Today, as I was looking through the books in my office bookcase, I came across a blast from the past. The book is titled Without Reservations – An Uncensored, Unabashed Look At How People Behave In Hotels and is a compilation of guest stories from Holiday Inn hotels during the early 90’s.
As I looked at the book, I remembered first reading it when I was the general manager of the Holiday Inn Townlake in downtown Austin, TX. The book was loaned to me by Oscar Sanchez, my front desk manager at the time. After reading I must have set the book aside and forgot to give it back when Oscar left to go to another hotel. So, Oscar, if you read this… I’m sorry man!
From experience, I can tell you that guests really do some strange things when staying in your hotel. I wish I would have been smart enough to right down all the crazy stuff I’ve seen over my hospitality career. While I don’t remember all of them, here are just a few that I’ll never forget.
- While helping to open the Crowne Plaza Galleria in Houston I remember I man coming down to the front desk and complaining about the toilet in his room. Not an unusual complaint for most hotels. However this one had a twist. See, we had really rushed the last couple of days of construction in order to get the hotel open in time for the Houston Homebuilder’s Show and when you rush construction, some things tend to get missed. When the desk clerk told him she’d send maintenance right up to fix the toilet he told her the problem was not a ‘broken’ toilet. No, the problem was he didn’t have a toilet at all, only a hole in the floor of the bathroom! Big oops!
- One night, when serving as the Manager on Duty, I got a call on the radio that someone was shooting off a fire extinguisher on the 4th floor. Grabbing two security guards to go with me, we headed up the elevator. When we got off the elevator, we didn’t see anyone and it was very quiet. Thinking we must have missed them, we started to head back down to the lobby. However, before we could, we noticed CO2 powder running down the corridor carpet so we followed the trail. The trail led us directly to a room on that floor so we knocked on the door. Imagine our surprise when a young man opens the door with a fire extinguisher in his hand. Talk about finding a smoking gun! Needless to say, he and his buddies had been partying in their room just a little too much. They ended up spending the rest of the night in jail…
- One Saturday afternoon, while working as the F&B Director at Holiday Inn East in Montgomery, AL, I got a call from the front desk saying someone had reported a ‘bum’ loitering in our Holidome. She asked if I would check it out and if true, politely ask him to leave. I said sure, but before I could walk out of the restaurant, one of my waitresses came running into the restaurant all excited. I asked her what was going on and she breathlessly explained that she had just see Hank Williams, Jr in the Holidome. Turned out he was the ‘bum’ that had been reported to the front desk. Evidently his tour bus had stopped next door to the hotel and he was just walking around to stretch his legs. Needless to say, I didn’t ask him to leave. Even though he did look a bit like a bum…
What about you? Care to share an unusual hotel experience with us?
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We have been taking our GA girls on a trip to a Girl’s Confrence for the past few years. I learned real quickly that you lay down the ground rules with the girls AND THE LEADERS – BEFORE you leave for the Confrence. The first Confrence we went to, I walked into one of our hotel rooms to find the girls jumping up and down on the bed, with the mother allowing this. I immediately put a stop to this and told them that this is not our property and that we WILL respect other’s property, or they would not be attending with us again. Next, the manager of the hotel came to my room and said that they had a complaint from the downstairs neighbor on one of our rooms. When confronting the leader (young & first trip with girls) in charge of that room, she said that some of the girls just started running around. I explained to her that SHE is the one in charge and the one resposible for the behavior in that room. Now, when we go on trips, I sit all the girls, leaders, and sponsors down (including Mothers) and explain that when we go to a hotel, that we are GUESTS at someone elses property and that we treat their property with respect, and this includes cleaning up our room before we leave, putting trash in the trash cans and trying to leave the room as clean as possible and being as polite as possible while we are there. We are there representing our Church, and we do NOT want to leave a bad impression to those who may not be christians who work at the hotels. (At GA Camp… Our room is ALWAYS spotless every time we leave it, throughout the entire week. lol – so clean, the inspectors have been known to walk in our doorm & say, oh, this is the clean one, and turn around and walk back out. )
Thanks for these very great words of wisdom Ruth Ann. You are more than welcome to bring your girls to Ridgecrest anytime you like!