Travel bugs: On hotel maintenance issues and driving in the snow

Photo / Getty Images

Tim Roxborogh on the joy of moaning about your holiday

Hotels that lie about their renovations

Much like finding out the understudy is performing the night you've forked out for tickets to a play, staying at a hotel or resort you didn't realise was undergoing renovations is an almighty bummer. An almighty bummer, yes — but just as lead actors get sick, so too do swimming pools, tennis courts and, now that I think of it, self-service Coke machines. But while the sickness of human, object or thing is understandable, it's the lying about it I can't tolerate. That's right, the lying!

Some years ago I was at one of those all-inclusive resorts where you pay a set rate and all your meals, beverages and activities are included. Suspicions the much-hyped cocktails ("free cocktails all day!") were closer molecule-wise to the mocktail variety were hard to disprove, but the main frustration was to do with said Coke machine.

Similar to the machines you'll find in a Burger King, next to the resort's main bar was a self-service soft-drink dispenser with Coke, Sprite and Fanta etc. The only issue was the machine wasn't working. A note read: "The Coke machine is temporarily out of order, but the technician is on his way."

Given I was staying multiple nights and hey, what can I say, I'm a chatty, personable sort of character who's used to eliciting information from people, I uncovered one of the great scandals of modern 3-star resort history: The Coke technician had been "on his way" for upwards of six months.

That's right, the machine had been broken for as long as any of the staff I spoke to could remember, but the guests were being intentionally lied to on a daily basis that any minute, any hour and certainly any day, a technician of the Coke variety was to be docking at the resort's jetty, ready for duty.

I came to realise this was fairly standard resort and hotel practice when I happened to live in a hotel for several years that also had apartments. For several months the hotel's tennis court was out of action and with my regular correspondence with owner-occupier friends who'd been present at body-corporate meetings, I knew it wasn't going to be ready any time soon.

Still, I'd routinely ask hotel staff if they knew when I'd be able to bust out my rambunctious forehand and mediocre backhand and without fail the answer would come back: "It should be up and running again next week, sir." Given the staff just assumed I was a guest and not a resident, it was clear they were dishing out porkies in order to lessen the likelihood of a potential grumpy reviewer on a website like Tripadvisor. Better to tell the guests the tennis court is only briefly closed than to be honest and say one of the property's major selling points had been off limits for months.

Driving in the snow

With all the icy weather recently it's reminded me of the one time in my life I had to drive in the snow and just how ill-equipped I was. It was late springtime in Oregon and both me and the rental company thought I wouldn't need chains for my road trip of several hundred miles. "Summer's just around the corner, nothing to worry about!"

Five days later I'll never forget that feeling, nor what I was seeing: a near paralytic fear as I prayed for my safety while watching through near-blizzard conditions the four-wheel-drive in front of me slide in slow-motion off to the side of the road into a big old ditch.

Given I was on my own and only in a two-wheel drive at that, I felt certain I was doomed, hence the paralysis and the praying. I've also never gripped a steering wheel so tight and it's possible that the rental car is permanently marked with my prints.

Against the odds and at an average speed that rarely topped 20-miles an hour, I made it out of central Oregon and back to the non-snowy safety of Portland, but not without aging about 15 years in the process. Take care out there team!

Tim Roxborogh hosts Newstalk ZB's Weekend Collective and blogs at RoxboroghReport.com