During our recent Saigonese trip every evening before we dined, and sometimes if we'd had one, after a siesta, we would call our butler to bring ice for the cocktail hour, and to have our shoes polished. Initially this was a rather elaborate performance, with the first time involving the ice bucket being filled and being laid out on a tray near the glasses and the fridge, and shoes
appearing in a wicker basket that had seen better days, but none the less
noteworthy for the ritual. As our stay progressed this protocol slipped somewhat, until finally the shoes and the filled ice bucket were handed over at the door. This could have been because it all happened during the cocktail/evening/bath/time period and the butler realised his need to come into the room was more of an inconvenience than a service. After all, I wasn't at home where my own trusted valet comes and goes as I sup on an aperitif and dress at the same time, ably assisted by him with studs for my collar and cuff links for well, my cuffs, (I've been watching too much Downtown as you can see).
But it brings me to a point, and that is, why do hotels' "turn down service" always occur at around 6.30pm, when any civilised people are doing exactly what I've described? Of course I politely send them away at that time, and ring for that service to take place as I'm leaving my room on my way to dinner. Turn up to turn down, when I need you. The lady's not for turning etc. Elementary my dear Bates.
8 comments:
Strange places, hotels, damned strange.
I remember staying in one place where, as I checked in, a chap scurried up to carry my luggage. Well, I say "scurried", but he must have been in his nineties and almost bent double - and absolutely insisted on carrying everything all at once up three flights of stairs. It was like an African expedition but with only one elderly porter. We moved at his pace, stopped occasionally for dropped cases and I rang for an ambulance for him when we got to the room. Didn't so much give him a tip as help roll him onto the stretcher and sign the paramedics forms on his behalf.
Odd place. Never did get his name - he never had enough breath to tell me it.
I imagine that might have been in darkest England. There's a rather different approach to these things in Asia, and one that reminds me why we live here.
Can’t understand why these willfully irritating hotel managers cannot train their staff to equate room keys handed in at desks to ‘Now is our chance to service the suite without disturbing our guest’. No, they use Stasi trained operatives and CCTV cameras to track you into your room, at whatever hour of day or night, and then, just as you have stripped off and worked the shower controls to satisfaction, they send in a team of shock troops to strip the bed, return or collect laundry, restock an unmolested drinks cabinet, fiddle with the TV, inspect the contents of your waste basket, move one’s computer to the position on the desk mandated by the parent company, shuffle all one’s paperwork around with the skill of a Baden-Baden Casino Baccarat dealer leaving one facing hopeless odds of the right document being to hand when required, turn the air-conditioning control back to the frozen-nuts-by-dawn setting (opening the balcony doors at the same time allowing the lovingly nurtured ambience created by the aroma of several enjoyably expended Romeo y Julietas to escape), spend hours in the loo playing origami with the toilet paper and rearranging all one’s toiletry having flung one out of the bog in the first place (jolly disconcerting to have to squeeze a half born Guardsman off just because one can hear people noisily tramping around one’s rooms) and then, despite me pre-informing management that I am diabetic so could the chef please bear that in mind when I dine, leave an irresistibly divine box of chocolates on my pillow as well as a nose gay next to the now clean ashtray to remind me that, as a smoker, I am beyond the Pale.
No, I can't say it was thaat bad!!
So-called turn down service drives me mad. Frequently either one is dressing or recovering from a nap prior to getting ready to go out for the evening. I neither need a turn down nor a couple of chocolate squares to remind me I may leave a tip when I leave the hotel.
The wicker basket is a nice touch. Perhaps the Vietnamese are watching Downton Abbey too.
Blue - I don't object to it, providing it's performed at a time that suits me. They get the hang of it pretty quickly.
Mark I too liked the wicker basket, despite it being a one off, but I suppose it made sense as I was in the room when the shoes were returned on subsequent occasions. The staff in this hotel are extremely well trained actually, and whilst I have enjoyed Downton, their social interaction between the classes is wildly off the mark. (As I recall, from my own youth!!)
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