My Stuff Was All Gone
Ramada Inn – Tyler, TX – Mid 90’s
I was traveling a lot for work. Over 4 years, I averaged 2 round trips per week. I never cared about getting into a quality hotel, just not a dump. This trip is more involved than average, so I’m there for 2 nights.
I got in on a late flight and to the hotel about 11 pm. There was only 1 other car in the parking lot – that should have been a sign. It was obviously an older building, but I’ve been in older. I check in as usual and drop my bags in the room. A quick look shows some cracks in the bathroom tile and sink – nothing functionally bad. The carpet is cheap and stiff – not crunchy though. The TV gets 1 channel – it was either weather or in Spanish.
Hungry, I stop at the desk to ask for a recommendation. Not only is is not the same person that checked me in 10 minutes ago, they don’t know of any restaurants in the area. I go find something on my own. As I walk past the desk on my way back an hour later, it’s another new person behind the desk greeting me. Still the same one other car in the lot.
At 3 am, there’s a pounding on my door. It’s a deputy with what appears to be another new person from the front desk (turnover can’t be that high, can it?) hovering behind the cop. The deputy is here to evict me. According to the desk guy, I owe rent for a couple weeks and he wants me out “NOW!”
He hands the deputy a clipboard with the paperwork. Half asleep and reading upside down, I say ‘That paperwork is for room 301. This is room 103. I assume we’re done here.’ The deputy apologizes (not the desk jockey, though) and I shut the door and go back to sleep.
I go to the client site the next day and pass yet another new person behind the desk. I opt out of the ‘breakfast’ offered. Another vendor onsite offers to buy dinner, so I head to the hotel for a quick shower. My stuff is gone. All I left was an overnight bag, since I travel light and took my laptop to work.
I talk to the new guy at the desk (I seriously never saw the same person twice). He checks the computer and says I was only checked in for one night. We sort out that error and he makes a couple phone calls. Apparently, the maid locked my bag in the maids closet and I have to wait because she has the only key. An hour later, he gets a phone call and goes to get my bag for me. I strongly suspect someone took it home hoping something of value was in it.
After a quick shower, I meet the vendor for dinner and tell the whole story of the hotel so far. He says there’s plenty of room in the Holiday Inn across town he’s in, but I feel like I have to stay through the end. I get the feeling there has to be a punch line at the end of this joke of a hotel. On the way back to the hotel, I had the idea that I was going to see a crane with a wrecking ball in the parking lot when I woke up – just a random thought.
After a relatively uneventful night (some noisy people in the halls is all), I check out. There’s a new, handwritten sign at the desk stating ‘NO REFUNDS’. After I sign my receipt, I point to it and say, ‘My butt. I’m getting every penny back.’ The new guy at the desk says something about the policy that I interrupt with, ‘I’ll get it from corporate, easily.’ I get to my rental car and there are 3 bullet holes in the rear driver’s side door.
On the flight home, I type up an email summary to my travel coordinator. I try to keep it on the humorous side and include all the relevant details. At the end, I request never to be booked in a Ramada and recommend the company be dropped from preferred vendor status. She forwards the email to Ramada and CC’s my manager. Ramada is pretty much blacklisted by the company and the email makes the rounds through the company for the humor.
A week later, I get a refund check from Ramada. It’s handwritten and includes a stack of coupons for free stays at any Ramada Inn. I cashed the check and returned the coupons with a note stating that I have no use for them since I will sleep in my car before I stay at another Ramada Inn.
Story credit: Reddit / greymud