Cleanliness is next to Laughable
 

I spent the weekend on a road trip with two friends. One of them and I had a union meeting in Halifax on Saturday, so he, his wife, and I hopped into their car and drove down.

Friday July 14

You know it's summer when...

The city of Charlottetown decides to tear up the streets. For some reason known only to politicians, road repair during the months of April and May, despite the lack of tourists, are [i]verboten[/b], no matter how amenable to outside work the weather may be. But the moment the tourist season starts, Prince Edward Island (where the government apparently feels that if they could just get rid of the residents, they could turn the whole place into an Anne of Green Gables theme park) gets out every bit of road repair equipment it can find and deploys it in strategic places (like the two main streets into the city from the west, which everybody who travels from the mainland across the Confederation Bridge (the main roadblock to GreenGablesLandParkWorld is the competing pressure to turning PEI into a monument to Confederation, which is singularly inapt, since PEI was the only province to back out of Confederation at the last minute back in 1867).

But I digress. We managed to get out of the city and headed towards the above-mentioned bridge. Traffic was slowed to 60km/h on the bridge, because the road-repair crews are breeding and there was an infestation of them there too. Remember, this bridge is only 3 years old.

Finally we arrived on the mainland, and headed straight for Halifax. Until we remembered that on our trip in April the gourmet restaurant at the roadside motel in Masstown (just before Truro, Nova Scotia) had been closed, so we stopped there for supper. The menu had changed (see my trip report from back then). They've dropped the German from the menu, but the food was very good; we all had the special, wild boar stew with red cabbage and spätzle. Oof, we were stuffed, and glad we didn't order the 3-course special, which included French onion soup and crèpes with fresh fruit (apples, mangoes, and such).

We sauntered across the road to the Masstown Market to investigate the offerings in the garden centre, but didn't buy any plants (mostly because the weeping mulberry I coveted wouldn't have fit in the car). I did stock up on fruit scones, raisin and lemon scones, currant and lemon scones, and blueberry and lemon danishes for our meeting tomorrow (I know my fellow participants well).

Back on the road, we pulled into Dartmouth, where we headed straight for the local outlet in the Chapters bookstore chain, where I spend an inordinate amount of money despite the fact that we don't have one where I live. Miraculously, this time all I bought was a magazine, for which I paid $1.88, since I used one of the $5 coupons Chapters regularly sends me in recognition of the fact that my disposable income has probably bought the land for at least two of their stores. My friends were amazed; last trip I struggled out the door with over $200 in books.

We continued into Halifax and checked into the Delta Halifax.

My experience at this hotel is detailed in a letter I will post as the next item in this topic.

This is the letter I sent to Jim Johnson, the President of Delta Hotels:

Sir:

I am enclosing this letter with a comment card regarding my stay at the Delta Halifax July 14-16, 2000. I am also e-mailing this to [email protected].

This stay was unsatisfactory in the extreme and left me, as a Privilege Gold member, deeply concerned about the quality of any future stays at this location.

Before I left home, I called the Privilege line to assure that my Privilege number was attached to my reservation. I found it was not, but was not concerned as this sometimes happens at this location when my reservation is made by our local office in Halifax. I asked that it be added and thanked the agent I spoke to.

When I checked in at about 9:15 pm, my key card was ready and in a Privilege folder, so all seemed well. I should have noticed that the room number (330), was on a floor I had never before associated with Signature class rooms, to which I an entitled by my status in your frequent guest program. Upon entry I noted the bottle of water and chocolate on the nightstand. I also noted that there was no bathrobe in the room. I called down to inquire if this was a Signature class room, as there was no bathrobe. I was told that it was not, and was offered a bathrobe. I politely indicated that I was entitled to the Signature room. I was then told that if I waited, they would try to locate one and call me back. Instead, I informed the person at the other end that I would come back downstairs, as I had plans for the evening that did not involve sitting in a room I shouldn't have been in and waiting for a phone call. The person at the other end agreed that this was reasonable.

When I went down to inquire about the appropriate room, it appeared that the people at the front
desk had no idea I was going to appear in front of them. I went through the process of explaining the hotel's error again, at which point I was given a new room (623). The friends I was meeting appeared in the lobby at that moment, so I quickly dashed upstairs and dropped off my bags.

When I returned from my outing, I went back to my room to unpack. After doing so, I went into the bathroom and noticed that the room had not been properly cleaned, judging from the glass with toothpaste on the vanity and the smears of toothpaste or soap around the sink and faucets. I showered, hoping that the bathtub had at least been cleaned, and used what appeared to be clean towels. I then went downstairs and asked if housekeeping was still on duty. When I was told they were, I presented the dirty glass to the front desk clerk and asked that my room be thoroughly cleaned before I returned from my night out, as I had no faith in the general cleanliness of the room, given the example of the bathroom.

When I got back, I discovered that the bathroom appeared to have been cleaned, and a note from housekeeping indicating that it was too late in the evening for the room to be vacuumed.

The next morning, I discovered that a note from the general manager had been slipped under my door, welcoming me to the hotel. There was no indication that he was aware of any problem, as this was a preprinted card.

That day, after I returned from my business in town, I discovered that Housekeeping had decided that toilet paper was an unnecessary luxury; one depleted tube was left hanging on the roller, and the other roll was half-depleted. When I went downstairs to dinner, I informed the front desk of this new omission and asked that it be corrected before I went back upstairs. It was, but this latest problem did nothing to ameliorate my feelings about my stay.

On checkout on Sunday, I was asked how my stay was. I was frank and listed the problems I had encountered. Apparently none of this had yet been documented, since despite my file being open on the computer, the front desk staff were surprised that anything at all had gone wrong. I was told that the problem with obtaining the correct room may be because the reservation was made by our local office; I pointed out that I have stayed there many times in the past, under similar circumstances, and that this had never happened. Even when I was a regular Privilege member, none of this has occurred at the Delta Halifax, and I certainly don't see how it should have when that day I had confirmed that the appropriate information was attached to my reservation.

While the problems I had were eventually rectified, they should never have occurred in the first place, and I should think that after the first two problems, the staff would have made an extra effort to ensure that there were no further problems. That this did not happen I can only assume is due to the fact that nobody wanted anybody else to know that anything had ever gone wrong, an assumption supported by the apparent ignorance of the general manager and of the staff on duty during my check-out. This leaves me unsatisfied with the stay in question, and concerned that a future stay at this property, or elsewhere in the Delta chain, might be fraught with similar problems. I would appreciate your informing me of what steps you will take to finish resolving the immediate problem, and prevent future problems from arising.

Saturday July 15

Waitress, please bring me an extra stomach!

Saturday I got up and skipped breakfast, heading straight to my meeting. The scones I picked up came in handy for more than just myself at the meeting, as I suspected.

For lunch we went to the always fabulous Economy Shoe Shop, where one of the participant's girlfriend works. As usual, I had the hot artichoke dip, and then I had the day's special, Eggs Florentine, which was delicious except they use raw spinach instead of cooked spinach. Oh, well, I used that as an excuse to ignore the salad.

For supper I used a Delta Hotel gift certificate for $50 off and took two friends to dinner in the Crown Bistrot (don't ask me why they spell it this way, and it's not a bistro either, it's a full service restaurant). I had called ahead and made reservations, which was a good thing since two bus tours were in the hotel and were all eating there that night. Also, I'd asked about a dress code and was told "oh, no, we're very casual".

Perhaps we should have dressed up a bit, since I had to ask for the wine list, but other than that everything was fine. We all had the buffet, which included cream of vegetable soup (the kind one makes from yesterday's leftover vegetables - okay, but they need to make fresh vegetable stock to enliven the flavours), roast pork with demi-glace, steamed PEI mussels (these things follow me around the world, I swear), penne with a chicken-bacon-cream sauce, rice pilaf, your standard boiled vegetables (carros, cauliflower, etc), a flavourless rotini with tomato and herbs, and Atlantic salmon with dill sauce (the salmon wasn't very fresh). Everything else we had was quite delicious (we all skipped the salad bar); we washed it down with Georges DuBoeuf 1998 Beaujolais-Villages, seeing nothing else on the wine list that went with everything.

We had to waddle back up to the dessert bar, where we sampled the apple cheesecake, the berry cheesecake, the pecan pie, the mocha torte, and the strawberry-rhubarb pie, with chocolate sauce, raspberry sauce, and blueberry sauce. We left the dishes of Jell-O alone, though, and enjoyed a cup of tea while we sat there trying to get the energy to stand up.

Eventually we made it back to my room, where my friends gave me a copy of the program from Wilson's memorial service and told me about it (the musician whose song Wilson had requested for the service volunteered to play it himself instead of their using the CD, which was very nice, considering they had never met). One friend left and the other and I went out where we toasted Wilson's memory. I may have toasted it a few too many times, since I don't think I got back to my room until 3 am or so.

Islandcub
Great report. I hope that you get this problem with the Delta resolved. Keep us informed.

Is there any chance that you can write a couple more of those letters for me? I had an instance recently where the president of the chain intervened and the problem was still not fixed! I got a full refund for 2 stays of about 7 days but as I was on company business, I personally never saw any benefit to my discomfort.

[This message has been edited by IsleTraveller (edited 07-17-2000).]

Great report! Amusing as usual, islandcub!

[This message has been edited by IAH_FLYER (edited 07-17-2000).]

An FYI for you re: road construction.

Construction with asphalt (and especially concrete!) during a rainy season is not practical if you encounter near-freezing temperatures.

In buildings, you can enclose the structure to minimize the effect of too rapid cooling, and can get kerosene heaters to bring the temperatures into acceptable ranges. Not easy to do this with street/bridge work, especially if it still must carry traffic during the construction.

Ever wonder why roadwork in Las Vegas is usually at night? It ISN'T out of sympathy to the work crews - if its too hot (and dry), you can practically watch the concrete crack as it dries.


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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."

Thanks, IAH_Flyer! Really, I never intended my life to be a sitcom.

Jon: I didn't know that. This is all asphalt construction that I'm seeing. And I doubt I'll ever see them enclosing the road to work on it; they'd never spend the money.

My fellow island person: I hear you; I've gotten stays refunded (well, I assume they were; I let the accounting office know when they should expect a reversal of charges). I used to know the web address for the Random Complaint Letter Generator; I'll look for it again. Meanwhile, here's the answer I got yesterday by e-mail:

Dear Mr. IslandCub,

Thank you for your message regarding your stay at The Delta Halifax. It has
been forwarded to Mr. Hank Stackhouse, General Manager, for his immediate review
and follow-up. You will be hearing from him soon.

Mr. IslandCub, I do apologise for the difficulties you encountered at check-in, and
throughout the duration of your stay. Certainly, the inattention to detail that
you encountered is not in keeping with Delta's standards; we are therefore
grateful that you have brought your concerns to our attention. I can assure you
that management will be following-up with the staff members involved.

If I can be of assistance at any time, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Best regards,

xxxxxxxxx
Guest Relations Co-ordinator

Sunday July 16, 2000

I thought driving was supposed to be cheaper than flying...

I woke up at 8:00 am Sunday, which was a bad idea, but I made the best of it and finished packing. Once I felt sentient again, I called my friends to find out when they wanted to leave; we settled on 10:30 am.

After checking out, I went to the gift shop to see about an ambulatory breakfast and settled for a Rice Krispies snack, a bag of smoked almonds, and a bottle of water. I smoked my first cigarette of the day and met up with my road-trip companions, and we headed out.

We realized we had planned to stop in Bedford at Pete's Frootique some time after we passed the most convenient route there. On the highway we took an exit that looked promising, but wasn't. Eventually we figured out where we were and headed to the store, in the Sunnyside Mall, and realized that had we waited one more exit we would have been fine. Hopefully that's the last time they'll ever let me be a backseat driver.

Pete's Frootique, as I've probably told you before, is a wonderful store that started out as a greengrocer's in Saint John, New Brunswick, and has become a small chain of boutique food stores here on the east coast. Pete Luckett has some of the most amazing produce; I counted 5 different varieties of pears alone. I picked up some Asian eggplants and a lovely ripe starfruit (the regular grocery stores generally have tiny, unripe starfruit which are sour sour sour). I also stocked up on imported foodstuffs from Britain, such as various Cadbury chocolate confections, and other items I can't find at home, such as a jar of jackfruit in syrup, one of chopped lemongrass (quite often the stuff in stores here is half dried out and therefore worthless), dried Chinese black mushrooms, and bagels (they promised "Montreal-style"; we'll see). I also picked up a sourdough baguette and a sour cream and chive baguette (they underbake their baguettes slightly so you can finish them in the oven at home). Oh, did I mention they give a 5% discount with a CAA/AAA card?

Piling back in the car, I dozed intermittently until we arrived at the ferry terminal in Pictou, Nova Scotia. We had decided to take the ferry rather than the bridge to avoid the construction work, and pulled in a half-hour before the next crossing. We would have planned to get there earlier so that I could have coffee or lunch with AC*SE, but he had been delayed getting back to Nova Scotia and was running behind on the things he had to do.

The ferry arrived from Prince Edward Island on time and began unloading. When it appeared to be done, the waiting vehicles began to load; however, it was very slow; they were only loading one lane instead of two. After a while we saw more cars coming off the ferry even as loading continued; we figured that either somebody had stalled their car and was blocking everybody behind, or one of the moveable decks/ramps had jammed.

Harsh judgement? This was the MV Confederation, which has had its share of problems. After it was built, Northumberland Ferries Ltd. discovered that the docks that had been built to accommodate it were too small, so its launch was delayed while they expanded the docks. Then, that same summer, they managed to ram the boat into the dock. I'm glad these people don't operate an airline.

Finally on, I asked a crew member what had happened, and was told that nothing at all had gone wrong; the simultaneous loading/unloading was standard operating procedure to make things go more quickly. Not that I've ever seen them do this before.

The crossing was uneventful; I had a slice of pizza in the cafeteria and then went out on the deck to smoke cigarettes and pass the time. This year they'd begun providing musical entertainment, reflecting the culture of the region, according to the brochure. When I checked it out in the E deck lounge, there were two guys playing guitars and singing 70's and 80's top 40 music, which seemed an odd tribute to the Celtic/Acadian/Mik'Maq people of the region.

We finally got off the Ship of Fools and pointed the car Charlottetown-ward, except we stopped at a nursery on the highway and started buying stuff for my patio and my friends' garden. I had my eye on a stone planter and a stone Buddha, but we were near capacity, so I settled for a hanging basket of Purple Stripe, while my friends bought tomato cages and numerous annuals. It was at this point that we realized that we had probably spent more money between gas, tolls, and shopping than if we'd just flown to Halifax, as evidenced by the fact that my friends had $10 left and we needed to buy gas.

We eventually made it to town, where we spent quite some time unloading my bags, parcels, and plant and stuffing it into my apartment. I bid them farewell and am wondering where the heck they had room in their garden for tomatoes, since it was already full last time I saw it.