Damage in hotel room - I’m an idiot

[HotelWoes]

Been staying at a really lovely 4* hotel for the last two nights. Breathtakingly beautiful place, staff are all so lovely, great facilities. Had a really stressful few weeks so went away with DP to unwind.

There have been a few issues - we didn’t realise when booking that this is also a wedding venue, and there was a wedding here yesterday. Which was fine, didn’t really affect us except that we are on the ground floor very near to the area where the wedding guests would go and smoke, and drunkenly shout and screech at each other. We had our windows open as it was too warm to close them, so could hear it all loud and clear. This went on until just before 2am so didn’t manage to get to sleep until then. Then got woken up early this morning by heavy machinery that had arrived to do some work on the grounds driving around, again close to our window.

Also, the wifi is shite. Don’t know whether it’s just our room but when I say shite I mean you literally can’t use it for watching stuff online, and that’s something that DP and I spend most of our time doing when we go away (sad as it sounds). We haven’t been able to do that at all, and there’s not even any phone signal to hotspot from. I was also planning to spend a bit of time doing some online training that I have to do before Monday, but haven’t been able to do that. I have mentioned it to reception 4 times now, they kept saying they’d send someone over to boost the signal, but it didn’t make any difference. The manager did say to us at 10pm tonight that she’d reset the router and if that didn’t work she could move us to another room, miraculously it did help, and we managed to watch a whole film before it dropped out again, but as it was now getting on for midnight we just gave up.

Anyway, sounds like a lot of moaning there 🤣, but other than that the place is great. But this evening I did something really daft. I put the hot hair straighteners on the wooden desk and left a burn mark on the desk. I have never damaged anything in a hotel room before and now I feel sick worrying about it. I’m going to have to fess up in the morning I know, but worried we’ll be charged hundreds of pounds. Has anyone had any experience of this kind of thing? Can’t sleep (again) for worrying about it.

Oh I could hear the music! But it was further away than the smoking area so the loud talking/shouting etc was more of a problem.

The strange thing was that this hotel has two separate buildings, both with rooms, and they’re a fair distance apart. The building I was in is where the wedding reception was…I did wonder at the logic of this and why they didn’t put the non wedding guests in the other building, well away from it all. The building we were in was a hive of activity with all the wedding party/guests wandering about…it kind of felt like gatecrashing someone’s wedding 🤣

And there were cigarette bins where the smokers were (just outside of the main doors of the building), as well as handy bits of wall to sit on, so I guess that was the smoking area.

Then yes, it's unacceptable - our smoking areas are well away from the bedrooms for this specific reason - they must get plenty of complaints if that's the case because it's not what you expect at all really, we're at pains to keep the disruption to other guests at a minimum when there's a wedding on or at all really, but sadly some people are just really inconsiderate no matter what lengths you go to!

Did they at least tell you at check in with it being a last minute thing? Though really those rooms shouldn't be available to book online anyway.

And as for the desk, hopefully they won't charge, you have to go through booking dot com for most damage claims because if it works the same way ours does then we claim the money from them rather than get the guests card details. I don't know if everywhere does that though. I'd just be grateful that you mentioned it because so many people trash the place and just leave without saying anything.

@HotelWoes Just for future reference; that just means it’s the last room that Booking.com have access to for booking; not the last room in the hotel that’s available. It’s rare that the two are the same.

I burnt a pan completely when I stayed at Centre Parcs. I thought I'd be charged. Have heard nothing since.

My ex vomited behind a beside cabinet.. I did my utmost to clean it.. I was mortified to tell the hotel.. nothing heard since.

It happens.

@Maverickess no they didn’t mention anything on check in but to be fair it was pretty obvious at that point that there was a wedding going on 🤣. There were some perks…the pool and jacuzzi we had to ourselves as pretty much all the other guests were there for the wedding.

Another reason I didn’t ask to be moved on the Friday night is that DP was happily dead to the world next to me, that man could still sleep if a brass band marched through the room, it’s like a superpower he has. Not sure he’d have appreciated being woken post 1am to get dressed, pack his bag and move to another room, lovely though he is.

The wifi in hotels is usually for browsing only, or you can pay to get premium wifi to stream. I wouldn't pay to stay in a posh hotel just to watch films on my phone!

20 years ago I was charged €400 for a table that my son’s friend broke and €1000 for a large bar bill because they had let my 2 teens and their 2 friends (we took the friends on holiday with us) order rounds of drinks from the bar (they were about 15/16). Hotel wouldn’t give us our passports back until we paid and taxi was waiting to take us back to the airport so negotiating wasn’t possible. It was the most expensive holiday we’ve ever been on.
Depends on how much the piece of furniture would cost to repair or replace…is it posh?

I don't know. Boiling hot water pouring through a hotel room ceiling at 1am seems like a much, much more uncommon experience than having a bit of a shit ex. I don't know anyone who has experienced the former, I don't know anyone who hasn't experienced the latter

I used to work in a hotel a long time ago now. It's accidental damage and we would have been covered on insurance. It's deliberate damage we would pursue such as smashing a room up or ripping a phone off the wall.

This post has stirred up a really old memory! More than 25 years ago, my boyfriend (who was 16) at the time and I (who was 15) managed to sneak off for a long weekend at a Haven-type place in a caravan. It was a whole production, involving fake IDs and various friends acting as alibis in case my parents worked out I wasn't where I'd said I would be.

Anyway, one evening BF had decided to leave a towel to dry hung over one of those padded stools you get in caravans, and he left it in front of the electric fire (no, he was not very bright). I was in the shower when I heard the smoke alarm start, and then heard him shouting "Shit....shit! Oh shit...." I jumped out of the shower as he carried the smouldering stool and towel outside - we were very lucky the foam padding hadn't yet burst into flames!

We decided that rather than 'fess up (what with the fake ID and everything...), we would bury the ruined towel and stool in a massive skip we'd seen on the site. Obviously if it had happened now I'm an adult, I would have told the owners, but we didn't feel we had much of a choice back in those days!

I stayed in a hotel in Florence by the Arno that was not cheap. Unbeknownst to me, but sure to the hotel, it was next to a market that set up at 5.30am. I suppose that didn't matter because our room was beneath the restaurant area that the hotel decided to set up about the same time for breakfast. so we woke up any way.

We are not particularly early risers. Who is, at 5.30am on holiday? They didn't warn us or offer us a discount or move us until we complained and complained again. And then complained a bit more. We got one in the end but it ruined our holiday. We will not stay there again. You live and learn

People put up with a lot of shit.

@Iwanttobeagranny it wasn’t exactly a posh desk - very generic hotel kind of furniture, although it was proper wood rather than MDF.

I made the exact same mistake with straighteners and a wooden desk in a hotel. I went down to reception an hour before checkout, apologised and explained the situation in person. They told me not to worry and that I wasn’t the first. They also thanked me for telling them as lots of guests just check out rudely without saying anything …. So… come clean and hope for the best 🤷🏼‍♀️

If the hair straighteners are hot enough to burn a wooden desk, what the heck are they doing to your hair??!

I’d be annoyed that you’d had these issues at a 4* hotel. This is why air b n b has taken off, because even at a fabulous hotel the service is still shit. Why haven’t they moved you! The internet is reason enough. I wouldnt mention the burn.. can your DH get a new card as soon as you leave 😂 If you’d have a lovely time I would mention it but tbh I’m angry for you at the wifi and the noise enough that they can just deal with it. The hotel should be designed so that wedding guests having a fag aren’t outside your window. That’s also unacceptable. I bet they’ve charged the couple getting married a fortune aswell!!

I wouldn’t mention the damage caused by the hair straighteners.

We experienced similar with wedding noise at a rather fancy hotel that ironically we were staying at for our honeymoon. They really need to tell other customers there’s going to be a wedding on when they book.

Because of my experiences, I actually avoid fancy hotels and any in older buildings with creaky floors and doors now.

What is unreasonable is that I have no idea why your post is so long. You have nothing to say other than you made a mistake and left the straighteners out.
Anything else but the last paragraph could have been left out.
If there was no WiFi in a 4 star hotel room, you should have had a room change in the first 5mn lol and the smoking and wedding is the most ridiculous part, how could you not complain to them then? You can complain without being rude!
For the mark left on the desk, it's totally your fault and you should have been more careful, so what are you even asking here?

I once sat on a side table in a spanking new hotel and it broke into pieces. We also put up the travel cor against a wall and it scraped the new paint. I was mortified. Fessed up as they saw both on the cleaning rounds. The originally said £600 but when I grovelled to the owner on bad Italian he reduced it to around £200 I think. I did point out that new furniture shouldn’t be that frail in a hotel- it was chipboard secured by one screw, but as I was 16st at the time, I don’t think he agreed.

I'm more confused why you didn't ask tobe moved away from the venue smoke and noise. Personally I'd ask for mymoney back and forget the hair straightners

You do realise that OP is not a pupil who has written an essay for you to mark?

This is an internet forum, not a business writing course.

**Peonyfun · 04/06/2023 08:13
Florissant · 04/06/2023 08:06

Yes. The OP goes on and on about complaints but minimises the damage she made to the hotel furniture.
Show quote history
Yes, 80,percent of the post is about complaints, and only the very brief last paragraph mentions she’s burned the table.

and some of it is not really believable or incredibly petty. It reads like she’s trying to find a way to justify getting out of paying. I’m struggling with we went away didn’t realise it was a wedding venue and we wanted to spend “most of our time” watching streaming shit and doing online training in the room. And did the room not have air con, why was it so hot?**

This, This, a million times this - you are trying to justify the burn mark. Put your big girl pants on, go down to reception and tell them what you've done, and that as a responsible adult, you take full responsibility. FFS! you are an adult!

That was to @Cccccccc666666

(by the way, you do realise your username is lacking vowels and is unlikely to need to many characters to be unique?)

She’s got a point though.

OP wrote this ridiculously long post clearly hoping we would ease her guilt by saying “omg, horrible hotel, they deserve it!”

Bur all of that information was irrelevant as they are two entirely unconnected points.

Do you also yell “Get to the bloody point!” at your friends when they chat to you?