Woodlands Camper & RV Rental

In July of 2008 I flew from Seattle Washington to Houston Texas with a plan to take my elderly parents on a road trip across portions of Texas and Louisiana. My father is disabled and my mother is a lung cancer patient, so in order to ensure that they enjoyed this opportunity to get out of the house, it was imperative that a road trip provided the normality of home. That being the case, I did an exhaustive search for a motor home rental company in Houston that could guarantee me the rental of a motor home that had on-road satellite tv reception. Woodlands Camper and RV Rental company promised me that they could deliver on my indicated prerequisites.

Upon receipt of the motor home on July 18th, we found the coach to be infested with ants, and we found that the satellite tv did not work. We sat for 3 hours as they tinkered with the satellite and sprayed the ants in the coach. When we left their location on the July 18th, the satellite was working......for 5 minutes! By the time that I arrived at my parents house the satellite was still not working and a shelf in the rear area of the coach simply fell to the floor. I called Woodlands and told them of this and noted that I would be back in the next morning for remedy.

On the Morning of the July 19th I spent 2.5 hours allowing them to fix the fallen shelf and to tinker with the satellite again (note: we are now 1 day late in departing for our trip). Again the Satellite was set to show a picture.....until we departed. Again we lost the signal and could not recover it. In spite of this being "THE" key criteria for my renting the vehicle we had no satellite service.

Upon arrival at our camp site in San Antonio we opened the storage area and gathered our luggage. Upon opening our luggage we found that our clothes were infested with ants and bugs. We had to pull out each piece of clothing and shake them off, and spray the luggage storage area. After the first night of sleeping in the motor home, my entire family was covered with bug bites...most of us spent the entire night scratching. This went on for two nights. After this, and in spite of the fact that we spent thousands of dollars for the rental of a motor home, I could not subject my elderly parents to more misery. The balance of our trip cost me $1,500 in unplanned hotel expense for my parents, and my wife and children and I. I also experienced several instances of an engine warning light coming on, and a water leak into the cabin from the roof of the vehicle when it rained.

Upon returning the vehicle to Woodlands Camper & RV rental and telling them of this very disappointing experience, I was challenged to show them the bugs that we killed! I was then told that the satellite did work, in spite of the fact that I have logged calls with DirecTV wherein they indicated that the RV satellite dish was malfunctioning. I even challenged Woodlands to make the satellite work at the time that I returned it, and they couldn't.

My expectation was that they would charge me for no more than 1/2 of the rental rate......and to my surprise they had the audacity to charge me for the full amount, less $98....including a charge for lost day at the beginning of my rental that was due to their vehicles mechanical problems.

I have rented motor homes on several occasions before, and have never had any problems. This experience with Woodlands was the horrible than I or my family could have ever imagined, primarily due to the fact that Woodlands refused to exhibit a desire to deliver a good customer experience.