When checking into the Banff Park Lodge, I specifically asked the girl at the front desk in which direction the room faced. She pointed to the west. Being somewhat claustrophobic and knowing that the west-facing rooms had unobstructed views, I was relieved.
I knew she had misled us however as we toted our baggage southwards down the first hall and then made an abrubt right turn to end up at a north-facing room. My fears were realized when I went to the window to see that the view was almost completely obliterated by a wall, as shown in the photograph at the top left.
I promptly phoned the desk to request a room change and was informed that there were no rooms available and that we could change to another room in the morning.
“The sign outside indicates that there are still vacancies”, I asserted, to which she responded that the currently available rooms were allocated to a group arriving the following day.
“I’m here now and would like a room with a view, you can give them this room”, I told her. She responded that she would see what she could do and would call me back in 5 minutes. Having heard nothing by fifteen minutes later, I went to the front desk to see how the matter was progressing.
The nasty little fraulein rolled her eyes when she saw Ed and I approach the desk. She had a list of room numbers written down on a sheet of paper and it was obvious that their reservation system was a nightmare. We however stood patiently waiting until they sorted things out and finally got a room with a south-facing view towards Rundle mountain.
The point is – don’t accept the room with the bad view or take front desk clerks at face value. They will lie to you, and if you’re lucky enough to catch them, you will eventually get the room that you want.
[tags]Banff Park Lodge, hotel room, view, front desk[/tags]
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