VISITING AUCKLAND'S SKY CITY: Room Service? I just want a bloody room!

Holidays Schamolidays! I’ve just arrived back from mine and what a disaster it almost was. It was almost like riding a camel across the Antarctic and not finding a Starbucks for at least three days (long Antarctic-type days that is).

You see, my Lady and I had a simple plan: we wanted to go to Auckland for a few days – that’s all. Her son was returning from a six week excursion through Asia and he was arriving back in Auckland at the time of his 21^st birthday. Now he just loves Casinos so we thought we’d put him up in the Sky City Tower Casino Hotel for a few days – our shout. My Lady’s mother also wanted to go. Now she’s quite a fragile woman with limited mobility – so we booked her in the Sky City Tower Casino too. As for us, we booked ourselves into a hotel a block down the street from the Sky City complex. That actually saved us about $500 on the trip. But the best thing: my Lady and I had saved and we had managed to pay for all flights and accommodation for the four of us as well as accumulate a pretty substantial pot for the Casino. So all was good…

…so we thought.

Now for those regular readers out there, my last Post talked about my Christmas plague and how I thought that after ten days I was finally over it. Actually, it came back with a vengeance just before we left on our trip. So between packing and preparing for the trip I found myself once again sharing regular rhythmic exchanges with the porcelain. And my broken glass and razor blades in the throat, projectile Alien acid puke, and brimstone exploding out of the forehead plague entrenched itself so as to haunt the entire period we were away (I’m still fighting it off even now).

On the brighter side – the week leading up to our adventure was absolutely brilliant. The sun shone every day, the breeze kept at a minimum, the evenings were warm but comfortable: the makings of a perfect summer. But on the morning of our trip we woke up to flooding rains and 55 knot winds.

So some bastard with an over zealous tendency towards administration infatuation cancelled our flights!!! Worse still, they couldn’t get us on another flight for the next two days! So there we were, at the airport going nowhere while my Lady’s son was already in the air out of Thailand and making his way to Auckland where no-one was going to meet him.

So we hopped in the car and drove. What should have been a 55 minute flight turned into a five and a half hour car trip – in absolutely crappy weather.

But eventually we got to Auckland and found our way to the Sky City Tower Complex. It all felt as though things were finally looking up – they could only get better from here…

…Hmmmm

You see, we go to check my Lady’s mother into her room at the Sky City and two things go dreadfully wrong. Firstly, the chowderghoti (pronounced chowder-fish) behind the reception counter tells us they’ve booked her in the secondary hotel complex across the street. Now that’s not what we asked for; the woman is an Invalid for God’s sake. We told them that on their stupid on-line reservation form – that’s why we booked her in here. If she could have walked across the street then we would have booked her in the same hotel we were staying at – and saved an additional $250.

Okay, we finally get that one sorted and they shift her back across the street and into the immediate complex as per the original reservation. But that’s when the chowderghoti reveals their next bungle. He says we haven’t paid for the room!!!! Oh, yes we have – we paid for it on your stupid-ass on-line reservation site using our credit card. He doesn’t agree and wants us to go and get a printout of our credit card statement to verify our claim. Only it’s Sunday you dumbass – the banks aren’t open until tomorrow. So after a secondary argument we finally manage to get chowderghoti to agree to check Her mother in and sort out the payment issue the following day (which we did – and did we get an apology? I don’t think so).

Now before I continue, let’s go back a step – you will remember that we had intended to fly but our flights were cancelled and we drove instead. Well I’m a pretty smart guy as you well know. And while we were on the road I had the foresight to ring ahead and organise a parking space at the hotel where my Lady and I were staying. And when we arrived at our hotel (where there were no problems checking in – and they acknowledged that the room was paid for bar the additional parking space that we fixed up then and there) they directed us down to where our parking bay was. So off we go, around this corner and that, down the lane to the security door, punched in our code, down the ramp and… What the #@*&$!!!! Some dingerwotzi has parked in the space that we just paid for!!!

So back to reception – he comes down and does some investigating. What does he find out? This guy has been allocated parking bay number 18 but he’s parked in number 20 (our allocated space). Hmmm, I guess number 18 can kind of look like number 20 at times??? And you know what? These people breathe the same air as the likes of you and I. Scary thought, isn’t it?

In the mean time, some other chowderghoti at the Sky City complex had managed to cancel Her mother’s booking in their adjacent, across the road facility but failed to put in the right input for the transfer across to the primary facility. So while my Lady and I are down the road at our hotel (parking in bay 18 because of dingerwotzi), Her mother is getting the third degree about her reservation and she’s starting to panic. Fortunately, that’s when my Lady’s son arrives at the complex and, coming across his terrorised Grandma and the four foot tall bully of a chowderghoti (like this guy has the height and stature to qualify as a third world Dictator but instead, chooses to work reception at an inner city casino hotel so he can victimise old ladies) and intervenes until Mum can arrive.

Well my Lady and I arrive back at the Sky City complex where we have to now enter into another argument about Her mother’s reservation. And four foot tall chowderghoti thinks he knows everything. Well, I’ll tell you one thing he doesn’t know… he doesn’t know about my plague. You see, he gets me so worked up that I start to cough – and I cough and I cough…

…and there it is little man, a nice shower of projectile Alien acid puke for you.

As he cowers off in complete and utter humiliation, another chowderghoti comes over, reviews our predicament, clicks a few buttons on his keyboard and ta-daaaa! Miraculously resolves everything.

“I hope you enjoy your stay,” he smiles as we head away.

I think the service at Sky City Auckland sucks…  and usually I’m right.