Thursday, March 08, 2012

Raindrops Are Falling ...

Joe came out of the bathroom with a worried look on his face. At our age, this could be serious, 'There's water coming through the ceiling,' he said. We called the front desk who called an engineer who came a half an hour later. He went into the bathroom and came out saying that he could hear dripping right through the entire ceiling. Then we got called by the front desk manager, then others were at our door. We'd have to evacuate the room. I was already in my housecoat and my chair was disassembled (it had it's legs off) ... the hotel chair was up on elephant feet. We were in 'tired but relaxed' mode.

They found us another accessible room and we got stuff over there, not all of it, the new room was much smaller and they hoped to get us back in our original room the next day. So we managed. Half our stuff there, half here, finding constantly that we'd brought the wrong half of stuff. In the morning, we were busy getting ready for work. We asked at the desk and they were pretty sure we'd get our big, lovely, room back by late morning.

So we moved back in and I got another evening watching television sitting on my chair with elevator feet. It all went smoothly.

OK.

Here's why I'm writing this post.

Shuffling from one room to another, back and forth, is inconvenient. But, when the hotel staff does all they can to be of assistance, when they explain that they are worried for our safety, when they assure themselves through conversations with us that the new room will be as accessible as the old room, when they use great good humour about the situation - it doesn't have to result in any conflict or annoyance at all.

They thanked us for alerting them to the problem and for being patient with the moves.

We thanked them for handling it all with care and humour.

It was all good.

You know what I want as a traveller with a disability, just what I got here, good customer service.

Not every traveller has a disability but every traveller has special needs, unique needs, needs that when met take some of the jarring out of sleeping in someone else's room. When staff understand that, when staff enjoy meeting those needs, taking into consideration disruption and reducing the chaos, anything can happen and you still feel at home.

5 comments:

  1. "Thats the way I always thought it should be..."

    :-) Julia

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  2. Customer service...once again!!! Excellent.....such a difference from that "other" hotel you discussed recently....Glad you and Joe did not get saturated !! Nothing worse than watching a pay per view movie and having a thunderstorm in your room....

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  3. Dear Dave:

    I guess it comes down to attitude and dealing with people as human beings not widgets that fill rooms. I think when you have a staff with a great attitude then someone higher up has a great attitude - and the same is true of a bad attitude. Glad to hear you and Joe are having a good stay.

    Colleen

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  4. Hopefully the whole town is equally friendly, accessible and helpful....where are you and Joe today? Safe travels!

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  5. something similar happened to us a couple of years ago in a motel in buffalo - we awoke at 2 am to water dripping through the ceiling over near the washroom. called the front desk. they found us another accessible room, right around the corner, and while i drove my husband over there, they moved all our things themselves. and refunded what we'd paid for the night. and gave us a voucher for another free night. needless to say, we stop there regularly. (one of the things we haven't found convenient about their accessible rooms is that the only chair in the room is a desk chair on wheels - which isn't always the best idea for a big guy who walks with two canes and isn't always as, well, stable as he should be. However, the last three times we've stopped, one of the nice young guys at the front desk have gone to another empty room and also brought us an arm chair, with no fuss.)

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