GOING FOR THE QUINTUPLE

Posted on 09/13/2016

How many times do you go to the front desk of a hotel lobby with an issue before you throw in the swan-shaped towel? I gave it five tries recently and determined that was my limit, having made an assumption that the hotel management did not care about my comfort or satisfaction. But as much as it pains me to use this expression, “I was wrong.”

It was one of those summer days with temperature in the low thirties but feeling like the high thirties with the humidity index. We checked into our hotel in Quebec at 6:30 pm to find a stifling hot room, with no apparent air conditioning. I had a shower and when I came out, realized that I could hear the man in the adjoining room in a telephone conversation. Hmm, he was calm and soft-spoken, that shouldn’t be a problem.
Having had no success with turning on the air conditioning unit we went down to the front desk to ask (a different person) for someone up to look at our A/C while we went out for dinner.
We returned to a sauna at 10:30, whereupon I went back downstairs; and explained to yet a different associate that we had expected our air conditioner to be fixed. The fellow offered to send him back, but it was late and we had a long drive in the morning, so he gave us a different room. I was skeptical so I went to the new room first to check it out before moving our stuff.
The keys didn’t work. I went back to the front desk and a different desk clerk programmed a new set of keys; both of which did not work.
Back I went to the lobby, where the 11:00 pm shift change left one person manning the front desk and no manager on duty. I repeated my dilemma and handed the woman behind the desk the new set of keys, telling her I would stick with the original room that I had already settled in.
To her credit the woman wanted to fix things, but she called a security guard, with emphatic instructions to walk me up to my room and make sure I got in safely.
That kind of ticked me off.
I wasn’t afraid to go to my room. The keys to my original room (which I still had on me) worked perfectly. The solution I was seeking was not an escort but a room with air conditioning.
We went to bed, but were awakened at 6:30 am to screaming from a baby in the adjoining room. It was 90 minutes before the baby calmed down, but much longer for me.
We gave up. We packed up our stuff and went down to checkout.
Ines was on the morning shift. She kindly asked if everything was to our satisfaction. No, it wasn’t, I told her. I shared our experience with her and the futility of getting a good night’s sleep before a full day of driving that we had ahead of us.
Ines said that our experience was unacceptable and that the hotel manager should be informed, to which I agreed and told her I would put everything in a letter to him. However she excused herself and returned with the manager’s permission to comp our night.
Apparently the manager gave Ines the authority to either credit us with the previous night or a future visit. She wisely decided that there would not be a future visit so opted to cancel our bill.
I was gobsmacked and I told Ines that. I had made the assumption that the actions of the staff reflected indifference by management. She assured me that the hotel manager cared indeed.
She asked if I would still put the details of our hotel experience in writing for the manager. “Try and stop me,” I said and I told her that I wrote for Travel Industry Today.
She smiled and said, “I’m glad I didn’t know that first.”
“Yeah” I said, “me too.”