It has happened to all of us. You are super excited about a trip. You think you have booked a nice place and then you check in: and the reality is enough to ruin your weekend there (and even the one after you leave).
The first hints come from the check-in process and the rest come from the customer-service experience and the room. Let’s start with your arrival:
1) The front desk only has one person on staff. So, you wait, and wait, on line behind a dozen people as the speed of your check-in drags on. That same person remains on the desk all night and gets busier and crankier than you ever imagined.
2) You look around for a glass of water, and either the hotel hasn’t had time to put citrus or lemons in it, or and there are no plastic glasses left.
3) No one on staff has any idea where any of the major sites, or local transit might be located.
4) The one person on the desk completely compromises your safety, and well-being, as a woman traveling alone, by reading your room number aloud in front of all the questionable people in the lobby. For the uninitiated you show the guest the key card and “say this is your room number,” while pointing to it with your finger.
Next let’s go to the room: many things can continue to go wrong here.
5) One or both of your keys don’t work. You are afraid of the line at the desk, there is no phone in the hallway and you don’t want to leave the suitcase outside the door (as there was no bellhop to help you with it and your back is sore from dragging it up a number of steps).
6) Once you get a working key you see that the hotel has no mini bar or even a fridge for you to store your yogurt for breakfast.
7) The coffee machine doesn’t work, is dirty and there are no coffee cartridges in it. Besides that, many of us got the memo that stewardesses wash their stockings in the coffee machine so we avoid them anyway.
8) The carpet is oddly patterned, and dirty, with lots of pet hair on it.
9) The toilet seat is crooked, leaving you sitting on the bowl.
10) The windows don’t open, making you feel like a psych patient, and exposing you to extreme heat and cold via the hotel’s thermostat (and at the mercy of your allergies with all the pet hair in the room).
11) There is no shampoo or conditioner, because of course you brought your own in proper TSA-approved bottles that didn’t explode in your suitcase.
12) The in-room phone doesn’t ring the desk downstairs, or they simply don’t answer it. The only way you can get through to them is via your cell (or walking downstairs).
13) There are two small towels, and no robes, and the staff told you they won’t clean your room again no matter how long you stay.
14) They don’t serve breakfast, or know anyone in the area who might deliver it, because they don’t care how tough your morning might be.
15) They lock you out of your room at 11:01am—without asking you when you need to check out in advance—when you are trying to retrieve your bags to head to your next destination.
When you check out:
16) No one says goodbye or even bothers to look at you when you leave the hotel.
17) They stall your departure by overcharging you by $1,000s you haven’t spent (which is particularly odd as they don’t have a restaurant).
18) They refuse to bill your client, who is paying for your room via credit card, and insist that you pay.
19) They have no idea how to call a cab to the airport so have to call one yourself.
Good riddance bad hotel! Sadly, you might be staying in one like it again next week. Does anyone want to wager a guess at which well-known hotel did such a bad job with my stay last week in Seattle?
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