London Trip - Day 2 - Hotel Drama

 When we arrived back at our hotel after the Harry Potter tour, we were in for another adventure, but not in a good way.

We walked in & the man running the reception desk handed us a key & told us he found a key to our room.  We were excited until we went downstairs to our room to find it completely empty.  Remember how they told us to leave a few things in the room to "remind" them that it was still occupied?  Yep, ALL GONE.

We went back upstairs & asked him where our things were & he said he didn't know.  He said that he did us a courtesy by letting the maid in to clean the room for us as an apology for not having a key at check in.  Well, the maid went in & "cleaned out" everything we had in there including our pillows, towels, toiletries, & more.  I got upset & told him the maid should have never entered our room while it was occupied without our permission AND that he should have let her know that we were still staying there & not to touch our stuff.  He proceeded to get up in my face & started screaming at me that I was ungrateful & that I never should have stayed in a room without a key in the first place!!!  (I agree with that sentiment, but HE IS THE ONE THAT GAVE ME THAT ROOM WITHOUT A KEY IN THE FIRST PLACE & REFUSED TO GIVE US A REFUND IF WE LEFT THE HOTEL!)

I was SO angry.  Trek happened to come upstairs just as he was screaming in my face (he was literally less than a foot away from my face).  He went "papa bear" on the man & told him in the loudest voice I've ever heard Trek use (he's a calm & quiet soul.  I've never heard him raise his voice before).  

"Don't EVER talk to my wife like that!"

We talked through the situation again, & the worker asked us what we wanted to do.  We asked to see the maid's closet to see if she put the items by the washing machine or in a closet in case someone came back to claim the $100 worth of stuff they "left" in the room.  The laundry room was in shambles.  I don't know how this place stays in business.  There were bugs, there was dirty laundry everywhere (which made me cringe thinking about sleeping in that bed again.), but none of our personal items from our room.  We asked the employee if he could call the maid to ask about it, but he told us the maid didn't speak English so he couldn't communicate with her.

Frustrated, we asked if we could look through the trash bins for the hotel.  The guy was a total jerk about it.  He did NOT want us rummaging through their trash, so I asked him if he was so concerned about it, that maybe he should be the one to rummage through the trash instead of us.  He didn't like that idea either.  In the end, all 3 of us wound up rummage through the trash bins.  NOTHING.  We found trash from the hotel rooms. . . empty shampoos & soaps, things like that, but none of our personalized towels, pillows, or toiletries.  The man said he was sorry, but there was nothing he could do about it.

Trek looked at him & knew there was still something "off" about the whole situation.  "There is something you can do.  You can compensate us for what was taken from our room."  He refused to even consider that so Trek told him he was going to call the police & let them know what happened.  As soon as we mentioned the cops, the guy immediately asked how much money would be sufficient to cover what was stolen.  We looked up each item on Amazon & figured out it was about $100 worth of items missing & he paid us 80 Pounds (which was about $100).  We were even.

I was still mad.  But we needed this hotel for two more nights & nothing else was available so we had to play nice & agree that everything was fine now.  We were grateful we now had a key to our room, but we spent the rest of the stay without any soap, shampoos, towels, or pillows.  It was such a random incident.