Too Bad Her Brain Isn’t At Maximum Occupancy

I’ve been working in the hotel industry for about four years now, and due to a good program and performance, I am already a duty manager. I’ve been interacting with a lot of fussy guests over the years who know that crying for the simplest things will get you freebies. But this one lady really got on our nerves.

It’s one of those days when we are almost sold out, and the upcoming days are either sold out or very tight, especially on the higher-category rooms. I’m there in the lobby in the late evening with just one arrival left for the day. It’s booked under the name of [Guest] and made for a basic-category room with an occupancy of two adults.

A car pulls up to the main porch, so I think, “Yay, the final arrival is here! I can just finish this off and chill for the rest of the shift.”

Oh, how wrong I am about to be.

Out of the car come two adults, three kids, a nanny, and a toddler, and — I am not exaggerating — eleven pieces of luggage.

I think this has to be some sort of canceled reservation and I am about to deal with telling a person who didn’t check his mail that we can’t honor his reservation. Nope, it’s [Guest].

Guest: “Hi. We would like to check-in. We are very tired.”

Me: “Of course, ma’am. Could you help me with your name and your reservations?”

Guest: “It’s just one reservation — under [Guest].”

Me: *Visibly confused* “But ma’am, this reservation is booked for only two people, and I can see that you are traveling with more than that.”

Guest: “Well, I spoke to your colleague, Mr. [Person], and he confirmed that I can just take your Prime Luxury Suite in the hotel on arrival. I see on the website that it can accommodate six people, so I want that. I spoke to Mr. [Person] working for you, and I want your Prime Suite as he said we can all fit in that. Go ahead and upgrade me.”

Me: “We have only one Prime Luxury Suite in the hotel, and it’s already sold out for the entire length of your stay, as this is the busy season. Also, we do not have anyone named Mr. [Person] that works for us.”

[Guest] explodes and starts screaming.

Guest: “You are so uncoordinated! Mr. [Person] does work for you, and he promised me that suite! I demand to speak to your duty manager!”

You are looking at him, crazy lady.

I finally told her basically that there was no way the room she’d booked could accommodate her entire clan and that she needed to book an extra room. Even doing this would mean that we’d have to oversell the hotel by a room for one of the days because of her, but I’d speak to higher management and get that done. After a lot of arguing and showing her the room, she finally reluctantly agreed, scoffing the entire time about how she was going to leave a bad review and so on.

Still, doing my job, I processed the new reservation and even gave her an interconnected set of rooms — two rooms with a door in between.

Over the course of her stay, she complained multiple times about laundry, food, and services to try and get as many freebies as possible, and as soon as she checked out, we decided to add her straight to the Do Not Rent list. We never got that bad review that she talked about, only bad vibes from her throughout the stay.