On my honeymoon, no less
For reasons which will become apparent, I could just about fill this this myself, so I'll restrict myself to the latest episode...
In an attempt to combine work with pleasure, the new wife and I left balmy Sydney last November to honeymoon in the UK and wound up at an utterly beautiful hotel in Edinburgh for a week.
A five star place, it had a great cocktail bar, beautiful rooms was right in the heart of the New Town area, a fantastic restaurant etc etc.
Seriously toffy stuff, this was to be the highlight of a trip that would, by necessity, see us at a few hotels nowhere near as good.
The highlight of the trip? It most certainly was, but not for those reasons.
About three days in we're asleep in bed and the bedroom door opens, flooding the room with light.
Neither of us are heavy sleepers so we spring up in bed to see (drumroll please) a naked fat elderly man standing there.
Both of us start screaming: "Getthefuckoutgetoutoutfuckoff!!!" as loud as we can, I jump out of bed to commit bodily harm, the guy screams, puts his hands over his todger and backs into the corridor.
I slam the door in his face and after getting my breath back, phone the front desk.
"What the fuck is going on here? Some old guy with no clothes on just walked into our room! How the fuck did he get a key? I want the manager up here now!" etc etc.
A few minutes later the manager calls back.
It seems an elderly confused German tourist staying at the hotel had wandered into the corridor in the night, thinking it was the bathroom, the door had shut behind him and he'd somehow pushed his way into our room hoping it was the way back in.
The night manager had just found him trying to use a palm leaf to hide his shame in the foyer.
A minute after that I heard the elevator ding and had the extreme pleasure of watching him escorted - still naked - past our peephole back to his room.
The manager came back, apologised profusely, explained the doors sometimes don't close properly unless they're virtually slammed, apologised again and left.
Eventually, we went back to sleep.
The next morning at breakfast I saw the naked old guy as he sat alone looking utterly defiant, ate quietly and departed.
The staff could barely contain themselves... they'd all seen the CCTV footage.
It's hard to say it's the worst hotel experience I've had, but it's no doubt in the top five the hotel's ever had... I'm a journalist and spend a bit of time as a travel writer. I was at the hotel to review it.
Apologies for length, but then again it was my honeymoon.
( difficultchild, Thu 24 Jan 2008, 4:59, Reply)