that July 1 date and only two months before our trip — to learn that our confirmed reservations would not be honored?
Had we been notified in June or July, we would have had a reasonable opportunity to find another small inn that could accommodate our entire group. Instead, we are now scrambling to find multiple rooms in Key West for November 12–15, while trying to keep seven couples together and stay somewhere comparable to what we originally booked.
Anyone familiar with Key West knows how difficult that is this close to the travel dates.
Making the situation even more confusing, two couples in our group apparently still have their reservations while the other five couples had theirs cancelled.
I understand that properties are sold and new owners may make changes. What I do not understand — and what I find completely unacceptable — is knowing there is a problem with existing reservations and waiting months to notify the guests affected by it.
We did exactly what travelers are supposed to do. We planned ahead. We coordinated seven couples' schedules. We booked early. We received confirmed reservations and reasonably expected those reservations to be honored.
If The Independent Inn's position is that these reservations should never have been sold in the first place, then the guests holding them should have been notified as soon as the new ownership became aware of the problem — not months later when finding comparable accommodations for an entire group has become nearly impossible.
That is the part of this experience I find most disappointing.
