|
the Chronicles of Horror Harbor Hotel; Maine vaca part 3
Current mood:  aggravated
Category: Travel and Places
The flights from Ohio to Maine were uneventful. This is a good thing. They were on time and no luggage disappeared to seek it's own vacation.
As we approached the hotel, the entry sign showed promise of a pleasant stay.
If this had been a movie, it would have been a dark and stormy night. Crisp flashes of lightning would have illuminated the night with mysterious shadows. Rain would have relentlessly pelted our windshield and an eerie fog would have suddenly rolled in.
But this was real life. We had no foreboding of the horrors to come. A pleasant clerk found our reservation with no problem and we were off in search of our room. 325.
The plastic key slipped in and out of the electronic lock with little effort. The lock light stayed red, calmly warning us off. Like the movie victim that is unaware of the monster on the other side of the door, I tried the key again. A green light flickered and I quickly pushed the handle to open the door.
The sudden, overpowering stench of decaying corpses and moldy graves assaulted my senses. I reeled back a step and murmured to my wife. "It smells a bit moldy"
She stuck her head into the room. "Oh, it's not that bad." This from the woman that goes into a coughing fit at the scent of mild perfume. This from the woman who's nose, at the slightest whiff of stale air, will turn bright red from allergies . "We just need to open it up and turn on the air."
I opened the outside door to a lovely balcony view of green grounds and harbor.
I bent over and turned the air to high, then proceeded to unpack the luggage. While doing so I scanned the room for the dead body. I notice a small refrigerator sitting on the floor. Usually they are placed in a nice cabinet that hides it, or, at the very least, are on a small table.
This was not a cheapy motel six. The hotel positioned itself as a high end resort. They did this through their advertisements, rates, and by it's very name: The Bar Harbor Regency.
The tiny white thing sitting on the floor seemed out of place. I walked over to it with the intent of opening it…fully expecting to find a decomposing head or other body part. I never opened it. It would have been hazardous to my health. It was covered in a fine film of mold.
Sure that I had found the source of the odor, I called the front desk and asked to have it replaced, describing the green crust that surrounded it and the smell of the room.
In a few moments a hotel employee arrived at our room. He inspected the green and white death, opened it up, and poked around in it's depths. In clipped Portugese/English I could hardly understand, he proceeded to inform us that it was working fine.
After several failed attempts in plain English to tell him the problem, I finally just pointed and held my nose, while making an "Ewww!" face.
"New one?" I asked moving my fingers in circular motions to indicate a change out.
He nodded and went off and retrieved another one that had been waiting in the hall.
It was getting to be about dinner time, so, hoping the moldy refrigerator was not a sign of the hotels dinning room condition, we chose to try out their cuisine.
The dining room hotel staff was friendly and sat us in a nice open air portion of the restaurant overlooking the lovely gardens and bay.
The waitress gave us plenty of time to take in the view and decide what we wished to eat…if only someone had given us a menu.
The waitress came back with the drinks and dropped off the menu and quickly rushed off. My wife had ordered hot tea. She got the tea bag and a cup, but no hot water.
After plenty more time to choose from the menu, and not drink tea, the waitress remembered to come back.
For some reason, the only thing on the menu that appealed to me was a simple hamburger. I ordered it. My wife ordered a salad and tea. And we proceeded to wait some more. Keep in mind, I was not in a hurry, but I didn't want my old man dying words to be "I'll have the hamburger"
I'm here. You expect me to work, too?
We finally got our food, but had to remind the waitress that we may need utensils to eat with. Not me. I had hamburger. I dove in while my wife sipped her tea and stared at her salad.
I may have had high expectations for a hotel of this caliber, but the hamburger tasted a lot like the ones I used to get at my high school sons band events. I think they were soy burgers. Gray meat. Not what I had dreamed of.
We returned to our room to find the odor persisted. Maybe the air conditioner needs more time. I then noticed a spot on the wall near the ceiling that looked like someone had tried to patch some water damage from the roof. The patch looked fresh. It's white plaster fill had not been painted to the yellow finish of the room.
I figured the room must have leaked and the water had soaked the carpet, causeing the moldy smell that permeated the room. I decided to take a shower to wash these thoughts from my mind.
I stepped into the shower and was met by a brisk stream of water. While picking up the soap, I noticed the bottom of the shower curtain had several large patches of mold growing happily away. I stepped to the wall side of the shower to prevent the shower curtain from blowing out and sticking to my leg. Thats when I noticed the mold in the grout between the tiles.
Somewhere late in the night we agreed to try to get a different room in the morning.
Morning dawns and we stop by the front desk and calmly explain our situation, asking if they have a similar room, that doesn't stink, available.
The male clerk reminds me of the snooty French clerk in the TV show Gilmore Girls.
(Micheal Gerard played by Yanic Truesdale)
Read this with a French accent: "You have a stinky room? Are you sure it is not your upper lip? Perhaps some ineffective deodorant? I see. And this is my problem...why?"
He tells us they have one opening up later in the day. If we would just pack our bags up, we could go off and enjoy our vacation. They promised to move our stuff to the new room when it was ready.
Easy enough. We head out to explore Acadia national park.
When we get back we check in, turn in our old keys and get the new ones...from the same snooty clerk. Off to the room we go. The electronic door opens easily and we enter a similar, but slightly smaller room.
I detect a slight odor in the room, but say nothing. We both move to the far side of the room to take in the view from the balcony.
Two huge, commercial sized air conditioners are running at full blast heating up the air by our window. My wife says something. I can see her lips moving, but all I can hear is the roar of machinery. I motion to move back into the room.
After the door is shut on the racket she says "This room stinks."
"I thought I smelled something funny" I reply.
"Now that you mention it, it does have an odor, too" she notes, sniffing the air with her bloodhound nose.
We stop at the front desk to ask for another room. The snooty clerk is STILL there. Of course, by now it is later in the afternoon, and people are checking in. No other rooms available tonight.
We are offered our lovely, high end resort view of the air conditioner for a slightly lesser amount for the duration of the week.
We resign ourselves to this room for the night and decide to check out some other Hotels in the morning.
Generally when someone complains about a shoddy room, you would think management would offer a better room, not a worse one. If I had known before hand, we would have just gotten some fabreeze and sprayed the first room.
If this had been a budget chain hotel, I would have never even considered saying anything. This was far from a budget hotel and I think certain expectations come with paying a higher price. We were scheduled to be there for a whole week. My faith in this hotel, and my consideration of staying here for the rest of the week, was taking a nose dive for the toilet, which, oddly enough, was quite clean. My vacation plans seem to be on the edge of getting flushed away.
The next morning we stop by the front desk…after peeking around the corner to see if snooty clerk is on duty first. Snooty clerk has been replaced by two dark haired, petite young ladies that look like they might be all of 13 years old.
We explain our situation again and she begins to peck on the keyboard. The other lady/girl finishes up and steps over to help. The confused and somewhat bamboozled look on their faces does not bode well.
"We may have some rooms around 3:30. They have to clean them first. Can you check back then?"
My first thought was: the two rooms I was in weren't all that clean and it wouldn't bother me to check out a dirty room to see if it might work. They would give us a moldy room, not once, but twice, but they would not, under any circumstances, allow us to look at a room that wasn't made up. Well, as long as you have standards.
"Can you call me when one of these rooms is ready?" I ask.
They say "Sure that would be no problem" and wrote down my phone number.
We reluctantly head off to explore Bar Harbor and check out our other hotel options. We decide hotels in this area are quite proud of themselves, for no apparent reason that we can see in their rooms. I assume the high rates are all about the location.
3:30 comes and goes and my phone remains it's usual quiet self. We decide it might be best to stop by the front desk to see if any thing has turned up.
The same sweet, petite 13 year old is behind the desk.
"Where you able to find another room for us?" we ask politely.
A blank stare from an innocent face with arched eyebrows is our reply.
If it had been the snooty clerk, I would have wanted to smack him.
I quietly contemplated the repercussions of such an act as I explained our crappy rooms. Again.
The light bulb behind her eyes finally lit up and her finger flew across the keyboard. "We have one room, but it is on the first floor"
"Can we see it?"
Plastic keys were authorized. Magnetic access granted. The room was just like our first room, except it was on the ground floor….and didn't have the faintest smell about it. The view, while not as expansive as the first room, was more than acceptable.
We moved our luggage before they could change their minds…or forget us. Again.
It was about this time that we learned that this hotel had recently been bought by Holiday Inn. The hotel chain that still holds the record for the worst room I EVER stayed in. But that's another story. The story of why I usually ask to see a room before checking in.
Do you have any hotel horror stories?
6:33 AM
-
18 Comments - 18 Kudos
- Add Comment
|
understimulated
silly
Photo by Colleen MacPherson
'What chicks? It's a band reunion 35 years after we graduated. I don't expect too many spring chickens there' I fall into the little bird of a car and we take off.
busy
bouncy
mellow
