This Type of Room Service Was Not In the Brochure

When you think of bad hotel experiences you usually think of terrible room service, bad food or disgustingly dirty rooms. Well my experience was a bit different.

It was March of 2000 and my husband and I were in Los Angeles to visit my family; specifically my grandfather who was in the hospital. We had decided to do the whole nine yards; get a hotel room and a rental car (even though we had several options of family to stay with). There were other things we wanted to do too like sight seeing and heading to Santa Barbara where we first met. We were planning on having a blast. One of the things we had prided ourselves on at the time was that we were using the money we had saved in a gallon jug to pay for the whole trip. We were thrilled (or at least I was). We had been dropping coins in there all year long and it filled up quickly especially since my husband was bartending on the side at the time. Those tips would make for a great trip well sort of.

When we got to the hotel everything seemed just fine, I was worried because I had done the whole vacation online and it was my first time doing something like that. My fears were lessened when we found out that our reservation was perfectly fine and we were actually surprised by how big the hotel was because we were not expecting it to have so many floors. The woman at the front desk even upgraded our room while we were there with no additional charge. This was starting out to be a great stay. So we went upstairs to put our bags away and get settled in a bit before picking up our rental car and making our first of several visits with my grandfather. Imagine my surprise when even our rental car was upgraded this was really shaping up nicely.

My husband and I spent a few hours with family, and then went exploring throughout the city before going out to dinner. After a long nice dinner we decided to go back to the hotel room because we were going to be getting up early the next day to spend the day in Santa Barbara. It was nice lying around doing absolutely nothing and ordering dessert from room service while watching movies. The room service was great we were pleased by the whole hotel experience but that would soon change.

The first sign of a problem would begin just around 8pm when there was a knock at the door. Thinking that it might be room service again or maybe even a visiting relative my husband went to answer the door. I could barely hear the conversation and could not see the person but was not really concerned at all. Until I saw the puzzled look on my husband’s face. He looked perplexed and then said to me, “I think that was a hooker.” I thought he had lost his mind. I told him it was probably just a scantily dressed woman going to the wrong room and that he probably misunderstood what she was trying to say to him.

Almost an hour and a half later we had finally gotten settled down and comfortable in bed still watching television and wide awake but relaxing none the less when there was a second knock at the door. Again my husband went to the door, this time at his insistence because he was beginning to get a little concerned. This time I tried to listen a little harder by slowly turning down the television. I could tell that it was a woman’s voice but still could not here what she was saying. However I could hear what my husband was saying very clearly. “I’m sorry you have the wrong room.” and “No Ma’am we are not interested.” So now I understand that my husband was not crazy and that this was a hooker making the rounds. My husband explained that it was the same woman and that he thought she had gotten the idea. I told him that I thought he was way too polite. He simply told me that he did not want to cause a commotion. So we continued on with relaxing.

Then less than an hour later there was a third knock at the door. Now I could tell that my husband was not pleased at all. He got up and answered the door, this time it was not necessary for me to turn down the television because he was talking very loudly. I could also tell by the voice that it was not the same woman. This woman talked much louder than the first one and even had the audacity to tell my husband that he didn’t have to be so rude. Rude?!? WTF?!?

That was enough for me so I made a call down to the front desk where there was no answer the first time. Then I called down a second time a few minutes later, still no answer. By now I was completely frustrated. It took three more calls down to the desk before someone finally picked up the phone. The person that answered said that we would have to make a complaint in the morning. I was less than pleased with this. I asked if it was possible to change rooms but it was so late and they stated that all the rooms were full at the time. I took the persons name I was talking to and asked for the name of the manager that would be available the next day; he gladly gave me that information.

There were only three more knocks for the rest of the night and by that time my husband stopped answering the door. We were more than angry by now as it was well after midnight and we were starting to hear several commotions in the hallway. We heard everything from yelling and screaming to thuds, thumps and glass breaking throughout the hallway. The night there was less than stellar and needless to say we did not get much sleep.

Early the next morning when we woke up we went straight to the front desk with the manager’s name in hand. At first he was trying to negate our story and tried to down play our experience. That was until the front desk phone started to ring and other guests started to come down to the front desk. It seemed that a few other guests had similar experiences all at varying degrees. We let the manager know that we were not going to stay at the hotel for the rest of our stay there and that we were going to definitely report our incident to upper management, working our way up the chain. This was only because the manager did not seem to want to do anything about the situation. By the end of our discussion we had been moved to a private suite on a different floor and our hotel stay was free.