This weekend it was my mother's 70th birthday and she decided that she wanted to celebrate it by staying at The Ritz Hotel in Picadilly. She booked rooms for herself, her cousin , my bro and SIL, me, DH and our DD's (13months and 2yrs) for last night.
It was DH's birthday last week and we decided that we (us to and our DD's) would add an extra night onto our stay tonight and treat ourselves to a bit of luxury.
In the week running up to this weekend's planned extravagnza I called the hotel twice to check on arrangements for baby sitters, baby paraphanalia and other bits and bobs. My DH also popped in there in person to suss a few things out as well. When he visited the hotel on this recce he was wearing jeans - this was not remarked upon by the staff there.
Anyway... yesterday we arrived and rather chaotically checked in with the DD's being a bit bemused, loads of clobber and general disorganisation. DH and I were both wearing jeans. No comment was made on our dress.
Yesterday afternoon, after checking in we decided to get some tea. When we went downstairs we were informed that we were not allowed in the dining room as we had jeans on. I accepted this although it meant I could not feed the DD's downstairs at the table and had to cobble something together in our room with them sitting on my knee.
Last night we get all glammed up and we had a lovely meal.
This morning as we were getting dressed I checked the guest information book regarding dress code and it said the following. " Gentlemen are expected to wear a jacket and tie in the Palm Court and Restaurant after 11am". As it was 8.30am and Sunday morning we got dressed in jeans (smart ones, no rips, nice boots, did my hair and make-up, DH was wearing a shirt etc etc) and headed on downstairs. On arrival at the breakfast room we were refused entry because of our dress.
After much debate with the staff and two duty managers we were given the following options:
- Have breakfast in our room (not much space & no table)
- Have it in another dining room on our own and to only be able to have a continental breakfast (didn't want to eat alone and we wanted the full English)
- Go elsewhere.
This meant that the whole party (i.e. us and my mum, bro, SIL, cousin etc) could not have breakfast together as my mum - who was paying for the whole thing wanted her breakfast there, which was fair enough.
We opted for number 3. This meant taking the DD's upstairs, getting them all in their coats, getting the pushchair out, and finding somewhere else to go. Totally bloody inconvenient, and they were both starving and beginning to create by then.
The upshot was that DH and I were so pissed off with being treated like sartorial lepers that after breakfast (at the very accomodating and understanding Wolsey) we went back to the Ritz and cancelled tonight's booking because we felt so unwelcome and patronised.
So, AIBU in expecting the hotel to have made it VERY clear that there was an absolute no jeans policy on the 3 opportunities they had prior to our arrival when we contacted them to discuss our stay? Is this something everyone in the whole world just knows (except us obviosuly)?
