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.