I don't have children and I don't like humidity, so it's hard for me to come up with reasons to go to Orlando. But a wedding is one of them, and after our fifteenth consecutive weekly blizzard, a round of golf and an 80-degree afternoon by the pool really didn't sound half bad. And if the venue for a mini vacation and reunion with some old friends would be Orlando's self-proclaimed "landmark luxury hotel" so much the better, right? So we were ultimately pretty excited to commit to two nights at the The Grand Bohemian Hotel in downtown Orlando for the R-T wedding last weekend.
The first indication that either the GBH isn't Orlando's landmark luxury hotel or that that designation doesn't mean very much came to light upon our call to make our reservation several weeks before arrival. We referenced the wedding party and were told a special rate of $169 / night was available on Saturday night but not Friday, so our first night would total some $286. Now it's always bad news to hear that a wedding invite entails an obligation to shell out Ritz Carlton money, but hearing it during a 20 minute call with several holds and transfers is the kind of thing that encourages a person to give up; the hotel's occupancy rate and the guest's friendship with the groom be damned.
The solution, we were told, was to call the bride and inform her that the wedding's room allocation had been filled so that she would advise the hotel to expand it. From the perspective of the clerk I'm sure this makes all the sense in the world, but to the guest it's just a variation on the most inexplicable thing that any provider of goods or services can do: impose one or more tasks on a prospective purchaser beyond that of simply paying for something. How often have you heard a car salesman say "you know, I'd really like to sell you this car, but before I can take your money you need to call this young woman you've never met who is about to get married and complain to her that you're not getting the advertised price"? Suffice to say, the clerk should simply have made the reservation and promised us that the hotel would contact whatever administrator had the authority to apply the wedding rate.
Upon arrival, confusion over the rate we were charged evolved into confusion over what room we were given which culminated in such awkward gems as my walking in on a couple enjoying a glass of champagne in their ostensibly private room and the hotel's surreptitious retrieval of an amenity basket out of our room for redelivery somewhere else after we had already picked at it. Come on now. No bed and breakfast worth its keep would quietly send someone into a room to take away food that it discovered had been misdelivered. We were asked for our credit card on three separate occaisions as a result of the glitch.
These things happen. A good experience hardly ever depends on the thread count or water pressure but it is in the reaction of the staff to a guest's complaint that any prominent hotel should seek to earn its keep. And while I received no blank stares and none of the GBH representatives came across as a disinterested moron, the exchanges I had with the staff present some discrete teachable moments:
One, if the customer is always right, there is no situation in which the customer is more right than when his disagreement is with a computer. In other words, if I'm telling you on Saturday morning after discovering that my key has been deactivated that I'm not checking out until Sunday, don't ever say "well it says here that you're checking out today." I know it's tempting because you have to rely on your technology to track things and it's very unsettling when it has something wrong, but the computer won't get mad about it and doesn't resent being treated like a serial number so don't ever take the computer's side. (As an aside, it's not as bad and didn't happen here, but by the same token don't ever bang away on the keyboard and mutter about how "I don't know what's going on with this thing today" -- again that doesn't get you off the hook and guests want to get to their rooms, not stand at the counter feeling bad for you.)
Two, your staff needs to listen. Personalities need to be sized up and complaints need to be taken in context. After a whole lot of back-and-forth about where my room was and when I was checking out, one attendant, in an effort to compensate me for the hassle (which effort was in all fairness completely well intentioned), without any sort of segue or precedent abruptly rattled off "are you using wi-fi?" I told him I was not and he responded that he would be glad to comp it for me. Now, setting aside how this hotel's pricing model could involve a $250+ room but a separate charge for internet access, I just told him I wasn't using it. Free wi-fi constituted no value for me. Similarly his abrupt declaration that he was granting me access to the concierge lobby where I could have continental breakfast did nothing for me: our weekend was scheduled out with wedding events and I wasn't looking to skip a meal with old friends in order to take advantage of free muffins.
Three, the lobby desk has two computer terminals and enough room for at least three staff people. If there is anyone waiting in line for something, you can't have all the staff huddled around the same computer attending to a single guest's issues. I know sometimes there are specific problems people have that have a way of consuming resources and sometimes junior clerks need guidance from people with more experience. But short of breaking away to attend immediately to anyone waiting, at very least you have to look up. Think of manning a front desk like driving a car; if you're staring at one thing for more than a few seconds at a time you could miss something and that could be a problem.
Four, I'm keeping this last for emphasis and I really hate that this happened here because it's a much worse transgression than even the you-should-call-the-bride-before-reserving-your-room thing: your hotel being full makes not one bit of difference to the quality of service that I'm expecting so why on earth would you present that to me as an excuse for why I can't get something I've asked for (in this case just access to my room)? By introducing this as a consideration you're raising a host of unpleasant and inappropriate insinuations: you're overworked (and presumably underpaid), you're too busy, you don't care, you don't respect the mission of your employer and the list goes on and on. If you're tempted to say this, stop whatever you're doing and run to the bathroom to splash cold water on your face and get a hold of yourself. If the hotel is full then it's making money and you're doing a good job and as soon as you get a chance you should go ask for a raise.
So the problems here were not insurmountable. Toilets flushed, sheets were clean and the hotel eagerly pursued its avant-guarde art and music niche with charasmatic live music and ubiquitous oil paintings of a quality that I'm in no position to comment on. The real shame is that by the time I had to speak to a manager over the fact that a bag that had been delivered to the hotel by the airline (more on that later) and I was not told about it, he had no choice but to steeply discount our final bill. To his credit, his reaction was immediate, decisive and appropriate and had the intended effect of acknowledging my concerns and satisfying my complaints. But the GBH lost money here. A more personalized and aggressive reaction from more junior staff earlier in the weekend would have gone farther to ensure a good experience and good review at far less expense to the hotel's revenue.
