I am going to leave the hotel unnamed to protect, well it isn't to protect the innocent that's for sure, but let's just say this hotel is a grand dame in Brussels. As we walked into the lobby we had no idea that anything might be wrong. it is absolutely gorgeous, a belle epoch beauty.
As we were checking in I heard the woman who was checking us in ask the other man who was helping us in French "it is a non-smoking room isn't it", he just shrugged and went on with what he was doing. Of course, he had no idea that I am fluent in French.
With our room key in hand, we head toward the elevator. In this part of the lobby there is a beautiful old-fashioned brass elevator, no that one was not for us, we headed farther into the hotel with our bellman. We went up several floors and the bellman opened our door. We walked in and gave him his tip. He went off with our two friends to their room. We walked over to look at the bathroom and noticed that the toilet was running. We jiggled the handle but it wouldn't stop. We grabbed the bellman from the hall to see if he could help. He couldn't get it to stop either.
He called down to the desk and told them our problem. They told him to take us to another room, which he did. He had a master key so he could get us in. As soon as we entered this room I was hit by the stench of cigarette smoke and also saw the ashtray in the room. Oh no, I said we had a non-smoking room. He called down to the desk, this really annoyed me because they knew we were non-smoking.
Okay, they sent us off to a new room. We walked in and put down our suitcase yikes there was already a suitcase in the room, he had just let us into someone else's room. You guessed it, the bellman called the front desk again and off we went again. This was now room number four.
This room was okay. Not much to look at, the colors were garish and didn't match but the bathroom had been renovated and it was beautiful, it even had a bidet. Okay, we were pretty happy now. Later that evening when I was walking around the room in my stocking feet I found a damp spot on the floor. I figured they must have steam cleaned the carpeting.
We woke up at 7 a.m. to an unusual sound. Tap, tap, tap it took me a while to figure out where it was coming from. There was water dripping from our ceiling onto the floor, right about where I had felt the damp spot earlier. I called the front desk and told them that we had a water problem. About 10 minutes later a knock on our door and the plumber was there. "You have water?” he asked. I just pointed to the ceiling, the look on his face was comical "Oh" was all he said and then he left.
Five minutes later a knock on our door, it was the bellman we had to move to another room. We had to pack with no notice, grab our robes and toiletries and head down the hall. Enter room number five. It had stained drapes and wallpaper and a bathroom light that hummed every time we turned it on but that seemed like a small thing after everything else.
We met our friends and headed down for breakfast. One of our friends almost caused an international incident when he toasted raisin bread. They literally yelled at him, "You can only toast bread" evidently in Brussels raisin bread isn't toasting bread. Then our other friend tried to walk out of the breakfast room with a newspaper. The Maitre’d acted as if we had just stolen the Hope Diamond. Nope, you can't remove the newspaper.
The staff at this hotel had the worst attitude I have ever encountered. No one was ever nice or friendly. It was just awful.
When I got home I contacted the owner and was given a full credit for our stay and even for free this hotel cost too much. They offered me an additional free stay in a suite and I didn't take them up on it, once was quite enough for me. If ever there was a hotel that is surviving on past glories, it is this one.
To find out the name of the hotel, follow the link .
No comments:
Post a Comment