Playing Musical Rooms - and I Lost Again

The hotel I'm staying in has a new exterminator who wanted to do a good treatment on all rooms from the start, so they are moving people around so that they can accomplish that.  They started with the top floor last week (and of course the roaches are just seeking new accommodations on the floors below), and next week they're doing the second floor where I was, so I had to move up to the third.

Now moving from one hotel room to another doesn't sound like much of a big deal ... throw everything in your suitcase and you're done, right?  Not so easy when you've been displaced for over five months so you have pretty much everything you need to live in a small suite.  (Picture a pantry, refrigerator, and freezer full of food; closet and drawers full of clothes and shoes; bathroom full of toiletries, personal items, and towels; several dishes and pots and pans; two drawers full of notes and receipts, and miscellaneous correspondence from insurance company, mortgage company, and contractor; laundry supplies; tote bags of crochet stuff; and bins of fabric and quilting supplies).

That's bad enough, but when they throw more kinks into the works, it adds to the aggravation.

I was on second floor, room closest to the elevator.  When I asked the other day where I'd be moving to, I mentioned that I'd prefer the same room on third floor, if available.  Manager checked and said yes, it was, so he put a reservation in my name for that particular room so that another employee wouldn't accidentally book someone else into it.  Cool.

Not.

He told me it would be ready on Wednesday, so I started throwing some of my stuff into plastic totes with the intent to just dump them out in the new room, go back and load up again - rinse and repeat.  Wednesday morning I asked if I could start moving my things, young lady checked the system and said no, housekeeping had to tend to it first, and they don't get in until 9:30.

Not too aggravated at that point, I changed my plans for the day and moved on.  When I checked later Wednesday afternoon, the manager was there and said it still wasn't ready, but everyone was working hard to put things back together, and promised that it would be done by end of day, and I could pick up the key first thing Thursday morning, saying no matter how early I got up, it would be ready for me.

Wrong again.

Went down to get the key Thursday morning, and the gal at the desk said there was a problem, and she wasn't sure why, but the room still wasn't ready.  Housekeeping had been working until late in the evening, but for whatever reason, there was a holdup on that particular room.  I expressed my dissatisfaction at the lack of communication and told her that I expected someone to keep me informed as to what was going on, and let me know when I could actually move.  Mind you, half the stuff I needed the previous day and overnight was all mixed up in those tubs I'd already packed.  The manager came knocking on my door a while later, apologizing profusely and saying it was his fault for the mixup.  Apparently the room I was to go to needed more extensive maintenance that he hadn't been aware of, including hooking up a TV (that didn't have the right plug), new curtains, and a few other things that were going to take some time.  He couldn't say when it would be available, but had another room ready that I could move to right away.  Great.  But it's down the hall, further away from the elevator.  Not a big deal for me alone, but if Jethro's having a bad leg day or if the fire alarm goes off again (subject of another post) and I have to carry him, that extra length of hallway plus down two flights of stairs while juggling Phoebe on the other leash will do me in.

Ok, at least the room is available, so let's get 'er done.  I start packing up more stuff, go down to get a cart and oooh, what do I see?  Nothing!  There are no carts available (they only have two).  Ok, MA, suck it up and start lugging a tub at a time and get done what you can.  Oh, and tweak your back while dragging the heavy ones down the hall, just for good measure.

A couple of hours and numerous trips later, the bulk of it is moved, and then of course a cart becomes available, so I'm able to wrap things up from there fairly quickly and call it a day.

Or not.  I think satan himself has been in charge of my accommodations throughout this journey.  More on this saga in my next post.

~ Marie Anne

Note:  My intent is not to beat up on the hotel staff; this hasn't been easy for them either, and they've been working very hard to make the switch as painless as possible for their guests.  Just documenting more of the post-hurricane hassles.

If you haven't already, please read my first post that explains my mission for this blog.