Leaving the Light On.....Hotel Stories
Aug 14 '07
The Bottom Line Anything and everything can and does happen within the walls of a hotel. On your next hotel visit, keep your eyes and ears open.
A few tales of adventures in the hotel business. It really does get ridiculous at times.
Just yesterday, a guest from China came to the desk to ask whether he could extend his stay beyond our check-out time on 12:00. Naturally, I started to check and inquired about his flight. He quickly said 9:00, and I was about to advise him that we might be able to extend his room until 3:00 PM. Then he asked me why it was necessary for guests to check out at midnight.
Going Postal
A guest from the Sudan came to ask me why it was necessary to pay additional money for postage after buying a stamp. Not quite understanding his query, I inquired further. He led me outside the door to the paper box. "I bought my stamp, and still had to spend money to mail the letter!" he said indignantly. I put my own money in the paper box and found his letter on top of a stack of newspapers- the Washington Post.
Cooking Class
One of my maintenance people reported going to a guest's room in response to a fire bell. The gentleman from Chad was sitting calmly, reading a newspaper in spite of the black smoke which was quickly filling the room. Our engineer quickly found the problem, a whole chicken resting over a full flame on the gas stove. The guest's response? "Well, I don't see the problem! This is how we cook chicken at home!"
The Volga on the Potomac
One fine afternoon, I was venturing upstairs to check on the swimming pool on the 11th floor. On my way, I encountered a guest from Russia in the elevator. He was wearing nothing but his underwear. After my inquiry, he still seemed puzzled. "This is how we swim in the Volga River." I didn't know our pool resembled the Volga, but this was surely something I hadn't yet encountered.
The Joy of Dishwashers
One evening the engineer and I were summoned to a room because of a leak. After checking the room in question, we naturally went up one floor to determine where the leak originated. Receiving no response at the door of 805, we burst in to an advancing tide of soap suds. It looked like something out of I Love Lucy. The guest was on the telephone in her bedroom, completely oblivious to the havoc in the rest of her suite. It turned out that she had used liquid dish soap instead of the crystals provided for the dishwasher.
Poo Poo Platter?
The Executive Housekeeper was in fits. We were calling the Embassy of a country which shall remain nameless. Our diplomatic guest had left more than a mess for the housekeepers to clean that morning. The housekeeper found a pile of....excrement on the carpet in the bedroom. Our fine guest sheepishly claimed it was an "accident", but why couldn't he have made the extra two steps to the bathroom? Are we going to have to turn down the beds with Depends now?
Arf, She Said
One evening, a family arrived and checked in at our front desk. They seemed to have lots of luggage, but didn't appear too interested in the assistance of a bellman. in fact, they told the bellman that they'd happily take the cart up to the room themselves. When they got to the elevator, one of their suitcases began to bark. After checking to see how things were in their room, I saw that they had put their pet poodle in the bathroom, thinking we might not find her. I had to tell them that their dog had already let us know she was here. We soon found them another hotel which allowed pets. I assume they didn't bring the dog there in the suitcase!
Things Are Just Going Swimmingly
At a hotel where I worked previously, we were astonished to see a gentleman emerge from the elevator. Standing in the rather formal lobby, he wore a bathing suit, swimming goggles and matching fins. "Hey, where's the pool?" he asked. We almost didn't have the heart to tell him that our hotel had no pool.
Functional
A guest from a West African country was creating a fracas at the desk one morning. "What is THIS on my bill? $50.00?" Well sir, you did have a guest for five nights. As the form indicates. we charge $10.00 per night per guest. "Guest! Guest?? I am a MAN! I must FUNCTION!" We told him that "function fees" are normally much higher in the United States.
Unusual Amenities?
Though we never deliberately give out an occupied room, there have been times when this has occurred. Usually, the guests are a bit flustered about the experience, but one young lady had a different take on the situation entirely. She went upstairs with her room key, only to return to the desk a short while later. "I'd like a room without a man, please."
Bye Bye Bed
Before our renovation, we had studio rooms with Murphy beds which folded neatly into a sofa of sorts. During the day, of course, the housekeepers would return the bed to its sofa-like appearance. Many guests would return to their rooms to find their beds "gone." It would generally take a little bit of explanation to convince them that their beds had been there all along.
We ARE A Full Service Hotel....
A caller from overseas recently asked "Do you have beds in your rooms? I just want to make sure." We didn't want to ask what other hotels this caller might have run across at home.
Drip Dry
A guest from Uzbekistan recently asked about the "washer" in the kitchen. How am I supposed to get all of my clothes in there? Explaining that it was for dishes eventually cleared up the matter. Fortunately, I haven't noticed any broken dishes in our laundry room lately.
Fair Warning?
Kitchens have proven to be the most baffling area for many of our guests. Whether it's cooking a chicken for thirty minutes in the microwave oven (or attempting to anyway) or simply trying to get through the basics of cooking anything, we can count upon our guests to get things just a bit wrong. For example, I was summoned to a room last night where there had been a loud explosion. After racing to the room. we soon discovered that our guest had placed a fruit bowl on the (largest) burner on the oven. Naturally, it had exploded. The engineer and I had to spend an hour scraping up glass and whatever glop he had been attempting to cook. Far from being apologetic, the guest demanded to know why we hadn't placed a warning label on the bowl.
Two Drinks Please
One story is from a friend, who used to manage a large and prominent hotel here in Washington. A favored guest often visited with an inflatable friend. He would also invite his "friend" to the bar for drinks, making sure to order an extra drink for "her." He would sit and chat with the doll until it was time to return to his suite. As the guest was paying the rack rate (full) for a suite, there was apparently no point in denying him this strange pleasure.
These are just a few of the incidents I've run across in the hotel business. There's just no telling how many other stories are out there.
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Member: Thomas Barnes
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