I don’t know if it’s just my resort that gets this or if it’s everywhere, but so many people come and check in with “service dogs”, and it is so painfully obvious that they’re not really service dogs. This happens during check-in.

Customer: “Just so you know, I have a service dog: a black poodle, golden retriever mix. It’s for medical alert.”

This dog isn’t with her during check-in.

When we ask her the two questions we are legally allowed to ask, she gets angry and threatens us.

Customer: “You’ll get in trouble for asking those questions!”

I pull out our booklet and literally show her the law before she gives up. As we’re doing this, her husband brings the dog in, and this furry friend can’t even listen to being told to sit. Before I can even finish checking them in, it tries to jump on other guests and barks.

Me: “Ma’am, I am not convinced that this is a service dog.”

The woman tries to talk to me but is being pulled away by the dog who has discovered an interesting new smell.

Customer: “I told you that you will be in trouble if you deny access to my service dog!”

Me: “Your dog has been in the lobby for five minutes, and it has disobeyed your every order, bothered other guests, and been a noise nuisance. This behavior is bad for a dog in general, let alone a service dog.”

Customer: “That’s it! I’m going to complain! Where is your manager?!”

Manager: “I’m standing right behind you, and I am charging you the hotel’s pet fee, plus a cleaning fee.”

Customer: “That’s discrimination! Why am I being charged a cleaning fee?!”

Manager: “Because I doubt the steaming turd next to us was made by one of our other guests, ma’am.”

He points down to the recently-deposited evidence.

Customer: “Oh, s***!”

“Oh, s***,” indeed! They were charged the pet fee and a cleaning fee, and we took a bigger deposit against their room. They had to check out early since the dog was such a barker that we got multiple noise complaints.

I run tours around the area from a fancy resort in Jamaica. One of the tours is the exploration of a cave by the beach, which involves a little bit of swimming. I meet the tour group the night before at the resort and explain how it all works.

In the morning, I meet the tour group on the beach and hand out life jackets. A middle-aged woman not dressed for getting wet looks up from her phone, and she seems confused.

Tourist: “What is this for?”

Me: “For the cave swim tour, ma’am.”

Tourist: “You never told me we would have to swim!”

Me: “I explained at the resort that the tour involved exploring swimming into a cave.”

Tourist: “You should have been clearer!”

Me: “Ma’am, the tour is for the exploration of a natural cave that can only be accessed through the ocean. The name of the tour is the ‘Cave Swim Tour’. I don’t know how much clearer I could have been.”

Tourist: “I thought there would be like a guest path or something! What if I needed to use the restroom or stop for a coffee?” 

Me: “…I don’t think this is the tour for you, ma’am.”

I work at a luxury resort on an exclusive island. Tourists pay a lot of money to stay here. An American couple walks up to the beach area where I am stationed.

Me: “Good morning! Can I get you some sun loungers, towels, and some water?”

Guest: “The sand on your website is yellow.”

Me: “Pardon?”

Guest: “The sand on your website showed that your beach is yellow, but this beach is white!”

I’m honestly thinking, “…and?”

Me: “Yes, ma’am, our island is famous for its sandy white beaches.”

Guest: “But I wanted yellow.”

She stares at me expectantly and I honestly don’t know what to say.

Me: “Is there anything you’d like me to do, ma’am?”

Guest: “I wanted yellow! Make it yellow!”

Me: “I can’t change the color of the sand, ma’am, but most people love the vibrant whiteness of the sand.”

Guest: “I am not most people!”

Me: “Yes, obviously.”

I got her a complimentary mango cocktail to “apologize” for the lack of yellow sand. I made sure that that cocktail was as yellow as I could make it.

Related:
Not So Mellow Yellow, Part 2
Not So Mellow Yellow

I have to tell SOMEBODY about this, because it’s been making my skin crawl since it happened.

I was lying on the beach yesterday at a nice resort in Aruba. I wasn’t fully asleep, but I had my eyes closed, beach hat over my face, and earbuds in my ears.

I was listening to a book, so I couldn’t hear well, but I felt someone near me and heard the muffled sound of someone speaking to me. I removed the hat from my face and saw the drink waitress standing there. I hadn’t heard what she said, but I assumed she’d just asked if I wanted anything to drink.

Me: *Shaking my head* “No, thank you. I’m good.”

Employee: “No. Your nuts…”

Me: “Huh?”

She pointed to the plastic bag of mixed nuts in my beach bag.

Employee: “Nuts. I like them. Can I have them? Will you give me some?”

At first, I laughed because I thought she was joking, but I quickly realized she was serious. Before I could stutter, “Sure, help your…” she had already grabbed the bag out of my beach bag and started examining the contents with her talon-like, nasty-a** fingernails. While picking up a mango slice, she said:

Employee: “Ooooooh, you got the good stuff!”

Then, she decided she didn’t want it and dropped it back in the bag.

I’m so mad at myself for not telling her to just take the whole bag. Lord knows I’ll never touch it again after those acrylic claws were used to rifle through it. Every time I think about it, I get so sick to my stomach. I guess [contagious illness] and other communicable diseases don’t exist in this lady’s world.

Oh, and never mind the facts that: a) I can’t believe she spotted them in my bag (a straw beach bag, not clear), and b) she had no problem disturbing me with a beach hat over my face — seemingly asleep. The whole thing was just baffling.

I mentioned this on a website, and the more I think about it, I think some of those commenters were right when they suggested that the employee might’ve been trying to rob me. She fingered alllll the nuts in the bag, but she really only took about three or four of them. If she was desperately hungry or terribly in need, she would’ve eaten more or asked to have the whole bag; it’s not like she was bashful. The whole encounter was very strange, and now I think there was more to it.

My husband used to work for an American company. We were invited to Presidents Week — a week-long beano for “high-fliers” at a five-star beach resort in Mexico.

One day, we went on a boat trip across a huge bay to an island, where we rode the most placid horses in the world to a waterfall-fed swimming hole and then on to a shallow beach for lunch, sunbathing, and a little light snorkelling, before returning to the boat. It was an okay day — pleasant enough.

Until, on the way back…

Out on the bay, a fluke (a whale’s tail) was spotted right in our path. Then another. And another, and another. A huge pod of humpback whales — around forty —was suddenly just… there.

It gets better. They started breaching — that “jump” up into the air, to come crashing back down into the water. They started small but built up and up until up to seven whales were fully out of the water at a time.

We kept our distance and just watched. It wasn’t safe (for us or the whales) to try to continue, as we had no idea where the next one was coming from. It was possibly the most exhilarating sight of my life.

My husband and I were quietly chatting with the English-speaking local guide and the crew. He’d been a guide on this sort of trip for twenty-four years, some of them had been doing it longer, and the captain was a man easily well into his eighties who had spent his entire life out on the water. None of them had ever seen anything like it in their entire lives, nor had they heard of anyone seeing anything like it.

It was well worth being an hour and a half late returning to the dock — though one “princess” threw a fit about that.