Guests doing a bunk?
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2008-11-09 12:46:18 - Graham EllisHotel guests, due to check out this morning, not down from breakfast at the time they had estimated. All quiet - very quiet - on the bedroom front. Their car missing from the car park (I looked up the registration to check). Yes, I was concerned (but not overly so; as a matter of course, we have booking guarantee details and can charge in the event of a no-show or an abscond-without-paying).
It's the waiting and wondering that keeps the tension going and the blood pressure high.
Are they there and just late down?
Looking up at the room from outside, there's condensation inside the window. A good sign; it indicates it is, or recently has been occupied.
And within 30 minutes the guests appear. It seems they were out with local friends last night, and had a few to drink. Rather than driving back, they got a lift ... then overslept (and deeply so) beyond the time they had planned. There's usually a perfectly logical explanation and good on them for leaving the car elsewhere late last night.
A happy breakfast, a chat about today's plans ... and their friends arrived to collect them a little later. "May we show them our room" our guests ask. "By all means" says I, smiling ... and a worry of an hour earlier had turned right round into an opportunity for a little bit of marketing. "Have a cup of coffee too ..." says I.