Look Out Harry Is Coming!

A little bird tells me (and it may not be true) that Harry Ramsden may be about to open in town, GREAT i love his fish and chips, I'm not sure all the other chip shop owners will be very happy about it though.

I welcome any new business in town at the moment the sight of so many empty shops is frightening what must the tourists think when they come here, closed down shops, closed down hotels, holes in the ground,half a pier, no fireworks on Guy Fawkes,no tram, what would happen if we all closed our places down for the winter and refused to pay our council tax for a few months, i cant afford to just shut up shop Mostyn Estates still want their insurance for the year and we have to try and pick up anything we can just to keep the bills paid and maintain the place.

next year will be the first year we have not been in the Visit Wales Scheme and talking to one or two HOTEL owners that pulled out last year it has had no effect at all, i also had a look at Trip Advisors top ten HOTELS in Llandudno and Guess what only one of them is classed as a hotel with Visit Wales All the others are Guest Accommodation It looks like they have got the grading the wrong way round to me but i bet nobody from VW has even bothered to ever look at it, anyway i have decided
that we will not call ouselves Guest Accommodation as we are now free to call the place anything we want we will be known as! TOWN METRO BOUTIQE HOUSE HOTEL BED BREAKFAST ACCOMMODATION WITH ROOMS AND BAR RESORT, what do you thik eh? all i have to do now is save up fot the sign.


We have Mrs Smoker in at the moment why is it when we have signs all over the place that they still think they can smoke in the rooms leaning out of the sodding window,throw their fag buts on the floor and think we wont know!! i wouldn't mind but it is the older ones that are worse you would think they would know better,how would they like it if i went into their house and and wafted a dead skunk around for a few hours!

On a different note i am sad to see that Oscar has decided to pack up Blogging its a shame, as i used to read it almost every day and will miss it,you might not always agree with everything that was said on the site, but it was always a good read and now I'm not sure where we will all get the latest news from.

Spotty Hotel

Just been getting all the figures ready for our year end, and i noticed how much more conference business we got this year compared with last, i can't remember there being more on this year, i just think we got a bigger slice of the action,and chatting to another HOTELIER who feels the same, his opinion is that maybe we took some of the business of the large hotels, with the bosses staying at the all singing and dancing places, and the not so important guys getting put up in the smaller places like ours as the credit crunch continues to bite most companies will be looking for this sort of saving,it is a pity our government departments are not doing the same!!!.

Having spoken to a conference organiser it would appear that this is now the case all over not just here, and in many instances the guys in the smaller and more cost effective hotels have had a better service being able to be flexible with meal times and such like has always been a strength of the smaller HOTEL but it wont get you any more stars.

We just had a couple of nights away and stayed at a very nice 4 star Hotel only and hour or so away, the Hotel itself was superb the rooms were first class (in my opinion deserved 5 stars the setting was to die for, and we picked up some useful ideas for the HOTEL, and then it all got let down by 1 or 2 totally useless staff members.

On arrival we waited about 10 minutes as nobody was at the reception they were all busy apparently when we eventually got to speak to someone we were told that we had checked in at the wrong desk! (OH MY GOD SHOOT ME) then we were packed of to another empty desk and told to wait until someone came, after a while a spotty faced girl came sneezing swine flu all over us and after about 3 phone calls we were told we would now be allowed up to our £180.00 room.

As we left for the lift the man in the Que behind us asked if he and his family could have lunch for 5 people the girl looked at her watch and said NO WE ARE SHUT NOW but its only 2pm and it says that you are open till 3pm said the guy, Yeah but its gone quiet now so we are closing early she said!! Poor bugger he was only trying to give them some money!!.

To be fair dinner was perfect and could not be faulted but breakfast was not so good,as we went to the breakfast room again! nobody there we waited a few minutes and spotty came running out of a cupboard somewhere and noticed us, she waved us over to a table in the corner and left us, after a while she came over and asked what we wanted would breakfast be to much trouble i asked? the mrs gave me a kick!! i ordered a full Welsh breakfast and she told me what they didn't have, now i can't understand it if you have 40 guests booked in you get 40 bloody breakfasts and some spares in case you get greedy bastards but not this place they didn't bother, next i asked for some orange juice and was told with a roll of spottys eyes and a tilted head that it was over there on the table in the other corner, Well what a stupid twat! i am not knowing that!! i coud go on but it just got worse so i gave up an ate the cold toast thtat had been on the table since we sat down.

My point is that this was not a small hotel but a very well known one with a sister hotel down the road thats just as well known and VISIT WALES have given it these stars on its service and qaulity i hope they meet spotty next time they do a grading inspection>>

I am going to enjoy this winter getting my own back!!!!

Paying too much money?

Sitting having a chat with a couple of HOTELIERS the other night and we got talking about how much money we pay into the system, one HOTEL owner was telling me that he had paid the government in one way or another £86000.00 more than he had paid himself!!at first i sat there in disbelief but, when he started adding it all up i started to think Christ!! he is right.

Let's have a look at what he is paying, Business Rates, now we all know that we are being ripped of in Conwy for that one, VAT,Refuse Collection,His own Personal Tax,P.A.Y.E. Fuel Duty,Insurance Premium Tax,Staff National Insurance Contributions,Alcohol Licence Fee,Tourist board Fee,Car Tax,Corporation Tax,Climate Levy Charge on Utility Bills,Water Rates,and Council Tax on his private apartment within the hotel,.

No wonder he is pissed off with sending Money off to one government dept or other,and what if he closes his hotel down as he is often thinking about?, as one department or other is constantly giving him grief and trying to stop him from earning a living, What then!!! i tell you what!! the bloody government is going to loose out to the tune of £86000.00 and he will become another statistic,counted in some totally useless department that puts nothing into the economy of Llandudno or anywhere else for that matter.

It's about time someone woke up and realised that businesses in this area put in a hell of a lot more than they take out, and we should be getting help,not picked on at every opportunity.

I wish i had a job in some cushy dept within the walls of local or national government where i could work 5 days a week with no stress and retire at 60 on a bloody good pension take about 5 weeks holiday PAID and never have to wory about the state of the economy ,the state of the town,or the state of the country.

what have i got to look forward to?? retirement at about 70 years of age?(if i am Lucky)i can then think of trying to find some daft bugger and talk them into buying my business and then probably hand most of that over in TAX, retire on a state pension of about £35.00 and that will probably get me a loaf of bread and and a bottle of milk!

Oh well maybe i can find a cheap B&B in town and steal all the tea and coffee, or perhaps live on a caravan park and pay no tax at all, according to Jeremy Vine today North Wales is Flooded with such places.

Blue Flag Llandudno

Here is an e-mail that a fellow HOTELIER sent to me today,are the people who are running our town intent on total self destruction,i walk around this town every day and can see the failings why can't they? are they so blind to it? or are they just to lazy to get up from the desks that they live behind and do something?.

The only time i have seen anyone in authority they have been stuffing their faces at some freebie or another, then they will chat to you for a few minutes pretending to be interested whilst scanning the buffet over your shoulder to make sure it's not all gone and then you know that nothing will happen because they are to busy organising the next jolly or other.

Roll on the next election let's kick this lot out and then get to the executives at CCBC.and roll some heads before it's to late.


Hi **********
Below is an email I have received this morning and have lost a booking worth £1200 for next year, because of our beaches.

Don’t know if it is of interest or not, Hope you are well

J********

Hi



I just wanted to let you know that we are not going to make a booking. The property looks great but I not happy about the cleanliness of the beach water around that area. We had a bad experience in Guernsey two years ago re sewage and the fact that Llandudno has lost its blue flag status does not bode well. I think it is shocking in our day and age we still have a water system that allows sewage to be dumped in times of high rain. I know it is a problem in many parts of the UK but if you get any opportunity, please forward my comments to local tourist boards etc.



Thanks for your help and I am sorry to have wasted your time.



Best Regards
Elaine

Good Food Guide.

We had some friends to stay this week and took them out to a few places to eat, all in all everything was fine,but 2 places in particular were excellent,first was the Queens Head at Glanwydden,Brilliant food served piping hot by very friendly staff,a bit more expensive than your average pub meal but well worth every penny,each time i go there the standard is good and the beer is also top notch.

Next night we went to the Empire Hotel and had a meal at the poolside £15.00 per head with wine and coffee you can't argue with that,again served by very good staff Lilly is always on the ball at that place, the Maddocks have got a good one there, they better look after her or we will poach her!!.

One of our friends is now a retired accountant and when ever we go out it's always his job to work out the bill! it's become a bit of a joke now, and one of the other guys is a gynecologist and always moans that nobody ever asks him to ply his ex trade at the dinner table!!!

only a couple of weeks left now and I'm going to sod off and annoy some poor hotelier or guest house owner,somewhere after all i have a whole years worth of cunning tricks to try out i just hope i don't end up staying somewhere with a miserable old git like me as a landlord or there is gonna be trouble!!!

Crime pays for Holidays!!!

It is very sad that at this time of year the behaviour of some people seems to get worse, or is it that we just don't notice it in the summer, the amount of yobs wandering around openly swearing and being abusive to others is appalling,why are they coming here? who is paying for them? who is responsible for them? and why do the authorities seem to do nothing about it?

I watched one yob today openly shouting and abusing a community policewoman, are they so powerless to do anything about it? or are they just in the wrong job?.

In my day you had respect for anyone in authority and you would never dream of answering back! never mind arguing in public with them you would have been taken away.

I have just been reading a local newspaper from an area near a big city that i know well, that a guest left for me to read, and he told me that every week the press publish the names and crimes of all those that go to the local magistrates court in an effort to embarrass them, but it would seem that all it is doing is giving them hero status amongst their piers, here are 3 edited entries.

Daniel ******** 20 of Elizabeth Terrace
Pleaded Guilty of being drunk and disorderly in ****** Town centre and also of being in possession of a class b drug and failing to surrender to police bail!!!!.

He was Fined £50.00 Wow!!!

Now compare that with the very next entry!!
George *******21 of Blandford Grove
Guilty of driving without a valid test certificate and using a mobile phone while driving.
Fined £685.00

Now i know that the second guy still broke the law but sodding hell what harm was he doing compared to the fist yob!! then compare them both with the next one.

Paul ******** No fixed abode
Guilty of stealing scaffolding piping worth £3950.00 a lawn mower garden furniture a washing machine and £700.00 worth of criminal damage.

Ordered to undertake treatment at a drug dependency unit and fined £150.00

No doubt the unit is probably somewhere in North Wales and you may soon have him as a neighbor!!!

Digital Switch over

I thought that with all the advertising and banners scattered over town that i could believe the hype, and we would be switching over on the 21st October,Well apparently not! we wont be switching over until the 2nd December and why?? Because we don't get our signal from the Conwy Transmitter we get our signal from Winter hill, as i expect many in Llandudno do, we can get a very faint picture on the Conwy transmitter but you couldn't watch it.

With all this in mind why has so much money been thrown at giving us incorrect information? why has nobody from Digital realised that in some places there will be towns that can't get a signal from there nearest transmitter?.

On the Digital web site it says the CONWAY transmitter is variable and only has 16 channels, WHOOPIE, that will be great!! i bet all you can get is the shopaholic channel, Gay Rabbit, and BBC9, that only comes on after 10pm and shows old episodes of crossroads,

Sod it! I'm fed up with this whole tv crap, I'm going to pull them out of all the rooms and put a compendium set in each one, they can play Ludo all night!!!

Rotary Line In A Spin!!!!

Although i do moan sometimes, (well a lot actually) about some of our guests, in the main they are pretty good, but it would be boring to talk about the nice ones, so i will carry on moaning about the more interesting ones,

Now my wife has got the patience of a saint,and being married to me, some would say that she bloody well needs it!, but this weekend almost pushed her over the edge, we had 2 groups in this week about 30 or so from a club called something like the Rotary spinners, and another group celebrating a 60th,and my god what a difference in the way the 2 groups behaved ,spinners first.

After checking them in they all decided to swap rooms!, i did start to wonder what sort of group they were? )(swingers or Spinners),But after a while and 53 visits to reception things started to settle down, that is until we had to order 12 taxis, now you try getting 1 taxi at 730pm on a Friday night never mind 12, anyway after about an hour or so they were all gone only to return at about 1230 am waking up almost everyone in Llandudno with the banging doors and running between rooms,

Next Morning i thought we had 700 people in for breakfast, they all decided to hit us at once!! Then started get Shitty with us because there was a Que at the buffet!, then the finger clicking started (my pet hate) as they started a competition as to who could order the most stupid breakfast, the winner hands down was the self proclaimed leader of the spinners who won with the following 2 Smoked Kippers, with poached egg, sausages, mushrooms, hash brown, and beanz,!!! I mean for Christ's sake how can you eat that!.

50 gallons of decaf tea, & coffee, later, because every single couple decided to have one tea, and one coffee, and refused to Share with anyone else on their table, and we were nearly there and it was only 1045am, the 60th birthday group were now half way up the Orme waiting for the bus to take them to summit complex for fish, and chips!!!, just 2 hours of cleaning the dining room and we could get working on the rooms.

yep you guessed it!! i thought a bomb had gone off!! in most of the rooms why don't some people have a bit of respect, one woman had even decided to dye her hair black and used one of our bath sheets to do it with,Tea bags left lying around all over dressing tables mountains of newspapers bins full of bottles of wine and pizza boxes (why do they do that they wouldn't do it at home) any way by 4pm we were tidy again and the 60th groups rooms didn't even look like anyone had slept in them,

5pm the reception starts kicking off as they all get back from wherever they had been destroying all day, then Mr Spinner leader collars me in the entrance, and informs me that they would like me to provide 30 wine glasses in the bar for them at 7.30pm as they will be drinking their own wine tonight"!! i nearly hit the sodding roof CHEEKY sods, where do they think they are?? i wouldn't go into the Kings Head order a glass and say oh it's OK i have my own beer tonight you just keep washing glasses for me.

Good job the wife was there as she could see the steam coming out of my ears she pushed me into a broom cupboard and locked me in till they were all gone, i have to say that it was like having a school group in i don't think they could even wipe their own arses without coming to reception and asking which hand would be best to use!.

130am still tyring to carry all the empty bottles of wine down to the bottle bins THAT WE DIDN'T Sell and cleaning all the nuts an crisps of the floor that they had stamped int my brand new bloody carpets, Ahh well they will be gone tomorrow just got to get through breakfast so i just got my head down (in a bowl of porridge) and got on with it.

The 60th birthday group all came and thanked me for a brilliant weekend all shook my hand and left the staff £50.00 tips and all went off happy.

The Spinners all pissed off and never said a sodding word, one of them left 7 pence on the top of the toilet cistern in one of the rooms and £500.00 in recyclable materials so all was well, just got to bolt the place back together as we have a group of paranoid schizophrenics ( i think that's how you spell it) Coming in today, i am looking forward to that and as soon as that cow of a wife let's me out of this cupboard I'm gonna get her (unless someone else gets ME first!!!!!!!!!.

Google To The Rescue

Having Now been forced into a corner i and a few other Hoteliers must Leave the Visit Wales scheme however i think we have a solution,Here are a few simple steps to get an honest grading for your HOTEL without all the bureaucratic rubish that comes from Visit Wales about what you can and can't call yourself.

1. Log on to Google type in the name of your Hotel and hit search Google maps

You will then get a result and star rating from Google not an opinion of a hotel inspector that may stay once every 3 years or so, and who you probably know!.

But an honest list of opinions from possibly hundreds of guests that have stayed with you.
My Hotel has over a hundred reviews and has a star rating i am happy with, its a true and honest opinion of our hotel by the people who matter, the guests.

Here is one to try, i just did it, go to Google maps and type in the Grand hotel Llandudno, Google give them 3 stars and they have 167 reviews i would say that the star rating is about right and the reviews seem to be recent

The reviews can't be altered or fixed and come from various sources including Trip Advisor Bookings.com Laterooms.com and google customers,

This is a great way to market your Hotel and is free, the information is published by google so i see no reason why it can't be used as promotional material for your business, i have e-mailed them and asked the question can i call myself a google graded hotel? i can't see why not as i can put the Trip Advisor grading on my web site, i think it would have a lot more Recognition internationally than the current tourist board one.

I also noted that the pioneer picked up on the story with a couple of Hoteliers giving good reason why they were unhappy, and what was the response from Visit Wales?

Nothing of any help coming forward the same response that i had we can re-grade you as a hotel, but as we don't have a swimming pool, a Gym Telephones in all the rooms a 24 hour reception and we lock the door at night we would probably get 2 stars if we were lucky service, cleanliness,customer satisfaction excellent customer reviews, high occupancy, and the ability to comunicate in english/welsh seems to go nowhere with them.............

Something just hit the fan!!!!

Now I'm going to warn you that this post is not something that you should read whilst having a meal!!!!

Lets talk about this weeks fun and games at the HOTEL, that fantastic invention the Saniflow toilet, now we have about 6 left in the hotel, each year when we start renovations and fit new bathrooms we try our best to get rid of them,but some are
never going to be changed because of the way the building was converted in about 1936.

The sodding things always go at the worst possible time usually before we start serving in the dining room! Why is it that guests cant read? do they all take off their glasses when they go to the loo??.

The warnings are quite clear it says DO NOT PUT ANYTHING DOWN THIS TOILET THAT HAS NOT BEEN IN YOUR MOUTH!!. So why is it that people eat cotton wool with blue string!!they must have that for starters followed by fresh wipes and string followed by cocktail sticks and condoms. URGHHHH what a meal some people are just sick.

Either that or they are just not taking any notice of our clear and concise signage,anyway the other day one went tits up at a very busy part of the day so i rushed up to the top floor to be greeted by the now familiar grinding sound of blades thrashing away at some article illegally thrown down the bog,now I'm normally very careful with these sort of things but without thinking i pulled of the outlet pipe and gave it a kick! what a stupid thing to do! as within a micro second the whole contents of the saniflow gushed out at about a hundred miles an hour,i was completely covered from head to toe in, (well i guess you know what it was)not only that the whole bathroom was now covered in Sh**.

It did make me wonder if the guests in the room were the grading inspectors from Visit Wales as i am getting a lot of ***T from them at the moment.

After the initial shock i just stood there and thought how the sodding hell am i going to get back downstairs and get help? as i looked like a YETI from the planet shit! all i could do was strip off and get in the shitty shower nick one of the bath robes then sneak down the fire escape passing about 8 rooms on the way much to the amusement of some of the guests who wanted to know why i was cooking breakfast in a pink dressing gown.

3 hours of cleaning and a really pissed of wife and housemaid, we managed to get it all sorted out now all we needed to do was the sodding machine, this time i fooled it by pulling the fuse (SOME SMART ARSE WILL E_MAIL ME AND SAY YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE ,NO SHIT SHERLOCK!!)Pardon the pun.

After examination and stripping the unit down which is no pleasant past time i can tell you! guess what we found? 6 PLUM STONES, Sodding hell that must have hurt like hell!, i did speak to the guests in the room and told him not to put any more down there, his curt reply was Well the sign says don't put anything down there that's not been in your mouth well! the plum stones have so its your own fault!!!

I don't think i can publish my response. Where is that bowl of porridge i can feel a gargle coming on!!!!!!!!!!.

VISIT WALES, WHY?

I had a letter from visit Wales this week and this is what it said

Dear ***********

It has come to our attention that you are making a number of references on your Website to the *************** being a hotel.

As you know The **************** is currently graded under the 'Guest Accommodation criteria and is rated as - star Guest Accommodation.

In order to avoid any potential consumer confusion, i would be grateful for your co-operation in removing reference to the word hotel from your website and any other marketing material where the word hotel is mentioned.

If i do not hear from you within 1 month of receipt of this letter confirming that the changes have been made, we will be making arrangements for your business to be re-designated according to the hotel criteria.

if you would like to discuss this matter further then please do not hesitate to contact me.

Glyn Roberts

Head Of Quality Development Operations

NOW i know lots of other HOTELIERS that have also had this letter and it would be nice if we could contact Mr Roberts But the telephone number on the letter head is an old one that's no longer used WELL DONE VISIT WALES ANOTHER LOAD OF ADMIN COCK UP

Why are they intent on pissing the trade off? why are they not doing their job and promoting Wales instead of pretending to be a regulatory body that as far as i am concerned they are not, and nobody has yet given the that power (thank God).

A good Friend of mine sent a response to them and has given me permission to put his response on the blog Here goes.


In response to your letter asking us to remove the word HOTEL from our web site we would like to point out the following.

1. The word hotel is part of the registered name of our company and we are not prepared to change it for Visit Wales or anyone else.
2. Our URL is ***********hotel.co.uk a name that we have owned for many years and have spent thousands of pounds with Google and other Internet marketing people to promote the name ***********.co.uk.
3. All of the contracts we have with suppliers both locally and nationally are with the ********* Hotel our bank accounts are ******* Hotel.
4. Our V.A.T is The ******** Hotel
5. Our reservation software and online booking system says ******* Hotel all over it this alone would cost thousands of pounds in software and maintenance costs to alter
6. All of our stationary has ********** Hotel all over it
7. Our Credit card Machine says The ******** Hotel on all of our receipts
8. The signage on our listed building has ********* Hotel on it we would need permission from Mostyn estates The local Council and the conservation officer to change it
9. We have been known as the ********* Hotel since 1945 Thousands and thousands of guests have enjoyed staying here, many generations have stayed with us over the years and they all know that we are the ******* Hotel, not one single person has ever said that we have misrepresented ourselves by calling ourselves a hotel.
10. The word Hotel is in my opinion a generic word when people look for somewhere to stay they will type in the Google box HOTELS IN LLANDUDNO they will not type in GUEST ACCOMMODATION ANYWHERE, this leaves the small hotel like us and hundreds of others with a disadvantage in the e-market, and something you seem to be totally blind to.
11. We clearly state on our web site that we are graded as guest accommodation and use the visit Wales logo indicating this point so are misleading nobody
12. Mostyn Estates who are our land owners and who we have a lease for the building with will charge us a fee for re issuing our lease if we are no longer a hotel.
13. It is Visit Wales that have changed the rules regarding the grading scheme and not us we were happy the way it was, our guests were happy with the service we give.
14. We will withdraw from the scheme totally if you persist in this stance with our business name and I believe so will at least 15 other members of the group of hotels in our working group within Llandudno.
I have complained to the Minister for tourism Alun Ffred jones.

We are Hoteliers, we are not guest accommodators or would you rather us change what we call ourselves.

We also own a web site called ****************hotels.org what would you have us do with that site should we abandon it and walk away from one of the most exciting web opportunities we have had for years .
The answer is NO we will not, we will continue on with or without visit Wales, if we have to pull out of the scheme so be it! I will be the first to hand my plaque in, we will self grade using trip Advisor and late rooms where the guests grade us themselves .


Finally I leave you with this point to bear in mind we have spoken and had a meeting with trading standards and not one of our members was misleading the public by calling themselves a hotel look up the word in the dictionary and see what it says (COMMERCIALLY RUN ESTABLISHMENT PROVIDING LODGING AND MEALS FOR GUESTS) you may wish to discuss this with me before we go public with a statement to the press my number is 01492 ******** that is the number you can get me on, unlike the letter you sent me with a telephone number on it that no longer exists 01654 704231 having spent half an hour of my precious time trying to contact you on today .

END END


Bravo i say, i will also join the band of ever growing HOTELS that have pulled out of the scheme WAKE UP VISIT WALES LISTEN TO THE HARD WORKING HOTELIERS THAT PROVIDE THE VAST NUMBER OF BEDS IN THIS COUNTRY AN STOP THIS CAMPAIGN>>>>

Dailly Complaints list

At the risk of being a Victor Meldrew below is a list of genuine complaints.
All taken in one day,now i know that its coming to the end of the season and I'm tired but you got to laugh.


1. Room 2 OUR ROOM IS FREEZING COLD AND WE HAD TO GO TO BED TO GET WARM this was last night despite temperatures outside rising to almost 22 degrees

Response we turned up the radiator thermostat in the room now its like an oven!!!!

2.Room 19 the armchair in our room makes a creaking noise and its really annoying.

Response YES that's because its leather! and they tend to do that (we changed it for a dinning room chair)

3.Room 12 The shaver socket in my room is not working and i couldn't have a shave this morning.

Response we turned it on now it seems to work OK!!.

4.Room 22 the window in our room rattled all night and is disturbing our sleep.

Response Yes that's because its windy and the council wont let me put a nice energy efficient window in because they are stupid. ( we put a door wedge in it to stop it moving)

5. Room 6 we cant get ITV1 on the telly and it sounds like a Dalek (DON'T BLOODY START ME OFF)

Response i stuck my head in the porridge and gargled until i choked

6. Room 4 My wife and i have had to go all over the hotel and unplug the electric air fresheners as my wife has a serious allergy to air fresheners.

Response i rang the eviromental health department to see if they could make sure all of the neighboring hotels shops and cafes in town are aware of the grave situation.

7.Room 10 tomorrow can you get the chef to make 2 separate batches of porridge as i only have skimmed milk but my partner prefers full cream milk!

Response no problem madam the porridge will be cooked with special ingredients tomorrow,(AS SOON AS I GET THE BOWL OF MY SODDING HEAD!!!!!)

PLUS THIS ONE JUST IN ROOM 15. we have just been down the prom and the wind has ripped our umberella can you get yor wife to sew it up for us.

Response XXXXXX***********XXXX *****XXXXX!!!!

Keep smiling and taking the dough.

Bloody TVs

I know that i have covered this in a previous post but these bloody TVs are driving me mad every day now, 1 or 2 of the sodding things stop working, they either loose all the channels or they freeze, and the sound goes like a dalek!! quite frightening for some of our elderly and younger guests, who we find cowering in the wardrobe because doctor who has just killed someone on eastenders and the daleks have attacked Simon Cowel! all the pictures and channels have gone tits up with big squares on them.

I have even been on the roof to check that the seagulls are not sitting on the Aeriel but there is nothing that i can see is wrong, but i am fed up of being asked (we don't want to make a fuss but can you sort out the telly for us )

The signal is supposed to be boosted after switch over in October but that doesn't help us now,and what if the signal is no better,after the changeover we already have a 10 Megawatt booster in the attic that makes the electricity meter spin out of control.

I suppose we will have to find alternative ways of entertaining our guests during the evenings, we could go back to the old days, dust down the piano and have a good old sing song followed by a stroll down Mostyn st to watch the lamplighter get mugged for his oil.

Mind you it has always amused me why guests come away on holiday and spend all night cooped up in room watching X Factor and Coronation st, i prefer when i am on holiday to go out for a nice meal and then spend the evening in the bar getting slowly blurry eyed,

Actually! that's a good idea! if i get them all pissed before they go to there rooms perhaps the picture on the TVs will look OK!!!!!!!!!!!

Numbers Up

Well after another successful bank holiday and what looks like a busy weekend in town, despite the weather Visit Wales are Stating that Numbers of visitors are up,and i would agree with them for a change.

You have to ask why? and i think i know one reason why more people are holidaying in the UK.

I decided it was about time to start looking for a holiday as the season draws to a close, but i remembered that my passport was almost out of date,so i had a wander down to the post office, now i haven't been there for a while so spent about 10 Min's looking for the form and was then told by someone in the ten mile Que that you have to see a cashier to get one (WHY?) in my opinion they looked to busy to be buggering about handing forms out,so you stand in line for about an hour while the annoying electronic voice reminds the next victim that they are about to spend the next half an hour at the hands of an ex double glazing salesman trying to sell you everything from life insurance to a holiday.

I mean why do they have to have that stupid voice thing that says CASHIER NUMBER 2 PLEASE when there is only one bloody cashier open.

Then off to the next challenge in obtaining a passport, now if my memory serves me right there were 3 photo booths in town where you could get a passport photo 1 in the post office itself, 1 outside Woolworth's, and 1 outside Poundstrecher in upper Mostyn, But not any more someone has bloody well gone and swiped them all, so i don't know where else you can go.

My suspicion is that visit Wales have had them removed to stop anyone leaving the country in an effort to bolster tourist figures.

Having a wonder past all the shops looking for photo booths we stopped for some lunch, on the next table i overheard a couple who were here on holiday having a chat, he said to her i don't know why we have bothered coming here all the bloody shops are exactly the same as we have at home, and i have to agree almost every town you go to now it@s the same old rubbish in the same old shops you could indeed be anywhere in the UK.

And it is slightly worrying i think that if we don't get some individuality back into the town then why would people want to come back?.

We should be exploiting the one thing that the tourists love about the place it's Victorian heritage, and the fact that we have not gone down the kiss me quick route like Blackpool and Rhyl, there are calls for new tourist attractions skate rinks cinemas etc and that's great but surely that's what all the other resorts have done and it's not working.

In my opinion we have the best seaside town in the uk, and i have said it before we should look after and preserve what we have stop bribing the big chains to come to town, reduce the business rates on Mostyn st and Madocks st for small business's get some of the empty shops let, encourage more traditional trades, Why can't we have a Market one day a week on the car park behind the cottage loaf.

Ah well another rant over, and i just remembered we have something that no other town has!! NOT ONE BLOODY PHOTO BOOTH.

Don't Mention the war!!

This week we had the pleasure of some European guests the 2 Germans were in particular not very nice i knew that we were not going to get on when the gentleman (heir Flick The Click) started clicking his fingers across the dining room one of my pet hates that.

Breakfast was fun itself with a request for a German breakfast of Mozzarella Cheese, sweet butter and smoked ham, i did try to point out, in my very best basil like way that he was now in Wales and a Welsh breakfast was what we traditionally serve, not good enough for him though, and he ordered me to pay a visit to the deli and purchase the said goods the next day.

Next time i go to Germany i'm going to demand a full cooked Welsh Breakfast and see what happens.

2 hours later and a battle at reception as Heir Flick was having difficulty locating the European plug socket in his room we tried to explain that when we go on holiday we have to take our travel adaptors with us and pointed him in the direction of Boots (he did ask me for the money to buy it by the way)

Next day and he is giving the maid a right bollocking in the corridor outside his room for using bleach, toilet cleaner, and air freshener, in his room he then told us that in future we are only to use warm water like they do in the EEC and also to not move any of his porno magazines and dvds from the bedside cabinet.

The following morning at breakfast and a couple of clicks later he summoned me over to his cheese and ham piled table and asked me where he could take his elderly mother for the day as it was raining (my fault)by this time my patience was wearing a bit thin so i sent them of to the museum for the day then to a nice pub for lunch i gave him all the directions and off he went, i must admit i didn't see anything wrong with the places i had recommended The Home Front experience is a great place when its raining, and the food at the mulberry is very good i have eaten there loads of times i like to read all about the mulberry harbours that were built some time in the 40s and how we exported them to France!.

Anyway apparently his mother was not happy about my recommendations and almost choked on some of the fruit that she stole from the breakfast buffet whilst hiding in an air raid shelter.

Not Long Now september just around the corner and the days getting shorter i must start planning our holiday!!

Free TV For All

Well we are finally ready for the Digital switch over, and although being told it would be at very little or no cost i can honestly say that it has cost us a small fortune, we went out last year and bought about 30 digi boxes and fitted them into all the rooms, and yes they work great if you have the sense to turn the TV onto AV then find the menu button then work out which one of the 150 or so channels has coronation street on, (actually i found it on about 5 channels with Len Fairclough having a half in the Rovers in two episodes)Anyway i had lost count at the number of times we have had to go up to rooms to show some guests how to operate the sodding things, they just cant do 2 remotes it doesn't work!! so we have now bit the bullet and installed brand new TVs in all rooms ready for it and to be honest they are good easy to use and no fuss.

But i am from a time when everything that you have is precious and you had to work bloody hard to get anything, i can remember us not having a TV at all then when we did you had to put ten bob in the back to make it run.

The sight of 30 or so perfectly good TVs and digi boxes rotting away in the stores break es my heart, someone must want them! But alas even the tip at Mochdre have refused them.

However i have come up with a great marketing idea stay with us for 2 nights and get a free portable colour TV with remote and digi box stay a week and get 2 TVs, My wife thinks I'm daft but i remember when the top prize on the sale of the century was a colour TV

It cant be very green to just dump them and anyway i refuse to throw them in a skip cos they still work,you never know they may become collectors pieces....

Smashin August

We are now on about our 10th toilet seat of the season and probably the 20th shower head i don't know what some people get up to in hotel bathrooms,and i don't think i want to,but it never ceases to amaze me how much damage we get,and comments like the TV just fell of the wall as i walked past it!.

Now i have a toilet seat in my bathroom that's been there for at least 6 years and never fell off! my tv has never jumped off the wall, my bed has never broken in half,and to the best of my knowledge i have never pissed the bed(well not in the last 40 odd years anyway) or thrown coffee all over the wall,dropped my cup in the sink and smashed both items.

They then go out for the day and expect the bloody lot to be replaced without delay and no word of apology or offer of payment, it makes you wonder what their houses must be like!.

And then there is the other extreme some guests when you go in to service the rooms you have to look in the wardrobe to check if anyone has actually stayed in the place,cups washed, bed made, towels dry and hanging neatly, curtains open, and toilet actually flushed,(wish i could find more of them)then there is the Americans with their millions of tons of ice needed WHAT THE HELL DO YOU NEED ICE FOR IN THIS WEATHER.

Oh well Carry on soon be November and i can get some sleep.

CARROTS FOR BREAKFAST?

Can anyone tell me what it is about vegetarians that makes them think that they have some sort of affliction and that they need special care,whilst i can see the point that they are making it never ceases to amaze me how many of them have to telephone before getting here and tell you all about their preferences,and then when they do get to the hotel they rush up to you at breakfast and proudly announce their intention to not touch anything that has come into contact with an animal,they do this with the intention of letting the whole dinning room aware just in case all the guests would like to applaud them and give encouragement.

When i go out or stay in a hotel i don't feel the need to announce to all and sundry that i am a carnivore,i don't eat eggs anymore because i have high cholesterol but i just dont order them.

Then the waiter/waitress has to also be informed whilst taking the order and has to guess as to what type of veggie they are dealing with eggs, no eggs, milk, no milk, butter, no butter, fish, no fish, i must admit it is all a bit confusing after all these years i still get some i have not heard off before.

Why can't they just come in and order food that they do eat and don't order stuff they are against eating.

We once had an accountant who was a veggie and a very nice lady she was but i always had a battle with her as to what she would or wouldn't eat, then one day she said look! it's simple i don't eat anything with a face OK!,so i said to her but you eat potatoes and they have eyes, she didn't think it was funny.

COOKING TIP OF THE WEEK FROM OUR HEAD CHEF HASH BROWNS AND FRIED BREAD TASTE FAB IF YOU COOK THEM IN BEEF DRIPPING YUMMY!!

BEWARE SCAM!!

Looks like a new batch of this rip off have been dispatched i first published tis in march and have had 4 posts this week.

We had an invoice today from a company called A.L.H ADVERTISING POBOX 155 RYDE PO33 9BP
the invoice is for £49.95AND IS FOR ADVERTISING IN A UK HOTEL LISTING. i tried to cll them today THERE IS NO SUCH NUMBER AND THIS IS A SCAM DO NOT PAY THIS BILL

I am now getting e-mails from all over the country about this scam BEWARE,

Sale Now on!!

It's been great seeing all the boats out in the bay this week it makes the whole place come alive and looks like a real holiday resort, it's a pity though that they have to trudge all the way down the prom pulling the trolleys and then down the very sadly neglected slipway, and then trudge all the way back down the prom again.

Why dont the jobsworths sitting in the hut all day looking out for people flouting the prom bye laws get down there and give it a good clean now and again

Why is it that Colwyn Bay has 6 slipways and Llandudno only has 2, and the wooden one looks like it's about to fall down at any moment, maybe the council could consider building a new concrete one opposite the sailing club that would be a great idea! and may encourage more boats in the bay, i am told by a very reliable source that if one was built there the town could attract many more sailing events even world championships! such is the expertise in the club.

Some how i can't see that ever happening, that would be a forward step to encourage tourism into the town and we couldnt have that at all.....