Melbourne Weekend - Part 1 - The Hotel
I'm laying off the stories of Westpac and banking for a little foray into my weekend away. I went to Melbourne with Becci to catch up with Skye and her new baby, little Luke.
And so it begins. Becci leaves on Thursday night cos she's off to the Great Ocean Road and I've got to work until Friday. So I've booked the hotel in advance and handed over my credit card details as payment/guarantee. Becci arrives at the hotel and the guy at reception insists on payment for the full three nights up front. So Becci's turned up with some cash, but not enough to pay the whole hotel bill - and why should she?? And the guy at reception is a total arse - informing her that our last night would be cancelled if we couldn't pay for it there and then. But it's simple. I reserved it using a credit card - why not take the payment - that's what the guarantee is for - right? Becci could only pay two nights worth in the end and then I had to pay when I arrived the following night - what a farce. I only heard about this second hand from Becci and I was ready to ring them up and call them names - I mean hello? What's the point in accepting a reservation with a credit card, if the card isn't enough to pay for the room, or at least reserve it without it being cancelled.
Although in hindsight, perhaps it's a shame it wasn't cancelled because the room was RIGHT at the front of the hotel, right on the main road and right opposite a nightclub playing music until the small hours and then of course every drunk freak falls out of the club and starting yelling and shouting. Oh and did I mention our windows were single glazed and about as thick as a sheet of paper and the wooden frame were about as solid as yoghurt. We might as well have had our beds set up *IN* the bar. Seriously. It was ridiculous. But that wasn't the half of it.
I arrive on the friday night, after a two hour flight delay from Sydney and I talk to the receptionist. (A different one from the one who 'helped' Becci - it turns out.) Anyway, so I arrive, I tell him I have a booking. I tell him my name, and that my friend checked-in the night before. He looks like he knows vaguely what he's doing - there's a keyboard being tapped and he says to me, 'Oh yes, you're friend is in room 158. It's a triple room.' And I'm thinking, hmmmm, interesting, because I thought we had a twin room and that's what Becci told me the day before. So I ask him if that's correct and he replies that it is and that my friend already checked in with her boyfriend. So I ask him to check again because I didn't think Becci had bought her boyfriend with her and I didn't think it was a triple room. So he asks me to confirm my name - which I do and *THEN* he finds the correct booking. so he was happy to let me wander around the hotel knocking on strangers doors cos he couldn't be arsed to check the booking properly the first OR second time. And not only that, but they only have one room key per room and at gone midnight I've got to ring up Becci and ask her to let me into the room because (not surprisingly) she's asleep. Poor thing had been up all day since 6am and I've got to wake her because the hotel people couldn't possibly have more than one key. The fuckwits.
But then, just when you couldn't imagine anything else making my life a misery, I offer to pay this guy for the last night of our stay - because of this threat to cancel and he looks at me like I've suddenly started speaking in Klingon. No he's got no idea what I'm talking about. So I come down the next day in my PJ's and attempt to speak to someone who knows what they're talking about. It's a girl and she does know. It appears she is the *only* person who has a clue. But she's happy to take my money from me, while simultaneously telling me that the water supply to the hotel will be cut off at 9am the following morning, so if you want to have a shower on a sunday morning, the sunday morning after the clocks have gone forward, so you've lost an hours sleep anyway, yes, you're going to have to be up at the crack of dawn to fit it all in. Are you joking?
Apparently they weren't joking and nor was Melbourne water when they rocked up outisde our hotel window at 7.30am and started digging up the road.
So FYI, that was the Claremont Hotel in South Yarra - the ones who couldn't take payment off the credit card I'd made the reservation with, the ones who threatened to kick us out if we couldn't pay, the ones who tried to send me off to someone elses hotel room at gone midnight, the ones who gave us the noisiest room with the thinnest windows, the ones who were happy to let us pay full price but with no water after 9am. Would I stay there again? I'll let you figure that one out.
And so it begins. Becci leaves on Thursday night cos she's off to the Great Ocean Road and I've got to work until Friday. So I've booked the hotel in advance and handed over my credit card details as payment/guarantee. Becci arrives at the hotel and the guy at reception insists on payment for the full three nights up front. So Becci's turned up with some cash, but not enough to pay the whole hotel bill - and why should she?? And the guy at reception is a total arse - informing her that our last night would be cancelled if we couldn't pay for it there and then. But it's simple. I reserved it using a credit card - why not take the payment - that's what the guarantee is for - right? Becci could only pay two nights worth in the end and then I had to pay when I arrived the following night - what a farce. I only heard about this second hand from Becci and I was ready to ring them up and call them names - I mean hello? What's the point in accepting a reservation with a credit card, if the card isn't enough to pay for the room, or at least reserve it without it being cancelled.
Although in hindsight, perhaps it's a shame it wasn't cancelled because the room was RIGHT at the front of the hotel, right on the main road and right opposite a nightclub playing music until the small hours and then of course every drunk freak falls out of the club and starting yelling and shouting. Oh and did I mention our windows were single glazed and about as thick as a sheet of paper and the wooden frame were about as solid as yoghurt. We might as well have had our beds set up *IN* the bar. Seriously. It was ridiculous. But that wasn't the half of it.
I arrive on the friday night, after a two hour flight delay from Sydney and I talk to the receptionist. (A different one from the one who 'helped' Becci - it turns out.) Anyway, so I arrive, I tell him I have a booking. I tell him my name, and that my friend checked-in the night before. He looks like he knows vaguely what he's doing - there's a keyboard being tapped and he says to me, 'Oh yes, you're friend is in room 158. It's a triple room.' And I'm thinking, hmmmm, interesting, because I thought we had a twin room and that's what Becci told me the day before. So I ask him if that's correct and he replies that it is and that my friend already checked in with her boyfriend. So I ask him to check again because I didn't think Becci had bought her boyfriend with her and I didn't think it was a triple room. So he asks me to confirm my name - which I do and *THEN* he finds the correct booking. so he was happy to let me wander around the hotel knocking on strangers doors cos he couldn't be arsed to check the booking properly the first OR second time. And not only that, but they only have one room key per room and at gone midnight I've got to ring up Becci and ask her to let me into the room because (not surprisingly) she's asleep. Poor thing had been up all day since 6am and I've got to wake her because the hotel people couldn't possibly have more than one key. The fuckwits.
But then, just when you couldn't imagine anything else making my life a misery, I offer to pay this guy for the last night of our stay - because of this threat to cancel and he looks at me like I've suddenly started speaking in Klingon. No he's got no idea what I'm talking about. So I come down the next day in my PJ's and attempt to speak to someone who knows what they're talking about. It's a girl and she does know. It appears she is the *only* person who has a clue. But she's happy to take my money from me, while simultaneously telling me that the water supply to the hotel will be cut off at 9am the following morning, so if you want to have a shower on a sunday morning, the sunday morning after the clocks have gone forward, so you've lost an hours sleep anyway, yes, you're going to have to be up at the crack of dawn to fit it all in. Are you joking?
Apparently they weren't joking and nor was Melbourne water when they rocked up outisde our hotel window at 7.30am and started digging up the road.
So FYI, that was the Claremont Hotel in South Yarra - the ones who couldn't take payment off the credit card I'd made the reservation with, the ones who threatened to kick us out if we couldn't pay, the ones who tried to send me off to someone elses hotel room at gone midnight, the ones who gave us the noisiest room with the thinnest windows, the ones who were happy to let us pay full price but with no water after 9am. Would I stay there again? I'll let you figure that one out.
posted by Keyboard Addict at 5:13:00 pm
<< Home