Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Inspiration from fellow bloggers

There was situation on our Road Trip that I have not mentioned, until now. I was waiting to see if anything would be resolved. Now that it has come to a close, I will reveal my Hotel experience that will stay with me forever. If the front desk clerk had only known the trials of the Don Mills Diva
and Reluctant Housewife and the inspiration they gave me, she would not have crossed me.
I am a hotel snob. I admit it. We are all snobs about something, food, clothes, hotels, music, shoes, toilet paper...whatever. We all have things we like a certain way. I like nice hotels. Not outrageously overpriced ones, but nice. I like the hotels that you have to have a door key to get into the building. I don't like my room door opening to the highway.
That said, my hubby tries to accommodate me. Even though he would be happy pitching a tent somewhere. My idea of roughing it is a Motel6. We found a room at a "newly remodeled" hotel for 80 dollars. Indoor pool, game room, complimentary breakfast of biscuits, sausage and eggs included. Sounds good right? We checked in, paid for two nights adn went off to visit friends and family.
About 10:20pm I realized that the pool crowd had been properly herded to their rooms but the gameroom was full of unsupervised children. They were yelling, playing video games, banging the gym equipment around...ugh, we were soooooo tired! I called the front desk and the girl, Jamie, told me she would be right up. 15 minutes later I am seriously irritated. I called again. Jamie informed me that she had to attend to the customers checking in. She also told me, "it doesn't help that you keep calling." Okay, so that was tacky. I inform her that we will be getting our money back for the second night and going somewhere else because she was rude. Jamie's rude retort,"You can't get your money back. There is always noise at a hotel. You will not get your money back" and hung up! HUNG UP ON ME. By midnight I am so furious, yes the kids are still in the gameroom which is less than 6 feet from us. It is midnight, let's forget about the hotel staff and the fact the game room closes at 10pm, where are these parents? There were 6-7 kids ranging in ages from 7-10 yelling and banging around.
There were no adults, no babysitter types hanging about. I would not let my child go off to a gameroom in a hotel. That's just me. We have traveled all day, spent the evening house hopping from family members to friends. The next day was so full we had a schedule to fit everyone in, plus the baby shower.
I called her back and gave her a piece of mind. I gave her a reason to hangup on me. Furthermore, we did check out the next morning (after 4 hours of sleep), we did get our money back on the second night that we did not stay there. You can't charge someone for a room they don't use! People check out early all the time... I spoke to the manager and was apologized to profusely. (blah,blah,blah) Received a free night stay certificate which will go to my brother because he can sleep through anything and he visits Amarillo too. (I will never use that hotel again, free or not) And I learned a very important lesson, if there is a pool, gameroom, or anything with bright lights that attracts children and/or teenagers in a hotel, I will ask to be put on the opposite end.
Where did we go? Motel6. I gave in to hubby. I told him we had a bad night in a nice hotel, it cannot be worse at the Motel6. And you know what, we slept like babies for 8 hours. Go figure. This hotel snob is going to do some reevaluating.

7 comments:

Sass said...

Good for you. I was given a room once in a Manchester hotel that only had a window in the ceiling.

Even though It was midnight and I was exhausted I still insisted on being moved. There was no way I was staying in a cell. They thought I was being unreasonable, which just confirmed to me that the place was run by nutters.

SaraLynn said...

a window in the ceiling?!
I would have gone bananas! What about the helicopters going by overhead?

artisbliss said...

Wow. My blood would have been boiling! I'm glad you stuck to it and got your money back, etc. But how absolutely infuriating for you.

Melanie said...

Wow. I have had some bad experiences at some "nice" hotels too. But I've never had anyone so rude as you had to deal with. WOW!

SaraLynn said...

I know! But it is over and I am a reformed hotel snob...hehehehe

Anonymous said...

Wow, good for you for standing up for yourself.

Did those gamesroom kids ever go back to their rooms? And you're right - where were their parents?

SaraLynn said...

I have no idea when they finally left. We turned on the fan for background noise and finally passed out from exhaustion