It's good to hear that you are breeding the next generation of RA's

This obviously needed to move to this thread ... so I waited until responding to make the mod's life less demanding! As you know, I have shared your love of this property for many years and made good friends there.

I have had the same discussion with the management of both IC Singapore and IC Vienna who both say they really don't know how to deal with the problem. That problem (as stated by both of THEM independently) is that for the last few years ... I became aware of this around 7 or 8 years ago ...... (...) .

These visits are different from others because they tend to arrive as larger than European or other families ie normally three generations plus staff. This might be 3 or 4 grandparents a couple of parents and a few kids plus nannies and staff. Often several such families combine and travel together, so can make quite large groups. Naturally they all have club lounge access. The issue seems mostly to be when they go shopping or sightseeing during the day and leave the kids in the lounge all day with their staff and nannies. Nannies are not expected to discipline and control so the kids run riot. If the staff try to intercede they are treated rudely in response; even the nannies see the hotel staff as being lower status than themselves, and such intercessions result often in complaints to the hotel.

On my last to IC Singapore, during breakfast service in the lounge a large family group arrived ... I'd say around 20 in total and took over several tables. Kids ran around completely uncontrolled - and this was daily for a lengthy stay - and on one occasion a guy had got up from his table to go to the toilet leaving his laptop on his table and whilst away, one of the kids in full view of his parents went up to the laptop and started stabbing away at the keys. the parents ignored the behaviour and when I attracted their attention to their kid I received a pretty nasty look. When the poor guy returned it transpired he had lost his presentation he was making that day and some of his work.

In IC Vienna - as you know, the lounge is quite small - and so 20 or 30 or more people in a single family group pretty much take it over. And if it is a couple of families with say two nannies and some other staff with say five or six kids in the lounge all day, it can be pretty unpleasant for others to use and impossible for anyone else for example to use one of the two computers. So, around 4 or 5 years ago the IC VIE previous management tried to deal with the problem by opening a second "summer Club lounge" and stating that visitors couldn't leave their kids with staff in the main lounge during the day. The other lounge had computers in it for the kids to play on. I think they did this for a couple of years and then it stopped and the problems started again in the main lounge. It has made enjoyment of the lounge during the day a bit of a lottery. Business travellers will be less aware of this than leisure travellers who I guess use the lounge during the day more. It actually only takes a single family using the lounge all day and every day to make it potentially unpleasant for a large number of other customers. Management of both properties understand this.

It was largely for this particular problem IC Singapore closed the Club lounge in the evenings to kids and visitors with kids use an area in the downstairs lounge for drinks and food. I know because I suggested this to management and they thought about it for a while and then did it. Even now main Club lounge staff find some customers unwilling to accept this but it has largely stuck. I also think the Club lounge is more dangerous during breakfast service than the main restaurant when kids run around the rather confined food areas.

The only way the problem will be cured will be if customers bring the attention to the notice of management. I think their current view is that these groups are highly profitable and they don't wish to upset them in any way and that is perfectly understandable position to take.

The issue is clearly nothing whatsoever to do with racism or hating kids.