No Reservations About Making No Reservations

I work at a hotel near a major airport, so we have an airport shuttle to take our guests back and forth. Our shuttle runs 24/7 but we only have one shuttle due to a staff shortage. Currently, it runs on a half-hour schedule, so it leaves the hotel on the top and bottom of the hour and picks up at the airport on the 15 & 45.

The only way to be fair to our guests and keep the schedule accurate is to leave the hotel right on the dot and we only wait a few minutes IF you called down ahead of time to let us know you were running late.

Because the shuttle only fits so many people, we tell our guests at check-in to sign up for a time slot so we can ensure we don’t end up with twenty people showing up for a shuttle that only fits twelve.

Most of us at the desk explain to the guests that they need to be in the lobby five minutes before the time they signed up for as the shuttle leaves right on time and does not wait.

A guest who signed up for a 7 AM shuttle comes down at 7:03 AM.

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but the shuttle has departed, and you will need to wait for the next available shuttle.”

Guest: “Reserve me another shuttle immediately!”

Me: “Sir, we’ve signed you up for the next shuttle at 7:30 AM.”

Guest: “I want to reserve a shuttle right now! I had already reserved myself a shuttle for 7 AM.!”

Me: “Sir, you are signed up for the next available shuttle.”

This just gets me another insistence that he had RESERVED the shuttle. I realize that he is under the impression that he is oh-so-special and the shuttle was leaving at 7 AM for him specifically rather than leaving at 7 AM for our guests in general.

I try to explain to him that no, he did not reserve a shuttle specifically for himself that was guaranteed to take him when he needed it, but rather he just put his name down to let us know how many people to expect for the already scheduled departure. Of course, he’s super special and important so he keeps reiterating that he had reserved a shuttle and therefore we need to get another shuttle for him immediately.

Me: “Sir, we have one driver so there’s no way to get another shuttle going right now for you.”

This is met with… you guessed it… “bUt I rEsErVeD iT.”

Me: “No, sir, you did not reserve the shuttle. You said you’d be here for the 7 AM shuttle and then you were late, and it left. Your wife came down five minutes later so even if you had bothered to let us know you were going to be late we wouldn’t have been able to wait that long for the entire party to be ready.”

I will say, the one good thing he had going for his behavior was that he never invoked his status (highest status at our hotel outside of lifetime or owner status) but he did ask for the manager’s card and I’m sure we’ll get a bad review out of it.