Inside Claridge's, screening on TV One.
Which hotel keeps doggy favourites?
Imagine spending £6900 (more than $13,300) on just one night in a hotel; that's a decent second-hand car, a year at university, or 283 Oxfam goats. Now imagine spending 16 nights at that hotel for £5500 a night - and only leaving the building twice. That's what octogenarian couple the
Melchors did during their last Christmas stay at London institution Claridge's. They've been coming for 40 years, and consider the staff family.
Family who charged them £88,000 ($170,000) for their visit.
The Melchors appear in the first episode of three-part BBC documentary Inside Claridge's, which screens Thursday night on TV One. It's the first time cameras have been allowed behind the scenes of the 1854-established hotel with its art deco style, extravagant luxury, 400 staff, 203 suites and 83,000 guests a year. The doco, which aired in Britain in December 2012, was a ratings hit and award nominee that had other networks salivating over the recipe. After all, it's a fresh angle on the lives of royalty, celebrities and the super-rich, and a modern take on the relationship between upstairs and downstairs.
And it's certainly no once-over-lightly. It took months just to negotiate access, then a year of filming as unobtrusively but often as possible to capture those golden moments you can't recreate. Heard but not seen behind the camera, award-winning filmmaker Jane Treays directs and narrates, and asks guests and staff the questions we're curious about: whether paying these prices is ridiculous, whether such luxury is justifiable in difficult economic times, and whether staff envy the guests' wealth. But by phrasing questions tactfully, she doesn't offend anyone.
