Rats, leaks and fires: 5 times my luxury holiday went horribly wrong

From a waiter's awkward blunder to being allocated a room in a swanky hotel that was already occupied, this traveller has had some holiday shockers.

Recently at a very expensive hotel, which I won’t name because the rest of the stay was perfect, I was lunching with colleagues when a waiter came up and asked if we’d like anything to drink. He might have been a bit nervous because he made a joke about “sad, rich alcoholics” trying to find happiness at the bottom of a wine glass.

We stared at him in shock. Was he quoting F Scott Fitzgerald or was this a blistering character assessment delivered after a quick look at the state of us? Whatever the reason, it came off as quite rude.

We did the only reasonable thing in the circumstances and laughed nervously. He must have twigged that something was off because he tried to make light of what he’d said, but too late. The burn had been seared into our memories.

It’s juvenile of me, I know, but I live for moments like this. When the carefully choreographed routine of customer relations at a fancy hotel, restaurant or other tourism provider goes horribly off-script. Those excruciating Fawlty Towers moments that, like scenes from the cult TV show, stay with us long after the event.

A waiter's awkward blunder at a luxury hotel was reminiscent of Fawlty Towers.

I haven’t laughed so much during a meal since last year, at the glamorous BrijRama Palace on the Ganges River at Varanasi. I was having dinner with friends in the hotel’s acclaimed vegetarian restaurant when I looked down and noticed a rat trap beside me, right in the middle of the floor where everyone could see it.

When our waiter appeared I discreetly mentioned the offending item to him. He didn’t catch my drift so I had to point it out. He looked at me as if I was simple and declared, in loud and perfectly enunciated English, “This is for the r-r-r-a-a-t-t!”

We all exploded in giggles, which was not very polite but we couldn’t help ourselves. I took a deep breath and persevered: “Perhaps it’s not so nice for diners to see that there while they’re eating in the palace?”

He left without doing anything so I wasn’t sure he understood me. Maybe he thought, not unreasonably, that it was far better to show visible signs of pest control in an establishment of this calibre. But when he came back into the dining room carrying our dinner he did a nifty little back kick that sent the rat trap skittling under a credenza and out of sight.

The dining room at BrijRama Palace featured all the - ahem - trappings of luxury.

At a swanky new London hotel near St James’s Palace in Westminster, a historic property rumoured to have a tunnel connecting directly to Whitehall once used by spies, I was given a swipe key to my room that didn’t work.

So I traipsed back to reception with my luggage to get a replacement and eventually opened my door to find a shocked and indignant woman already in residence. I gave her my most grovelling apologies before returning to the front desk to see if they could screw things up a third time (they didn’t).

Teething problems in new hotels are par for the course but always unpredictable. When the W Bali resort opened on Bali’s popular Seminyak beachfront I was woken from an afternoon nap by the sound of water. Hardly surprising in an ocean-facing room directly above the resort’s waterpark of pools, except this was the sound of running water and it was coming from somewhere inside my room.

I got up to investigate and found the hallway ceiling had sprung a leak and there was now a curtain of water between me and the door. I grabbed my valuables, ran through the cascade and down to reception, where staff kindly switched me to a drier room.

Even luxury hotels like W Bali Seminyak sometimes encounter plumbing problems.

The relaunch last year of Belmond’s luxury locomotive the Eastern & Oriental Express made me nostalgic for the time I travelled on it between Bangkok and Singapore and the engine caught fire. Things went off the rails as we were heading to the Bridge on the River Kwai one morning and the front engine burst into flames, setting grass fires beside the tracks as we passed through a village.

I was midway through my breakfast – Cameron Highlands tea and warm, flaky pastries, consumed on white linen and porcelain – when I first smelt smoke. Chaos ensued as the train ground to a halt and panicked villagers and crew raced to extinguish the spot fires.

Belmond later pointed the blame finger at the State Railway of Thailand, the engine’s owners but, besides throwing our itinerary slightly out of whack, no one was injured and no lasting damage done by the incident. It’s interesting to note, though, that the new E&O routes no longer venture into Thailand.

NOT BOG STANDARD

The best service I’ve had lately was at Johannesburg airport arrivals where the toilet attendant greeted everyone with a cheery, “Welcome to my office! Five-star! Smells good and clean,” and disinfected cubicles for each guest. Above and beyond.

Originally published as Rats, leaks and fires: 5 times my luxury holiday went horribly wrong